Arkin on defense posture: "Toys speak louder than words"

My readers will rejoice at this temporary reprieve from the impending post on export controls. I just have to respond to Bill Arkin's latest blog post celebrating the symbolic meaning of Ohio-class Trident submarines:

This officer's unhappiness, I submit, is not with the submarine but with our overall predicament: the way the war in Iraq has inflamed so much hate and put so many Americans in harm's way with no decent strategy for victory. In reality, we are involved in an ancient man-to-man battle with a well-motivated enemy. This is a battle we cannot win, at least the way we are fighting it, because our technologically oriented, electronically agile, modern nation is not willing to commit the same manpower -- that is, to sink to the level of barbaric attrition.

Still, this officer's Trident is doing more to counter terrorism than the boots on the ground are. Not because it can lob nukes at anyone, and certainly not because it can counter terrorists under some Strangelovian WMD scenario. Its power is more symbolic: It represents the true superpower. It is a quiet and unobtrusive behemoth that no one else can hope to own and everyone is a bit in awe of -- even if they won't admit it.

Think of the sub as a kind of "mansion on the hill." We drive by it and wonder what it would be like to live there, to have that amount of money. If its owners are good neighbors and not too ostentatious, if they contribute to the community and don't swagger around town arrogantly, we don't get too jealous. If someone breaks into their house, we don't say they deserve it (nor do we call out the Army to rid the county of all house thiefs). We may even shake our heads when the mansion's owners decide not to press charges, and feel a little sad when we see contractors installing a new security system.

My correspondent's submarine is that mansion. The struggle for hearts and minds that we all pay lip service to is not some distant and high-tech information war. It begins at home.

Before 9/11, I would have never thought the military needed more Trident submarines. Now, however, I see their value: Quietly patrolling, threatening no one directly, occupying no one's soil, they help to keep order. And they send a powerful message that says we all have no choice but to play by certain rules and respect each other.

Arkin is on to something, but I think his concluding argument is slightly off the mark. The Ohio-class does have an awesome symbolic power about it, but it is not the benevolent masion on a hill to our allies.

To Arkin, the United States is a hegemony that commands the attention and friendship of its neighbors simply because it is powerful and benevolent. This makes it easy for countries to bandwagon with U.S. policy because the U.S. is both strong and non-threatening. The problem is that this is a false image. Even before the birth of American internationalism after World War II, the intentions of U.S. foreign policy have rarely been benevolent.

So why do we have so many allies? In most cases, our long-standing alliances are the result of a substantial sacrifice on the part of the U.S. Those Tridents that Arkin has fondly meditated on are part of that sacrifice. They represent how much the United States was willing to expend to ensure the security of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. They not only represent the cost of the U.S. was willing to pay in their defense (nuclear holocaust), it also represents the billions we sacrificed to 'deter' Soviet aggression with a superior fighting force.

The problem is that those days are long gone and despite its quiet majesty, the Ohio-class is still a waste of money. In the age of the Internet, the easiest and cheapest way to generate the same sense of sacrifice is to invest in peacekeeping forces. The culturally-adroit, lightly-equipped peacekeeping force that we need to win hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan is exactly the same kind of force that would generate good will in the post-Cold War/post 9-11 world.

The aggregate level of threat to the U.S. and its allies are quantitatively lower today than during the Cold War. Ponying up the cash needed to build fancy weapons platforms and operate them far from home is no longer enough to impress allies and friendly nations. The sacrifice needs to be bigger. We now need to show we're laying American lives on the line for international security.

I heart Provincial Reconstruction Teams

David Axe wrote a totally sweet article for Military.com yesterday about U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Iraq and Afghanistan:

First established in Afghanistan in 2002, PRTs were initially Army-led and included mostly Soldiers. But with the number and size of PRTs expanding throughout Central Command’s area of responsibility and constant deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for combat operations, the Navy and Air Force have stepped in to relieve some Army’s manpower pressure, taking over leadership of 12 of the 24 American PRTs in Afghanistan.

Half of the 20 American PRTs in Iraq are led by the Army as well, with the other half led by State Department staffers - though, the department is having a tough time finding the personnel to assume the risky duty. There are as many as 100 people working in each PRT.

[Snip]

The problem is they don’t have the security to get around they way they should,” Cardon said.

Still, Cardon’s and Wilson’s teams managed. One of the Iraq teams’ biggest successes was coordinating pest mitigation for the large date palm industry in Karbala, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.

“There are these insects that come out and have to be sprayed within a six-week period. The Iraqis were having problems doing this for some time,” Cardon explained. So one of his PRTs stepped in, arranging for helicopters to do the spraying - a move that “should mean dramatic improvement in the date harvest.”

Next up: adding more State Department personnel to his PRTs and tasking them to train the Iraqi government in basic budgeting so ministries and local institutions can execute projects like the date palm spraying themselves.

“I’m trying to get the PRTs to focus more on building government capacity,” Cardon says.

I'll admit, I have a big soft spot for the PRTs. Peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction is a truly noble pursuit. The U.S. should treat it as an integral part of confronting terrorism and improving our image abroad.

