Armchair Generalist

Casual Fridays

Andy Chalk at The Escapist waited, as did I, to see the movie "Max Payne," starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, when it came out as a rental.  I would credit the other big stars - Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Donal Logue, and Chris O'Donnell - but frankly I think their poor performances (due to bad writing) ought not to be mentioned. Andy and I both have the same general opinion (as many other gamers did) - the movie didn't suck horribly, but it sure wasn't an honest depiction of the game.

Not that it was the unspeakable abortion some people had made it out to be. Probably the most succinct and accurate summation came from a friend who, after learning I'd rented it, said to me, "You know it's a crappy movie, right?" And he was bang on the money: It was indeed crappy. Not awful, not horrible, not hilariously bad. Just "crappy," that generic sort of mediocrity that's the hallmark of all but a handful of movies released these days.

"Disjointed" is the word that kept popping into my mind as I watched. It was less a movie than a pastiche of brief but stylish video clips chock full of slow-motion gunfire, moody lighting and intense close-ups but utterly devoid of anything more substantial. Imagine a movie trailer cut together for maximum impact that somehow stretched on for an hour and a half: The characters are ill-defined, their motivations are unfathomable and dialog veers from cryptic to nonsensical with all the trying-too-hard gravitas of a first-year film school project. The most interesting part of the whole experience is the fact that I went into it prepared to excoriate Mila Kunis for destroying the role of Mona Sax and came away amazed that she hadn't fared much worse than anyone else involved in the thing.

As Andy goes on to point out, for a movie director to screw up this film is pretty amazing, since the game was basically played out as a great action movie. It was all right there - grieving loner detective, vengeful sister, film noir atmosphere, lots of gunplay and people diving through the air. All you had to do was follow the game's script! It would have been a great film. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

The question then, is why is it so difficult for movie studios to make a good film out of a game? Other than "Tomb Raider," I can't think of a one. Maybe the first "Mortal Kombat" movie. "Wing Commander" was a horrendous movie. Even "Doom" was crippled, despite the Rock's presence. I think the comment from level250geek has it right:

You know why video game movies suck? The same reason comic book movies sucked until very recently: they are being made either by shameless profit-mongers trying to cash in on peoples' passions and fond memories or overpaid art-snobs who think themselves above the medium (more the former than the latter).

Until we have a generation of filmmakers that understand and appreciate how video games tell stories and how to extract drama and character development from the source material, we'll never see a good video game movie. It took grown-up comics geeks becoming filmmakers for us to be saved from the comic book adaptations of old (yes, even the first Superman, which I feel you couldn't help but make cheesy and corny because...well...it's Superman); it's going to take a while for video gamers to reach the same pinnacle.

The other unanswered question from me is, why has it been nearly impossible for a game company to make a good game based on an action movie? Has there ever been a good "Star Trek" game? There was a game based on "Farscape" that you don't hear about, because it sucked ass. The "Riddick" game was half-decent, but not great.

Speaking of films, there was this great analysis of movie sequels - in particular, how movie trilogies have fared. I think it's pretty much on target, except that I think he was a little too harsh on Alien 3 and X-Men 3, and not hard enough on Die Hard 3 and Indiana Jones 3.

Speaking of Biological Threats

I stumbled across this image when I was looking around for biological threat assessments. I really liked this common-sense approach to addressing potential biological incidents. Note the big block in the bottom right - "Detectable substances PLUS one of the following:"

Common sense approaches for white powder cases. I like it.

A Lack of Priorities

DHS has decided that it has simply too much money to spend on bioterrorism issues, so it's decided to get into the rice bowls of medical research, traditionally DHHS's job.

The DHS Science and Technology Directorate plans to award a sole source contract to the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, of Albuquerque, NM, to complete its study of the “exhalation of aerosols” from monkeys infected with Monkeypox virus.

The ongoing study is part of scientific research sponsored by DHS intended to identify the causes and potential cures of Monkeyvirus, which first broke out in the U.S. in 2003.
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The Lovelace institute will be expected to deliver a report that finalizes its evaluation data and provides a final assessment of exhalation aerosol from the infected monkeys, according to a presolicitation notice published Feb. 20 by the DHS Office of the Chief Procurement Officer.

DHS defended its decision to award a sole source contract to Lovelace by explaining that awarding a new contract to a different laboratory would, in part, result in “the morally problematic consequence of needlessly infecting more monkeys with this virus.”

