Speak firmly and back up the words with military might.
The title of this post is a play on Strategy for the West (1954), by Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Cotesworth Slessor (1897-1979). The Wikipedia entry for him notes that he
played a key role in promoting nuclear weapons as an effective instrument of deterrence in early Cold War British strategy…. He became one of the key propagandists [I prefer “advocates”] of the “Great Deterrent”.…
Aside from his role in the development of a strategy for keeping the USSR at bay, Slessor is perhaps best known for this observation:
It is customary in democratic countries to deplore expenditure on armaments as conflicting with the requirements of the social services. There is a tendency to forget that the most important social service that a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free. [Strategy for the West, p. 75]
In keeping with that observation, my purpose here is to outline the requirements for the ultimate social service that the government of the United States can provide: the defense of Americans and their interests, at home and abroad.
The government of the United States was created to serve limited purposes, among them to “provide for the common defence … and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The United States owes liberty to no one but its citizens, though the liberty of others may help to ensure the liberty of Americans.
A grand strategy that promotes the liberty of Americans cannot be complete unless all components of the federal government are aligned with it. What follows is a prescription for the “common defence” that is not restricted to the Department of Defense. The broader reach of this prescription becomes evident in the latter portions of this post.
A BRIGHT RED LINE
What must a grand strategy guarantee to the citizens of the United States? Several things, in descending order of importance:
Security from domination by foreign powers, whether through military conquest, military threats, or economic threats backed by military might.
Assured access to those economic goods (e.g., oil) that have a significant effect on Americans’ well-being.
The ability of Americans to trade freely with parties in other nations, but not to the extent that such trade creates dependence on potential enemies (e.g., Russia and China).
The ability of Americans to travel freely and safely, for business or pleasure.
STRATEGY AND GRAND STRATEGY
Nuclear deterrence, as a strategy, was adequate for a particular place and time: to forestall Soviet aggression toward Europe in the 1950s. It was succeeded in the 1960s by the strategy of “flexible response”, that is, the deterrence or defeat of Soviet aggression in Europe with a combination of nuclear and “conventional” forces. The latter would be capable of waging a prolonged land-air-sea campaign against Soviet forces, while also dealing with threats to U.S. interests in other parts of the world.
A grand strategy, by contrast, anticipates an evolution of potential threats and points to a defense posture that is capable of dealing with their realization. In the context of World War II, for example, the defeat of Germany by Allied forces — beginning with victory in North Africa and the Atlantic, and culminating in the entrapment of German forces by Allied invasions from the west, south, and east — was a strategy. A grand Allied strategy, on the other hand, would have seen the possibility of Stalin’s post-war expansionism, and thwarted it by (a) excluding the USSR from the occupation of Germany, (b) refusing to cede control of eastern Europe to the USSR, and (c) maintaining large standing armies instead of rushing to demobilize.
The failure of the Allies to adopt a grand strategy — despite Churchill’s premonitions about Stalin — can be ascribed to Roosevelt’s declining health, the influence of fellow-travelers and Communists in his administration, and the rush to demobilize in the U.S. and Britain.
Then, barely two months after the surrender of Germany, British voters turned Parliament upside-down, replacing Churchill’s Conservatives with Atlee’s Labourites. Atlee’s party
ran [and won] on promises to create full employment, a tax funded universal National Health Service, and a cradle-to-grave welfare state, with the campaign message ‘Let us face the future.’
In other words, the Great British Public (or a sizable portion of it) was eager to resume its ill-advised love affair with socialism. The American public (or a sizable portion of it) was eager to get back to work and make cars instead of tanks, but without repudiating FDR’s giant steps toward socialism: the Social Security Act of 1935 and the establishment in Washington of an array of meddling federal agencies.
THE STATE OF PLAY
Let us move forward to the Obama administration, the policies of which dominated recent U.S. history and which the Biden administration has re-imposed.
Consider Obama’s speech of August 31, 2010, about the end of combat operations in Iraq. Regarding that speech, Kenneth Anderson, a student of defense affairs, says (in part):
Commenters have noted, some with puzzlement, as to why the domestic economy figured in this speech. Seen through a domestic policy lens, it’s obvious — Americans, with upcoming elections, are worried about the domestic economy, and this foreign stuff, even when it is a major war, is merely a side-show and distraction from the domestic agenda that is, at bottom, both what American voters care about and what the Obama administration has always truly cared about, even if those two have sharply divergent views as to what the domestic policies should be, to judge by the polls.