The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) has done a great job of recording and studying the PRT experience. They have conducted debriefing interviews with about 75 former PRT staffers and published the transcripts on the USIP website as part of an oral history project on reconstruction. Robert Perito, USIP's senior program officer for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations has also written smashing reports on the evolution of PRTs in Afghanistan and Iraq. They provide an enormous amount of detail about the PRT's organization and missions, as well as some of the key problems they encountered.

I was really surprised to find out how very different the U.S. PRTs in Iraq and Afghanistan are. In Afghanistan, PRTs are essentially small infantry companies (fewer than 100 troops) with a representative from the State Department, Agriculture Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) attached to them. From Perito's description, it appears that the staffers from State didn't do much besides file reports, while the USAID and Ag representatives were out in the field working with the locals. Although the PRTs encountered some really problems, they have remained largely unchanged since 2004.

PRTs in Iraq, on the other hand, are sixty-man subunits attached to brigade combat team and they are lead by a foreign service officer. Their staff also comes from a much more diverse background, including 2-3 staffers from the State, 1 from Agriculture, 1 from Justice, 1 from USAID, two contractor advisers from civilian assistance companies, and only 3 soldiers. After undergoing a major reorganization in 2005, the roles and responsibilities of each PRT member are more clearly defined than for PRTs in Afghanistan.

The reports also reveal some interesting details about PRT work. PRTs in Afghanistan operate with a fair amount of autonomy from local governments because many local leaders are warlords. Since there is no real effort to coordinate the PRTs in Afghanistan, most of their projects are done in a scatter shot fashion. This is exacerbated by the fact that the notoriously short attention span of military commanders has lead to a number of ill-planned or rushed projects. PRT work in Iraq is better coordinated and planned out. They also work closely with local governments to improve governance, budgeting and public services. The main weakness of PRTs in Iraq is their lack of contact with the local population (not going "outside the wire" enough) and inadequate resources.

USIP also wrote a great report responding the oft-asked question of "Why aren't we enlisting the assistance of the NGO community?" According to Michael Dziedzic and Michael J. Siedl, working with the U.S. would tarnish NGOs' reputation of neutrality. Humanitarian groups are often afforded a great deal of mobility and access in war zones because place the idea of alleviating suffering above politics.

Blue helmets over the red flag

I may have studied under his mentor, but I can't stand Thomas "Captain Obvious" Barnett. He recently commented on the jump in Chinese participation in peacekeeping operations that started around 2004. His completely credulous surprise isn't all too unique though. Despite the fact that low intensity operations has been in vogue since 2001, peacekeeping is still considered the red-headed stepchild of military operations. I think the defense community would benefit from a little context before they jump to yet another conclusion about China's rise:

Countries participate in peacekeeping operations for a multitude of reasons. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been the three largest troop contributors since the 1980s, each regularly giving between 8,000-10,000 soldiers annually. Peacekeeping has clearly done little to modulate the reputation of these South Asia countries. Then why do they do it? For free training and logistical support, of course!

United Nations peacekeeping operations are paid for using a formula that distributes annual operational costs across all member states. The formula is based on a combination of politics and economics. Each member state ostensibly pays an equal share, except when their per capita gross national income (GNI) is under about $11,000. Countries with a per capita GNI below $11,000 receive a discount on their slice of the peacekeeping bill and that discount increases as national per capita GNI decreases. In the end, the five permanent members of the Security Council (with the voluntary assistance of Japan) are expected to pay the difference.

Countries with deep discounts (80-90%), such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Ghana, Nigeria, Nepal and Uruguay, avidly participate in peacekeeping operations because it means someone else will cover the cost of training and sustaining their soldiers for a few years. For desperately countries like Bangladesh, peacekeeping missions often means access to highly specialized training (demining, civil affairs, policing) and language education that isn't available back home.

It may not seem obvious, but even the People's Liberation Army could be turning to peacekeeping as a source of training and support. Even if the DOD's estimate of Chinese military expenditures is correct, the PLA's personnel budget is probably spread pretty thin when it comes to training 2.2 active duty troops. The 300-500 soldier detachments operating in Liberia, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Southern Sudan will probably learn more during their deployment than they would at PLA schools for NCOs and junior officers.

I think the real story here is that China's gradual acceptance of the legitimacy of peacekeeping. Over a period of about twenty years, China went from being a vocal opponent of all peacekeeping operations to eventually supporting 'nonviolent and impartial' blue helmet missions. Despite a few hang-ups over U.S. 'peace enforcement' operations in Haiti and the former Yugoslavia, China was deploying a handful of observers and police advisers by the late 1990s.

As for the two large bumps on Stratfor's snazzy little chart, I think they are reflective of opportunism than a rising China thesis. The 2004 bump coincides with a significant expansion of the troop authorization for the UN Mission in Liberia from 4,000 to a then record-making 14,000. The 2006 increase also lines up nicely with expanded troop authorizations for the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (10,000 to 18,000) and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (2,000 to 12,000).

If you break down current Chinese deployments by assigned mission, these three missions account for about 65% of their total troop contribution. Since each year represented a 25-33% increase in the demand for peacekeepers and typical contributors were already at their maximum contribution levels, it isn't surprising that China was forced to step up its involvement.

The bit of information that really surprised me is that the UN Mission in Sudan accounts for another 25%. I wonder if there is any relationship between China's willingness to support the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Southern Sudan has anything to do with its interests in Sudanese oil - especially considering that oil is mostly located in Southern Sudan.