I won't get into the very weak argument that DHS has presented here for a sole source contract - I'm relatively sure that no one in the medical community is fretting over the possibility of requiring animal tests to do these kind of investigations. It's kind of a routine thing, from what I understand. That is to say, it's not a moral issue as much as a "supply and demand" and necessary protocol issue.

No, I just want to ask DHS S&T Directorate why it thinks it has the need to investigate the causes of monkeypox virus if it is not a potential threat agent that terrorists might use. Where exactly on the Biological Threat Assessment does monkeypox come out? It's as if the scientists leading the S&T Directorate don't understand the bioterrorism policy. Even if it were a potential terrorist threat, this is clearly a DHHS issue. Let the medical people deal with medical research. DHS needs to find better things to do with its money, and I'm sure there are lots of other research projects out there that would have been more productive.

Fishing Expedition

Hawaiian politicians continue to fret about the possibility that US Army chemical weapons, mostly designed during World War II and dropped off-shore in deep waters, might be still a threat to the environment or to its people clustering around the beaches. While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) checked out the military munitions at "Ordnance Reef" and declared the water, fish, and general area to be safe, they want more tests.

The University of Hawai'i's two submersible craft will descend 900 to 2,000 feet to the ocean floor five miles south of Pearl Harbor starting next week to search for tons of chemical weapons that were dumped during and after World War II, the Army said.

The 15 days of daytime dives, augmented by the use of robotic vehicles at night, are part of the Army's ongoing assessment of the health and environmental effects from the old munitions, which were ditched by the military at three deep-water sites five to 10 miles south of Pearl Harbor and Wai'anae.
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Tad Davis, the Army's assistant secretary for the environment, yesterday said sampling of water, sediment, fish and limu will be coordinated by UH at Ordnance Reef in April and again in late August or early September.

In late fall, the Army also plans to test the use of robotic underwater vehicles and water-drill technology for the removal of some of the shallow-water munitions.
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A 2007 report to Congress said 2,558 tons of chemical agents were dumped at three deepwater sites off O'ahu, including lewisite, mustard, cyanogen chloride and cyanide.

Included in the ordnance dump were 15,000 M70 115-pound mustard bombs, 1,100 M79 1,000-pound cyanogen chloride bombs and 20 M79 1,000-pound cyanide rounds. The weapons are in waters up to 10,000 feet deep.

It makes perfect sense. The weapons are in waters 5-10 miles off-shore at depths up to 10,000 feet. So you send a couple subs that go to 2000 feet in an attempt to see if munitions dropped there about 60 years ago are either leaking or have affected the local fish and fauna. Prediction - they're not going to find anything. The shells will have been covered over by sediment and coral, making it even more dangerous to move than to just let them remain undisturbed. But then again, as I noted yesterday, policy makers don't have to listen to logic or to scientists. They have their own rhythm. Whatever lets them sleep at night...

Analyst Misses The Point

The Washington Post tries hard to see both sides of the VH-71 White House helicopter issue. Is it a dangerous gamble to delay the over-budget, over-schedule defense program? Or was it an over-engineered, gold-plated obscenity? I'm leaning toward the latter, but Loren Thompson prefers the former.

But Loren Thompson, a defense consultant for the Lexington Institute in Virginia, disagrees. The current presidential helicopter is "dangerously outdated," he said. Thompson's clients include Lockheed Martin Corp, the prime contractor on the new helicopters, though he is not working for the company on the program.

Of course we have to trust Thompson to be a professional and not shill for Lockheed Martin. But what could cause a simple program - bringing in commercial helos and just adding a few mods - to come to a point where each helo cost more than Air Force One?

Cost overruns and delays have plagued Lockheed's helicopter program due partly to aggressive plans by the Bush administration to incorporate anti-missile defenses, communications equipment, hardened hulls and other advanced capabilities on the aircraft following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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The Navy - which is in charge of overseeing the helicopter program - told Congress in January that the program's price tag had soared. That notification triggered a formal process mandating the program be re-certified as a national security requirement by senior Pentagon leadership.

The Navy waited nearly a year before formally disclosing the information to lawmakers as it sought to find ways to keep the program within budget. Those efforts failed.

