Historically, when nations shift from a peacetime to a wartime footing, defense spending and force size increase. But in the United Kingdom, forces and spending have actually shrunk since 9/11. The Telegraph reports British Forces Underfunded and Overstreched:
General Lord Guthrie, Admiral Lord Boyce and Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig, together with former foreign secretary Lord Owen, today launch the UK National Defence Association to press for a major increase in defence spending. With British troops committed on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the patrons argue that the Armed Forces are spread too thinly and are working with “outdated” equipment. They also point to the “unnecessary casualties” brought about by over-tasking and under-resourcing.
Ditto for U.S. forces. The post Cold War force reduction and BRAC efforts should have ended on Sept 12, 2001. But the Rumsfeld Transformation concept kept both alive and well. Mack Owens nailed the costliness of this policy back in 2003.
The problem that we face today is not the result of the emphasis on transformation, which is necessary if the United States is to be prepared for the likely emergence of a competitor in the future, but the attempt to achieve transformation “on the cheap.” Two administrations essentially bet the farm based on the assumption, or hope, that the sort of situation we now face in Iraq and North Korea would not occur. This approach was on display during the Clinton administration, which paid lip service to readiness and transformation while under funding both. Unfortunately, it has continued under the Bush administration. Until 9/11, OMB refused to provide money to fund both current readiness and transformation, forcing Pentagon planners to choose between them. Most of the increase in defense spending since 9/11 has gone to the war on terrorism and to pay for personnel costs. It has not for the most part gone to increase U.S. capabilities. Now it cannot be denied that the U.S. military is far more capable now than it was only a decade ago when it routed Iraq in the one-sided Gulf War of 1991. The networking of forces is close to enabling military units from all services to share a common operational picture. This means that missions can be planned and executed in a fraction of the time that it took during Desert Storm and even the more recent action in Kosovo. The accuracy of U.S. weapons has improved by magnitudes. This means that a smaller force can achieve a favorable outcome. But while quality matters, it is still necessary to provide the U.S. military with enough of what they need to execute their missions. The best military aircraft in the world can only be in one place at a time. Because of cuts in force structure and the “procurement holiday” that occurred during the Clinton years, the U.S. military is stretched thin. This is especially the case with so called “high-demand, low density” (HD/LD) platforms: aerial refueling aircraft; strategic lift – both air- and sea-lift assets; surveillance aircraft (AWACS and Joint STARS); unmanned aerial vehicles such as Predator and Global Hawk; and the star of the war in Afghanistan – Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), an inexpensive guidance kit that, when attached to a conventional “iron bomb,” turns it into an all-weather precision-guided weapon.
That was four years ago, but Owens’s column could have been written yesterday with the same level of accuracy. If we plan to see this long war through, we need to properly fund the fight.