Seen through a foreign policy lens, however, the answer is somewhat the same, but emphasizes a different point. That point is that the Obama administration proposes that the United States should embark on an extended period of in-turned focus upon its domestic issues but that, seen from the standpoint of the rest of the world, friend and foe alike, it looks very much like America wants a good, long, global nap. I’m a conservative critic of this whole idea; I don’t think that would work out very well for the United States, for our friends and allies, or really for anyone — including many of our enemies, active and passive — who rely on the US for the provision of certain basic public goods in both global security and the global economy.
But I would say that the way in which the President linked the foreign and domestic policies in last night’s speech — ambiguous, to be sure, but that, from this perspective, is part of the problem — is a modest indication of the Obama administration’s overall global strategic view that “multilateral engagement” is a rhetorical term for “American strategic withdrawal.”
It is clear that Obama was willing to take the risk that bad things wouldn’t happen on his watch (after would be someone else’s problem), and that he papered over that risk with high-sounding hopes for diplomacy and “multinationalism”? Why was he willing to take that risk? So that he could push resources in the direction of his domestic agenda, in spite of Sir John’s trenchant observation. Obama’s so-called strategy was nothing more than an excuse for the continuation of the American left’s ill-advised love affair with socialism.
In that regard, it was galling that secretary of defense Gates would lend himself to Obama’s purposes. But there he was, doing just that:
The U.S. operates 11 large carriers, all nuclear powered. In terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship.
The U.S. Navy has 10 large-deck amphibious ships that can operate as sea bases for helicopters and vertical-takeoff jets. No other navy has more than three, and all of those navies belong to pur allies or friends. Our Navy can carry twice as many aircraft at sea as all the rest of the world combined.
The U.S. has 57 nuclear-powered attack and cruise missile submarines – again, more than the rest of the world combined.
Seventy-nine Aegis-equipped combatants carry roughly 8,000 vertical-launch missile cells. In terms of total missile firepower, the U.S. arguably outmatches the next 20 largest navies.
All told, the displacement of the U.S. battle fleet – a proxy for overall fleet capabilities – exceeds, by one recent estimate, at least the next 13 navies combined, of which 11 are our allies or partners.
And, at 202,000 strong, the Marine Corps is the largest military force of its kind in the world and exceeds the size of most world armies.
As if certain numbers of ships, aircraft, missiles, displacement tons, and Marines can be thought of as “too many” without reference to potential and actual threats. As if those numbers should not be out of proportion to the numbers owned by prospective enemies. As if it were somehow wrong to possess a large Navy and Marine Corps, when the U.S. has far-flung interests to protect.
Mr. Gates might object that he was only trying to steer the Navy and Marine Corps away from their outmoded ways. That is the thrust of what he said later in the same speech:
Our Navy has to be designed for new challenges, new technologies, and new missions – because another one of history’s hard lessons is that, when it comes to military capabilities, those who fail to adapt often fail to survive. In World War II, both the American and British navies were surprised by the speed with which naval airpower made battleships obsolete. Because of two decades of testing and operations, however, both were well prepared to shift to carrier operations. We have to consider whether a similar revolution at sea is underway today.
Potential adversaries are well aware of our overwhelming conventional advantage – which is why, despite significant naval modernization programs underway in some countries, no one intends to bankrupt themselves by challenging the U.S. to a shipbuilding competition akin to the Dreadnought race before World War I.
Instead, potential adversaries are investing in weapons designed to neutralize U.S. advantages – to deny our military freedom of action while potentially threatening America’s primary means of projecting power: our bases, sea and air assets, and the networks that support them.
We know other nations are working on asymmetric ways to thwart the reach and striking power of the U.S. battle fleet. At the low end, Hezbollah, a non-state actor, used anti-ship missiles against the Israeli navy in 2006. And Iran is combining ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, mines, and swarming speedboats in order to challenge our naval power in that region.
What happened, of course, is that the “excess” forces were pared, in sacrificial homage to “social services”. But it will be a long time — if ever — before the gaps are filled with more “relevant” forces. Even if Mr. Gates did not mean to help Obama achieve some kind of limited, unilateral disarmament, that is precisely the end that will be served by his facile and irrelevant comparisons.
