This summer, despite America’s continuing financial crisis, the Pentagon is effectively considering trading two military quagmires for the possibility of a third. Reducing its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan as it refocuses on Asia, Washington is not so much withdrawing forces from the Persian Gulf as it is redeploying them for a prospective war with its largest creditor, China.
As Niels Bohr famously observed, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” But we need not be caught entirely unaware by future events. The rapid pace of technological progression, as well as its ongoing diffusion, offer clues as to some of the likely next big things in warfare. Indeed, important military shifts have already been set in motion that will be difficult if not impossible to reverse. Sadly, these developments, combined with others in the economic, geopolitical, and demographic realms, seem likely to make the world a less stable and more dangerous place.
A decision to cut $350 billion in security spending over the next decade will force the Pentagon to make difficult trade-offs that could lead to layoffs, canceled weapons systems or a smaller nuclear arsenal.
The U.S. military in Afghanistan has nearly tripled since 2009 the frequency of commando raids launched against Taliban or insurgent groups, according to NATO figures/…/ The increased raids reflect a greater number of commandos in Afghanistan as Iraq operations wind down, following the increased use of conventional forces for securing the population under President Barack Obama’s troop “surge.”
The fate of the republic — if we are to believe the hype — soon will be in the hands of the 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that must find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. For the Pentagon, the most dreaded outcome is deadlock. If the panel fails to agree to a comprehensive plan of spending cuts and revenues that reduces the national debt by $1.2 trillion, there will be across-the-board budget reductions, and half would come from defense. These automatic “sequester” cuts would be implemented beginning in 2013/…/
Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments talks about the coming Defense Department budget cuts and how far ranging they are likely to be.
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