Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
USA Today
September 18, 2007
Pg. 11
World policeman or contributing member of a global force? Though the Iraq war is today's focus, decisions about military strategy now will shape the U.S. identity for decades to come.
By Kathy Roth-Douquet
LONDON — The concert series known as the Proms, held at London's Royal Albert Hall, closed recently. In keeping with the Victorian splendor of the hall, tradition has the concerts end with Pomp and Circumstance, known to Americans as the graduation march. Seven levels of balcony-sitters sang words written at the height of the British Empire:
Land of Hope and Glory
Mother of the Free
How shall we extol thee
Who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider
Shall thy bounds be set,
God who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet.
This song reminds me of home — but a bit uncomfortably. It reminds me of an effort underway to make our armies mightier yet.
Pomp and Circumstance celebrates the once-seemingly endless rise of Britain. The hardest thing to shake, as we walked out with the crowd, was the image the song evokes today of colossus crumbling in the rear-view mirror. It's an image carrying the frisson not of déjà vu but of, say, peut-être vu — or what could be — if Congress isn't careful about expanding our mightiness.
We are an American military family abroad for my husband's fellowship at a British defense institute. With him are senior military officers from 40-odd countries worldwide, who smilingly (sometimes edgily) call the two Americans in the program "the hegemons." As in, "Ah, the hegemon speaks."
It's true, we Americans are the undisputed military superpower. We have more ships, guns, boots, planes, bombs than anybody else. Over dinner-party conversation, America's interests and actions are deemed relevant in every world region. We're the kind of power Pomp and Circumstance celebrates.
As we negotiate the Ferraris and Bentleys in South Kensington to return to our flat, it's hard not to recognize that America's relative might is in military, not economic, strength. Economically, we're about equal to the European Union, yet our military scope is much grander. The strong-and-free economies of the Asia Pacific — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — have a fraction of our security program, even as percentage of gross domestic product. We patrol their shores, ensuring that goods reach their markets with a far more powerful force than they can muster themselves.
Yet because we are so active, the rest of the world scales back further. The British navy, the world's second-largest after ours, has announced plans to nearly halve its fleet. As a British admiral confided, why should Britain maintain an expensive navy when the U.S. Navy is so strong? Economists call this the "free rider" problem. In exchange for its ability to act alone, the United States largely bears the cost of securing an increasingly wealthy world.
Now we are growing our military again, regardless of Gen. David Petraeus' testimony or whether we draw down in Iraq.
The pending Defense Authorization Act begins the budgeting for nearly 100,000 new ground troops to be in place by 2013. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others have talked about this increase in terms of easing the strain on the force today. But as Michele Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense think tank, argues, expansion can't relieve today's strains. Because it takes time to recruit and train, expansion is about the future. Arguably, we need these troops to confront everything from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction proliferation to failing states. The price? $108 billion in the first six years, and $14 billion a year after that.
If we are going to use our troops (in Iraq and beyond) as we have lately to globally deter, police, stabilize, build and rescue, then indeed, we need to expand. But it's worth noting that the United States continues to undertake most missions largely alone. We have more than 200,000 troops in about 130 countries other than Iraq today, all doing one of those missions mentioned above. In contrast, most countries' foreign-deployed troops number in the hundreds or low thousands.
The new troops proposed are a force roughly the size of the entire British army. They number nearly twice Australia's combined military forces. They are more than the first force President Lincoln raised to fight the Civil War. These numbers create a debt in both coins and soldiers that the American people don't seem willing to pay, judging from current recruiting troubles and a Gallup Poll showing the public thinks we already spend too much on defense.
If we pay attention to it, this proposed increase of forces presents a chance, not only to reinforce our overworked military but also to challenge its roles and missions. Are there ways to better share the costs and work with other countries profiting from global stability? After all, our circumstances differ from all previous periods in history when one country served as a "global" guarantor of peace. Unlike the Victorians or Romans, we have true partners and allies that are free and strong states.
Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, argues that power, in a broad sense, resides today in the collectivity of states rather than in any individual power. Perhaps what we need then are new multilateral institutions that will allow us to train and conduct global missions practically, not on an ad-hoc basis or with the hobbling restrictions involved in United Nations peacekeeping.
This is the question I hope America confronts in this election cycle. Should we continue choosing and bearing the cost alone in people and dollars for efforts that benefit most of the world's nations? If so, our leaders need to do a better job persuading the American people to provide the money and quality recruits we need for an expanded Army and Marine Corps. If not, then how best can we link our efforts with allies?
Whether we stay or go in Iraq is an important question, but it is not the most consequential. The larger question is whether the United States will continue trying to walk into this century to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance, or whether we will write a new song.
Kathy Roth-Douquet served in the Clinton White House and Department of Defense. Her recent book AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service — and How it Hurts Our Country, co-authored with Frank Schaeffer, is available in paperback.