There was a respite from Obama’s reckless “strategy” during the Trump administration. The 2018 National Defense Strategy was blunt and global in its view:
Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order—creating a security environment more complex an volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.
China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea. Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors. As well, North Korea’s outlaw actions and reckless rhetoric continue despite United Nation’s censure and sanctions. Iran continues to sow violence and remains the most significant challenge to Middle East stability.
It goes on in that vein, offering much more detail, for 14 pages — with nary a word about “climate change” (a key element of “strategy” under Obama) or domestic programs.
The “Fact Sheet” for the 2022 National Defense Strategy is bland — but it manages to draw in “climate change” and “pandemics”, as if non-existent and transient matters should influence grand strategy. The complete document remains classified, but a related news release says this:
The classified NDS sets out how the Department of Defense will contribute to advancing and safeguarding vital U.S. national interests – protecting the American people, expanding America’s prosperity, and realizing and defending our democratic values.
You can be sure that it is a paean to “wokeness” (and other domestic nonsense), and that it is as concerned about opponents of “wokeness” (i.e., so-called domestic terrorists) as it is about America’s real enemies abroad. (America’s real enemies at home — the “woke” and its allies in politics, the media, the academy, etc. — won’t be mentioned, of course.)
FROM GRAND STRATEGY TO DEFENSE BUDGET: A NEW DEFENSE PLANNING & BUDGETING PROCESS
When I say that a grand strategy “anticipates an evolution of threats and points to a defense posture that is capable of dealing with that evolution”, I do not mean that the nation’s security posture should be determined by a sequence of set-piece scenarios. These are easy enough to conjure — for the near future, at least — but they focus on known knowns. A grand strategy worth its name should yield a coherent defense posture that can accommodate unknown unknowns.
The current bureaucratic-political process, which eventuates in the passage of defense budgets by Congress, yields a defense posture that is neither coherent nor connected to a strategy, except by mere verbiage. I therefore prescribe an analytical-political process that moves from the development of a grand strategy to an open debate about the risks of failing to implement it:
1. Describe a complete defense-in-depth; that is, prepare an exhaustive outline of the ways in which the nation must be able to defend itself, even against threats that have not (and may not) materialize. The implausibility of a potential threat is no proof against its materialization.
2. Size the budget from which a complete defense-in-depth can be constructed. An “affordable” defense budget is not a figure picked out of the air by a president who is anxious to advance his domestic agenda. (By “defense budget”, I do not mean just the budget for the Department of Defense, but rather the budget for all military and civilian components of government that have a role to play in a complete defense-in-depth.) A failure to defend Americans and their interests carries a high price tag in lives, limbs, and treasure. An “affordable” defense budget is one that is justified by the value of the lives, limbs, and treasure that it saves by deterring, thwarting, and defeating enemies. (I offer some benchmarks of “affordability” below.)
3. Test alternative defense postures against demanding and feasible scenarios, in various combinations. The main purpose of this step is to test the robustness of the “affordable” defense budget, that is, its ability to provide a complete defense-in-depth against a variety of threats, near-term and long-term. This step yields a baseline against which the effects of lower defense budgets can be compared.
4. Assess the effects of lower defense budgets, by testing the capabilities they afford against the baseline obtained in step 4.
5. Prepare a detailed multi-year defense program and describe the risks it entails, relative to a complete defense-in-depth.
6. Present the results of steps 1-5 to Congress and the public. Members of Congress with a “need to know” (e.g., members of the subcommittees for Department of Defense authorizations and appropriations) would have access to classified information. An unclassified version would be published and distributed via the internet.
6. The ensuing political debate — in the media, over the internet, and in Congress — would culminate in the adoption of a defense budget for the coming year and adjustments to the multi-year defense program.
7. Repeat the process every two years, but change the cast of characters involved in steps 1-4.
The rest of this post focuses on step 1.
