Split the Department of Defense?

[mattp]

An interesting video.

 

Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon's new map for war and peace.

 

[Gary_Yngve]

i like his ideas!

[mattp]

A guy who has been a long range planner for DOD says we should break up the U.S. Military, and nobody around here finds it interesting? For you with short attention spans, I'll try to summarize a couple of his arguments:

 

We don't need the huge military that we have as it has been 50 years since we faced an imminent threat and nobody can even remember the last time one of our guys shot down an enemy jet.

 

Homeland security is a joke.

 

We need a more focused military fighting force that is not subject to International law.

 

The U.S. military does a poor job at nation building and policing and we need to build up that capability.

 

The Constitution already provides a framework for splitting up the military as he proposes with its reference to an Army (a fighting force) and Navy (oriented toward promoting and protecting trade).

 

Barnett takes jabs at anybody and everybody, and he's entertaining. Its worth a watch.

[STP]

It seems that discussing the splitting of DoD is only one part of the coming change, and perhaps already well underway.

 

The other part which he only hinted out by using words like G7(or G20) and invoking the United Nations indicates a global paradigm much like global climate change requires a global response. So...where does the US Constitution really come into this?

 

Another indication for the development of the global response paradigm is through dividing the mission of countering a strategic threat into the first stage use of a 'Leviathan' force transitioning into the subsequent stage use of a 'systems admin' force (nation building or stabilization). Look at the visuals in the slide talk to see indications for that global emphasis.

 

Overall, it sounds like an intelligent approach. So, for instance, you can use social scientists in 'human terrain analysis' for cultural advantage. But what if the destabilizing force is not an ideology but rather instability caused by climate change? You might be able to pacify populations but nature? Putting out brush fires one after another will be costly especially for institutions that are tax revenue intensive, especially in the current fiscal picture.

 

Besides within two generations the Leviathon military will eventually be replaced with robot drones in the air and on the ground.

 

[Gary_Yngve]

"19 year olds can't shoot a gun with one hand and hand out aid with another."

 

Bosnia was a successful nation rebuilding. If only we had followed that strategy in Iraq.

[j_b]

There seems to be an inherent contradiction in his talk. He seems to say that invading these places is wrong, yet he wants to insure these occupations are successful. Talks of improving nation building capabilites shouldn't occult terrible policy decisions that lead to attacking a country. Moreover, despite the so-called blunders of the Bush administration, I am not sure that occupying Iraq could have turned out any better than it did considering the profound ethnic/religous divisions and the probable ultimate goal of occupation. Besides several decades of anti-guerilla warfare, I am not sure there is an alternative way to impose one's will on an occupied nation of significant size and even then it is likely to become a failed state (aka the Philippines).

Edited February 18, 2009 by j_b

[JosephH]

It would have helped if we hadn't followed up an inadequate invasion with wave after wave of corporate carpetbaggers who never had the slightest intent of rebuilding Iraq.

[j_b]

Sure, remains to sort out what was inadvertent and what was deliberate. Here is some version of it: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia

[Gary_Yngve]

There seems to be an inherent contradiction in his talk. He seems to say that invading these places is wrong, yet he wants to insure these occupations are successful.

 

I think he's saying that invading is wrong if we don't have the sysadmin to followup.