September 18, 2007
Pg. 11
World policeman or contributing member of a global force? Though the Iraq war is today's focus, decisions about military strategy now will shape the U.S. identity for decades to come.
By Kathy Roth-Douquet
LONDON — The concert series known as the Proms, held at London's Royal Albert Hall, closed recently. In keeping with the Victorian splendor of the hall, tradition has the concerts end with Pomp and Circumstance, known to Americans as the graduation march. Seven levels of balcony-sitters sang words written at the height of the British Empire:
Land of Hope and Glory
Mother of the Free
How shall we extol thee
Who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider
Shall thy bounds be set,
God who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet.
This song reminds me of home — but a bit uncomfortably. It reminds me of an effort underway to make our armies mightier yet.
Pomp and Circumstance celebrates the once-seemingly endless rise of Britain. The hardest thing to shake, as we walked out with the crowd, was the image the song evokes today of colossus crumbling in the rear-view mirror. It's an image carrying the frisson not of déjà vu but of, say, peut-être vu — or what could be — if Congress isn't careful about expanding our mightiness.
We are an American military family abroad for my husband's fellowship at a British defense institute. With him are senior military officers from 40-odd countries worldwide, who smilingly (sometimes edgily) call the two Americans in the program "the hegemons." As in, "Ah, the hegemon speaks."
It's true, we Americans are the undisputed military superpower. We have more ships, guns, boots, planes, bombs than anybody else. Over dinner-party conversation, America's interests and actions are deemed relevant in every world region. We're the kind of power Pomp and Circumstance celebrates.
As we negotiate the Ferraris and Bentleys in South Kensington to return to our flat, it's hard not to recognize that America's relative might is in military, not economic, strength. Economically, we're about equal to the European Union, yet our military scope is much grander. The strong-and-free economies of the Asia Pacific — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — have a fraction of our security program, even as percentage of gross domestic product. We patrol their shores, ensuring that goods reach their markets with a far more powerful force than they can muster themselves.
Yet because we are so active, the rest of the world scales back further. The British navy, the world's second-largest after ours, has announced plans to nearly halve its fleet. As a British admiral confided, why should Britain maintain an expensive navy when the U.S. Navy is so strong? Economists call this the "free rider" problem. In exchange for its ability to act alone, the United States largely bears the cost of securing an increasingly wealthy world.
Now we are growing our military again, regardless of Gen. David Petraeus' testimony or whether we draw down in Iraq.
The pending Defense Authorization Act begins the budgeting for nearly 100,000 new ground troops to be in place by 2013. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others have talked about this increase in terms of easing the strain on the force today. But as Michele Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense think tank, argues, expansion can't relieve today's strains. Because it takes time to recruit and train, expansion is about the future. Arguably, we need these troops to confront everything from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction proliferation to failing states. The price? $108 billion in the first six years, and $14 billion a year after that.
If we are going to use our troops (in Iraq and beyond) as we have lately to globally deter, police, stabilize, build and rescue, then indeed, we need to expand. But it's worth noting that the United States continues to undertake most missions largely alone. We have more than 200,000 troops in about 130 countries other than Iraq today, all doing one of those missions mentioned above. In contrast, most countries' foreign-deployed troops number in the hundreds or low thousands.
The new troops proposed are a force roughly the size of the entire British army. They number nearly twice Australia's combined military forces. They are more than the first force President Lincoln raised to fight the Civil War. These numbers create a debt in both coins and soldiers that the American people don't seem willing to pay, judging from current recruiting troubles and a Gallup Poll showing the public thinks we already spend too much on defense.
If we pay attention to it, this proposed increase of forces presents a chance, not only to reinforce our overworked military but also to challenge its roles and missions. Are there ways to better share the costs and work with other countries profiting from global stability? After all, our circumstances differ from all previous periods in history when one country served as a "global" guarantor of peace. Unlike the Victorians or Romans, we have true partners and allies that are free and strong states.
Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, argues that power, in a broad sense, resides today in the collectivity of states rather than in any individual power. Perhaps what we need then are new multilateral institutions that will allow us to train and conduct global missions practically, not on an ad-hoc basis or with the hobbling restrictions involved in United Nations peacekeeping.
This is the question I hope America confronts in this election cycle. Should we continue choosing and bearing the cost alone in people and dollars for efforts that benefit most of the world's nations? If so, our leaders need to do a better job persuading the American people to provide the money and quality recruits we need for an expanded Army and Marine Corps. If not, then how best can we link our efforts with allies?
Whether we stay or go in Iraq is an important question, but it is not the most consequential. The larger question is whether the United States will continue trying to walk into this century to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance, or whether we will write a new song.
Kathy Roth-Douquet served in the Clinton White House and Department of Defense. Her recent book AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service — and How it Hurts Our Country, co-authored with Frank Schaeffer, is available in paperback.