GRAND STRATEGY: DIMENSIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS
The Essential Elements
A grand strategy should
be rooted in a conception of Americans’ interests (e.g., continued access to foreign oil for as long as it remains an efficient source of energy);
take into account the present and likely future threats to those interests — threats both specific (e.g., Islamic terrorism) and generic (e.g., attacks on vital networks, such as transportation, energy generation and transmission, and telecommunications);
provide a template against which the adequacy of U.S. security programs defense forces can be assessed (e.g., adequate for conventional combat against organized armies but inadequate for damage control in the event of a cyber-attack on government computing networks);
point to specific, technologically feasible, program and budget recommendations for shoring up areas of weakness.
The Calculus of Global Engagement
It may be possible to devise and implement a grand strategy based on military disengagement from the wider world — one that focuses on homeland defense, rapid responses to emerging overseas threats, and nuclear retaliation. But disengagement is not the proper starting point.
Any strategy that cedes forward defenses and preemption can be viewed by an adversary as an invitation to seize (or be capable of seizing) critical masses of land, water, and space, to the grave disadvantage of Americans’ interests. Forward defenses and preemption — like them or not — can prove more effective and less costly than reactive defense postures.
Some enemies cannot and will not be deterred. They must be contained — and, when necessary — struck before they can strike or abet others with a penchant for anti-American violence.
The world is not our oyster, but it is the source of much that brings prosperity and enjoyment to Americans. Any administration that claims to value to well-being of Americans should be prepared to defend the overseas sources of goods and services enjoyed by Americans — and the air, sea, and space through which those goods and services must travel.
Enemies: Within and Without
America is more despised that loved, for reasons varying from resentment to envy to inculcated hatred. The particular reasons are less important than the fact — of which most Americans seem ignorant — that the downfall of America would be greeted in much of the world with glee. This is true even of peoples who owe their liberty to the force of American arms and their prosperity to trade with Americans.
I did not write “more feared than loved” because America is no longer feared. America would still be feared if, in the aftermath of 9/11, the forces of the United States had attacked terrorism and its state supporters relentlessly and decisively. But the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were too limited — in part because of the shrinkage of American forces in the preceding decade — and partly because Americans — led by a generation brought up on anti-war rhetoric — have lost whatever taste they once had for all-out, decisive warfare. Afghanistan and Iraq were Korea and Vietnam all over again, complete with halfhearted leaders, second-guessing pundits, and backstabbing politicians.
Because America is both despised and no longer feared — and is unlikely to give the world a reason to fear it — its enemies are emboldened.
Many Europeans — especially so-called intellectuals — view Americans (collectively) as boors and bullies, whose values are inconsistent with “enlightened” Europeanism, where the state reigns supreme over the individual and peace reigns by dint of the sacrifices of Americans. It would, however, be a strategic mistake to abandon Europe to its own devices and to the ambitions of Russian imperialists.
A “European” view of America is shared by many Americans — especially so-called intellectuals, whose views have migrated to the mainstream of American political thought. They believe that enemies can be won over by diplomacy and gestures of friendship. They believe, in sum, that peace is a product of hope, not preparedness and the will to fight. (For much more in this vein, go here and scroll to “The Left and War”.)
I make these points to emphasize another one: The search for a grand strategy should not and must not be diverted by the “strategy” of hope. That — as history proves time and again — is a strategy for retreat, if not defeat.
“Affordability”
It is equally important to keep the question of “affordability” in its proper place. Members of the executive and legislative branches should first ask what must be done to assure, with a high degree of confidence, the defense of Americans and their interests. Only after having asked and answered that question should they consider how much it would cost to do the job. Then, and only then, should they consider spending less than the full amount, while assessing and acknowledging the risks of doing so.
A grand strategy — to be a real thing — must be more than a collection of words on paper. The true grand strategy will be whatever it is that can be accomplished by actual, well-trained human beings, equipped with reliable, state-of-the-art hardware and software, and backed by modern well-run installations, logistics, communications, and intelligence systems.
In the end, the “affordability” of a defense posture should be measured by the cost of failing to protect Americans and their interests, at home an abroad. (Cutting off oil is just as much an act of aggression as flying planes into the World Trade Center.)
“Affordability” can be measured by the costs of the Great Depression and World War II. Trade embargoes and massive and successful attacks on telecommunications facilities, trade routes, and terminals could easily replicate the economic destruction wrought by the Great Depression. How costly was that destruction? In the United States, the Great Depression cost Americans about one-fourth of the GDP that they would otherwise have enjoyed during the years 1930-1940.
