Today’s news offers three examples of the dynamics I discussed last week.
First, from the NYPost, an op-ed by Peter Brookes that uses the spectre of China deploying an aircraft carrier as a jumping off point to describe a larger Chinese power play. His ultimate conclusion:
…the U.S. Navy should be well aware of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent call for building a powerful navy, prepared “at any time” for conflict. Considering all this news, we’d be fools to take our current naval predominance for granted.
Along the way, Brookes compares China’s rising naval power to America’s Great White Fleet of the early 20th Century. While Brookes uses the comparison to imply that China may be making a provocative statement of its role as a global power, it could also be used as a case study in how an existing global naval power opted for implicit cooperation instead of confrontation. Examining England’s response to the rise of American power might lead to lessons quite different from the ones Brookes implies we ought to learn.
Moving to the Air Force, we have a statement from Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne warning that Russian and Chinese efforts to sell fifth-generation fighters provides another justification for the F-22 and the F-35 programs. Secretary Wynne emphasized that the Air Force requires 381 F-22s to counter the capabilities of these foreign aircraft. The Air Force has been holding to the 381 number, while the F-22 program is currently capped at 183 aircraft.
Finally, moving to the Army, we have an NYTimes article on the strain OEF and OIF rotation schedules place on unit readiness.
For decades, the Army has kept a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division on round-the-clock alert, poised to respond to a crisis anywhere in 18 to 72 hours. Today, the so-called ready brigade is no longer so ready. Its soldiers are not fully trained, much of its equipment is elsewhere, and for the past two weeks the unit has been far from the cargo aircraft it would need in an emergency. Instead of waiting on standby, the First Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is deep in the swampy backwoods of this vast Army training installation, preparing to go to Iraq. Army officials concede that the unit is not capable of getting at least an initial force of several hundred to a war zone within 18 hours, a standard once considered inviolate.
The state of the 82nd is representative of the Army’s larger situation, with 22 of 43 active duty combat brigades currently deployed overseas.
Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, told Congress in testimony on March 15 that with the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army does not have the time or the resources to prepare for most of the other missions it could potentially face.
This strain also includes a significant financial cost:
The 2007 Pentagon budget includes $17.1 billion to reset Army equipment, with a separate fund of $13.9 billion in emergency funds to replace or repair gear damaged in combat. Even so, units at home preparing to deploy are facing equipment shortages and have all but given up preparing for anything other than their next tour in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“We do have shortages in the nondeployed forces,” General Cody conceded in his unusually candid testimony to Congress. There were not enough vehicles, radios and night vision gear, and there are “spot shortages” in weapons, he said, noting that those units constituted the nation’s strategic reserve.
Reading these three articles, one almost feels as if he is moving between three different universes. When read in isolation, the first and second articles present what may seem to be a compelling case for increased funding for the Air Force and Navy. When one reads the third article, however, the Army’s need for increased funding becomes clear. Looking at these stories in aggregate, one can see the near-term operational needs of the Army threatening to crowd out long-term Air Force and Navy acquisition programs, while the Air Force and Navy push back to prevent this.