What happened next was even worse. It was necessary for the U.S. to enter World War II — Pearl Harbor or not — in order to prevent encirclement, impoverishment, and possibly enslavement by the Axis powers. Had the U.S. (along with Britain and France) prepared sufficiently, the Axis powers might have been deterred. Even if they had not been deterred, the Allies would have won sooner and at a lower cost in lives and treasure. As it turned out, World War II consumed one-third of the GDP of the United States in the years 1942-1945, peaking at 43 percent in 1944. In effect, the Great Depression continued through World War II and did not end until 1947, when — in the rush to demobilize — defense spending dropped abruptly.
As I have said, defense spending should be driven by the outside world, by what others could or would do to us, regardless of our delusions about their benignity. It is necessary to spend a lot on defense even when we are not at war, for two purposes: deterrence and preparedness.
With that thought in mind, let’s look at the indices in following chart (government spending includes State and local as well as federal outlays):
Sources: Current dollar values of government spending derived from Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts, Tables 3.1 and 3.95. Population statistics, constant-dollar GDP, and GDP deflators applied to government spending derived from Measuring Worth. (GDP – US data set).
What does the chart suggest? This:
The benchmark for “necessary” defense spending is World War II. Real defense spending has yet to return to that level. But, as a result of our foolish rush to demobilize after World War II, defense spending had to rise in response to Soviet- and Communist Chinese-backed aggression in Korea and the growing military power and aggressiveness of the Soviet Union. Subsequent “bumps” represent the Vietnam War; the Reagan defense buildup, which drove the USSR to its knees and thence to dissolution; and the squandered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most recent rise in defense spending, due to Trump, was cut short by Biden, in keeping with his unarticulated but obvious policy of “accommodating” Russia and China.
The gorilla in the room is redistributive spending: transfer payments (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and their expansion by Obamacare; food stamps; easier access to disability payments; more generous unemployment benefits; Covid-19 “stimmies”; etc., etc. etc.); subisidies (mainly for not growing crops and for wasteful “rewable energy” schemes); and interest on government debt — all of which rob Peter to pay Paul.
Non-defense spending hasn’t been ignored by any means.
All spending categories have outpaced GDP and (by a long shot) population. Defense spending should be driven by external threats, not population. Other government spending should be related to population, but they are obviously more strongly related to the greed of politicians (for votes) and various interest groups (for other people’s money).
Non-defense spending (including transfer payments, etc.) is now almost five times as great as defense spending.
It is evident that defense spending is far too low. If it had risen sufficiently, Russia and China would have remained content to rebuild their economies and refrain from military adventurism. By the same token, the gargantua of non-defense spending (and the regulatory burden that goes with it) has decimated the U.S. economy (see this and this). The far more robust economy that would have resulted absent regulation and profligate spending on “social services” would have had ample room in it for voluntary charity to assist the truly needy (as opposed to the conveniently disabled and lazy).
The post-Trump reduction in defense spending is foolish on two counts. First, the huge deficits projected for the federal government arise mainly from commitments to continue and expand three major entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (Obamacare represents an expansion of all three). Second, the defense budget should be geared to external threats, not to the federal government’s fiscal problems. Cutting the defense budget to fund profligate spending on “social services” is like preparing for a street brawl by spending money on a new suit instead of brass knuckles.
There is, nevertheless, a tendency in political-punditry circles to bemoan the amounts spent on defense. Anti-defense zealots get it into their heads that the government spends “too much” on defense — period. What they mean, of course, is that the government spends money to execute wars of which they disapprove, and to prepare for wars that they would rather not think about. There is also the fear — now that the looming bankruptcy of entitlement programs cannot be denied — that money will be taken from “social services” rather than defense.
Rather than take money from defense, our “leaders” should be thinking about how to spend more on defense. There is nothing more inviting to an aggressor than his intended victim’s lack of preparedness. As the man says, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.” But if you choose to pay later, you will pay one hell of a higher price, if you are still alive to pay it.
A GRAND STRATEGY, OUTLINE AND NOTES
A grand strategy, as I have suggested, is a defense-in-depth that extends across time. It should not be based on a particular scenario, or a particular set of them. It should be based on a catalog of feasible threats to Americans and their interests, as those threats may change with the evolution of technology. Which is not to say that a grand strategy should fixate on technological advances, for — as the events of 9/11 and its ilk should remind us — there always will be much to fear from determined, resourceful, and fanatical enemies whose main weapon is their victims’ lack of preparedness and resolve. Moreover — given the possibility of recurrences of 9/11 on a much larger scale, and the ever-present threat of cyber-war — a grand strategy cannot be built on the assumption that there will be ample time in which to mobilize the resources of the United States.
I therefore submit that America’s posture vis-à-vis its actual and potential enemies must encompass the capabilities listed below. I am not equipped with the particular knowledge or expertise that would enable me to elaborate the points in detail. Accordingly, I restrict my commentary to arcane and off-beat aspects of a defense-in-depth. (I am pleased to have seen that many of the following ideas have been put into action since I published the original version of this post in 2010.)
1. Effective strategic and tactical intelligence, accompanied by effective counter-intelligence
I have several thoughts on this aspect of a grand strategy:
Abolish the CIA’s analytical arm. Replace it with competing “red” teams, whose funding and eventual survival would depend on their accuracy in predicting developments that affect the security of the U.S.
Hire unsavory characters, as necessary, for analytical and operational work, but keep a close eye on them and “terminate” them at the first sign of treachery.
Monitor all international communications from sensors in space and overseas, under a legal grant of authority enacted by Congress. Everything else should be fair game, but only as authorized by “intelligence court” warrants under the scrutiny of a restricted number of executive officers and members of Congress.
Prosecute leakers and publishers of leaks to the fullest extent of the law, without fail and regardless of rank or influence. Establish a separate prosecutorial office, staffed by “untouchables”, for that purpose.
2. Secure, hardened, and redundant telecommunications, transportation, and energy networks
There are lessons to be learned from the evolution of business communications:
Technology has eliminated, and will continue to eliminate, much of the need for business travel. This development is independent of the terrorist threat, though that threat may have accelerated an otherwise inevitable shift toward more productive means of business communication.
The broader point is that telecommunications, transportation, and energy networks will not retain their present configurations. Technological innovation can, and will, make them more efficient and — at the same time — less vulnerable. Government should be in the business of protecting the networks from the outside, but the design of the networks should evolve from the inside. Otherwise, the “tail” of security will wag the “dog” of efficiency.
As for energy:
Nuclear energy may or may not be more efficient than the alternatives, but it should be given a chance. If it really is “too risky,” why haven’t all existing plants been shut down?
Offshore drilling platforms and production facilities in “sacred” places like ANWR can be protected more readily than foreign fields. That is merely to point out the hypocrisy of the green crowd, which tends to oppose “blood for (foreign) oil” but also opposes the best substitute for it, which is the home-grown variety.
But I do not counsel government-dictated retreat from foreign oil; Americans are well served by market-based changes in energy supplies, and ill-served by tax-subsidized scams (e.g., ethanol). As long as foreign oil remains a competitive source of energy, the task of securing the energy network must include the protection of foreign fields and ports from terrorists and unfriendly regimes. The cost of that protection should not be assigned solely to the cost of obtaining foreign oil — contra libertarian isolationists — for the deterrent effect of a demonstrated willingness to defend Americans’ overseas interests is a plus for U.S. interests around the world.
Regarding terrorism, generally:
Although the terrorists’ repertoire includes attacks on ground transportation and buildings, the most chilling and disruptive threat (thus far) is the threat to commercial air travel. This emphasis has, in turn, led U.S. officials to focus on the protection of scheduled passenger flights, with the result that the measures used to screen passengers have become so intrusive as to make what was once an enjoyable experience an almost unendurable one.
Thus the terrorists have “won”, in the sense that they have spread fear and imposed heavy costs on Americans. And there is more to come. At some point, before it is too late, the U.S. government must focus on the real threat, which is not the mass of American travelers but a network of terrorists who share a religion (Islam) and a hatred of non-Islamic cultures. Israel knows how to do it right.
In the meantime, other forms and nodes of transportation — and energy production and transmission — remain relatively unprotected.
3. Quick response (at home and abroad) to tactical intelligence via special operations units (including units equipped for cyber-war as well as shooting skirmishes
I counsel an ounce (or more) of prevention:
Federal operations on U.S. soil, especially if they affect citizens and legal aliens, involve some tricky constitutional issues and real threats to liberty. But cunning enemies can exploit the demonstrated squeamishness of American governments, as we saw in the case of the “wall” between foreign intelligence and domestic operations that allowed the 9/11 attacks to proceed.
Accordingly, top priority ought to be given to the working out of protocols that enable intelligence (foreign and domestic) to be collected and released to operational units — with proper authorization — in time for them to prepare and execute preventive action in the U.S.
Beyond that, there is preemptive action overseas…
4. Preemptive use of technological trickery (e.g., cyber-attacks), targeted killing, small-scale hit-and-run operations, and large-scale sea, land, and aerospace operations.
I offer three ideas:
Establish competing “dirty tricks” shops to develop cyber-war tools (e.g., Stuxnet), and enable the command authority to use the tools to disrupt the development of offensive capabilities by hostile regimes.
Enable lightning strikes overseas by maintaining various kinds of “presence”, ranging from carrier battle groups to special-operations units. “Presence” has the added benefit of deterring overtly hostile acts.
Wars are not won by air power alone. UAV strikes would be much more effective if complemented by the occasional hit-and-run, take-no-prisoners attack on known terrorist locations. If collateral damage, host-nation protests, and bad publicity bother you, you shouldn’t be in the business of defending Americans and their interests, you should be in the State Department or on Madison Avenue.
5. A large “standing army” with a broad range of nuclear and conventional forces that are fully manned and trained, well-maintained and supplied, and technologically advanced
I offer two words — competition and duplication:
Much verbiage has been emitted over the years about the supposedly deleterious effects of inter-service competition and the duplication of certain types of forces. A time-honored example is the insistence of the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps (and the Army, to some extent) on maintaining their own (somewhat) duplicative) and (undoubtedly) competitive air forces.
Whether this so-called competition and duplication is actually detrimental to the nation’s defense posture is another matter. I have never seen a good case made that the money would have been better spent in other ways. (Yes, the pundits often have their favored ways, but don’t we all?) The real problem seems to be a certain lack of neatness. Methinks the critics of duplication and competition suffer a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder; they want the armed forces of the country to fit into neat, non-overlapping, perfectly complementary organizational boxes. Those critics should worry, instead, about the overall effectiveness of those forces vis-à-vis a broad range of potential threats.
There is a way to obtain more bang for the buck; it is called competition. For the past 50 years, each of the military departments has been given a set of multi-year budget constraints, within which the department must could construct and propose its multi-year program. It would be a healthy, invigorating, and informative exercise to ask each of the departments (and other major players in the defense arena) to offer competing multi-year programs for the entire defense effort, not just their slice of it. These would be considered and evaluated in the course of the new defense planning and budgeting process, described earlier.
In general, any serious effort to devise a defense-in-depth should assume that all present and prospective defense programs are candidates for modification or cancellation. Sunk costs are sunk; plans are not promises.
SEMI-FINAL WORDS
Again, a grand strategy is not mere words. It is what the forces, systems, procedures, and people of the defense establishment (broadly conceived) are able to do, given the resources at hand or in train, under the direction of a command authority that (one hopes) is far-seeing, imaginative, flexible, and — above all — determined.
The United States will not have an enduring, consistent, and effective grand strategy unless two things happen:
American voters consistently elect members of Congress and presidents who are committed to the peace, prosperity, and liberty of Americans through swift, sure justice and military preparedness.
That condition will obtain only if there is a successful, bloodless revolution which ends the dominant role of the “progressive, one-world, hope-over-experience” crowd in the nation’s schools, universities, news outlets, and — most important — government. Their way is peace at any price but the price of preparedness. Their way is oppression at home — a combination of bread, circuses, and political suppression — and capitulation abroad. (I doubt the ability of the U.S. and NATO to emerge stronger from the proxy war with Russia over its seizure of key regions of Ukraine.)
In the alternative, there is a national divorce, which would give some Americans a government that is more likely to defend them, instead of oppressing them.
A CODICIL
The U.S. needs a forward defense but not interventionist misadventures.
I have called for a grand strategy that guarantees to the citizens of the United States several things, in descending order of importance:
- Security from domination by foreign powers, whether through military conquest, military threats, or economic threats backed by military might.
- Assured access to those economic goods (e.g., oil) that have a significant effect on Americans’ well-being.
- The ability of Americans to trade freely with parties in other nations, but not to the extent that such trade creates dependence on potential enemies (e.g., Russia and China).
- The ability of Americans to travel freely and safely, for business or pleasure.
Further, a grand strategy should
- be rooted in a conception of Americans’ interests (e.g., continued access to foreign oil for as long as it remains an efficient source of energy);
- take into account the present and likely future threats to those interests — threats both specific (e.g., Islamic terrorism) and generic (e.g., attacks on vital networks, such as transportation, energy generation and transmission, and telecommunications);
- provide a template against which the adequacy of U.S. security programs defense forces can be assessed (e.g., adequate for conventional combat against organized armies but inadequate for damage control in the event of a cyber-attack on government computing networks);
- point to specific, technologically feasible, program and budget recommendations for shoring up areas of weakness.
It may be possible to devise and implement a grand strategy based on military disengagement from the wider world — one that focuses on homeland defense, rapid responses to emerging overseas threats, and nuclear retaliation. But disengagement is not the proper starting point.
Any strategy that cedes forward defenses and preemption can be viewed by an adversary as an invitation to seize (or be capable of seizing) critical masses of land, water, and space, to the grave disadvantage of Americans’ interests. Forward defenses and preemption — like them or not — can prove more effective and less costly than reactive defense postures.
Some enemies cannot and will not be deterred. They must be contained — and, when necessary — struck before they can strike or abet others with a penchant for anti-American violence.
What I do not mean by “forward defenses” and “preemption” is involvement in dubious conflicts like the one in Ukraine. What have American citizens gained from the involvement of the U.S. and NATO? Higher food prices, higher fuel prices (which had already been rising because of Western “leaders” futile war on “climate change”), a massive bill for arming Ukraine, and the possibility of a wider war involving nuclear weapons, that’s what.
The war in Ukraine is not an instance of the kind of forward defense or preemption that would servce vital U.S. interests. It is a costly sideshow that detracts from the ability of the U.S. to prepare for a real showdown with Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea — a showdown that has been made more likely by the rush to arrange an unnecessary confrontation with Putin.. There are, in fact, good reasons to believe that (a) he is actually trying to protect Russia and Russians and (b) he has the facts of history on his side.
With that in mind:
- US/NATO must convince Putin (and Xi and the ayatollahs) that it is economically prepared for a long cold war. Which means that Western leaders must abandon their futile and fatuous pursuit of “green” energy and drill for oil, mine coal, and build nuclear power plants. That is to say, they should do what President Trump was doing, namely, making America energy-independent. The hard-core climate alarmists would hate a policy shirt toward economic sanity, but it would win the hearts and minds of the vast majority of US/NATO citizens who are bearing the economic burden of high energy prices that their own “leaders” thrust upon them.
- In sum, though it pains me to admit it, I’m suggesting something like a new Iron Curtain, where the curtain is designed and built by the West. The new status quo would resemble that of the 1950s and 1960s, when the US/NATO declined to interfere in matters behind the original Iron Curtain (e.g., the suppression of the 1956 uprising in Hungary and the “Prague Spring” of 1968). But the new Iron Curtain would not only block Russian moves to the west but also to the south and southeast (that is moves that might compromise US/NATO access to oil from sources other than Iran).
- The new Iron Curtain would be a semipermeable membrane, allowing trade with Russia where it is mutually beneficial. And, with a sufficient show of conventional and nuclear strength by US/NATO, the new status quo wouldn’t engender constant dread about Russia’s ability to disrupt the affairs of US/NATO. Deterred is deterred.
In sum, don’t piddle away American’s forces and fortunes on side shows. Prevent the “big show” — a concerted economic-military attack on U.S. interests — by possessing more than enough means to end it quickly. Which translates into deterring it in the first place (but ending it quickly if deterrence fails.)
This is neo-isolationism in the sense that it eschews military adventures that aren’t worth the price paid by Americans. But it is not isolationism of the old-fashioned kind. Forces would be deployed forward (in space, on land, and in the oceans) to shorten reaction times and remind our adversaries that we are there, big stick in hand. Americans and American businesses would continue to be engaged with the world, in travel and trade, with the exception that America would become (once again) energy-independent.
Politics and Prosperity 