Yes, I suppose those could be reasons why the program ballooned from $6.8 billion to nearly $12 billion. But here's the catch - Loren - it may be true that the requirement exists for a special White House helicopter exists, but that doesn't justify gross program mismanagement. You don't win an argument for continuing a broken program and spending billions on "well, we have to have it." I think the Marines can keep up the maintenance on the current Marine Force One in the meantime.

UPDATE: A delusional VP at Lockheed Martin defends his program.

Your readers also should understand that there are significant differences between a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft such as Air Force One. One of the challenges that we have worked together to overcome is ensuring that the same capabilities available on Air Force One are at the president's disposal on Marine One, meaning we must fit complex electronic systems and other gear within a fraction of the space available on the much larger Boeing 747. In today's challenging global security environment, each aircraft must be a fully capable command and control node whenever the president is aboard.

As James notes in the comments, no, Jeffrey, we really don't need this capability.

Update on Dead Fish and White Powder

About two weeks ago, I reported that Maureen McCarthy, a senior DHS official, had set off some alarms for bringing a suspicious package into work on the direction of DHS security officials. The package held a dead fish and white powder. It was later revealed that there was no hazard, but what if there had been? The fact that Ms. McCarthy was a DHS WMD expert was not in her favor here. Global Security Newswire provides an update on her case.

A senior U.S. Homeland Security Department intelligence official has been placed on administrative leave after an incident in which a dead fish and white powder were brought to department offices in Washington this month, according to two sources (see GSN, Feb. 10).

Administrative action has been taken against Maureen McCarthy, a senior adviser for weapons of mass destruction intelligence programs at the department, as a result of the incident, which sparked a security scare, the source said.
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When contacted late Tuesday, Roberts said McCarthy is employed by the department but would not confirm whether she has been placed on administrative leave. "We're following the procedures within DHS about this particular situation," he said.

McCarthy, a holdover from the Bush administration, is one of a number of officials who agency insiders say remains at the agency in positions created for them.

She is contesting the administrative action, so don't send in your resumes to DHS yet. Just thought you might be interested in this very strange case.

Options for Afghanistan

Every now and then, Ralph Peters manages to outline a sane argument about national security issues. Usually this is when he's writing for a reputable newspaper such as USA Today instead of the New York Post. This one, in yesterday's USA Today, is pretty good.

Instead of floundering in search of a strategy, we should consider removing the bulk, if not all, of our forces. The alternative is to hope blindly, waste more lives and resources, and, in the worst case, see our vulnerable supply route through Pakistan cut, forcing upon our troops the most ignominious retreat since Korea in 1950 (a massive air evacuation this time around, leaving a wealth of military gear).

Ranked from best to worst, here are our four basic options going forward:

• Best. Instead of increasing the U.S. military "footprint," reduce our forces and those of NATO by two-thirds, maintaining a "mother ship" at Bagram Air Base and a few satellite bases from which special operations troops, aircraft and drones, and lean conventional forces would strike terrorists and support Afghan factions with whom we share common enemies. All resupply for our military could be done by air, if necessary.

Stop pretending Afghanistan's a real state. Freeze development efforts. Ignore the opium. Kill the fanatics.

• Good. Leave entirely. Strike terrorist targets from over the horizon and launch punitive raids when necessary. Instead of facing another Vietnam ourselves, let Afghanistan become a Vietnam for Iran and Pakistan. Rebuild our military at home, renewing our strategic capabilities.

• Poor. Continue to muddle through as is, accepting that achieving any meaningful change in Afghanistan is a generational commitment. Surge troops for specific missions, but not permanently.

• Worst. Augment our forces endlessly and increase aid in the absence of a strategy. Lie to ourselves that good things might just happen. Let U.S. troops and Afghans continue to die for empty rhetoric, while Pakistan decays into a vast terrorist refuge.

I have to say, it's hard to argue against him. I understand why President Obama decided to send 17,000 troops into Afghanistan - without these added forces, there is no chance that our troops currently in Afghanistan can halt, and at hopefully stabilize, the deteriorating situation there. Meanwhile, he can lead the development of a new strategy. The question will remain - now what? Continue to send in thousands of American troops for the next decade, hope that NATO forces decide to show up, and spend billions of dollars on Afghanistan infrastructure projects that include new mansions for the Afghani government officials?

I just don't see a winning strategy here. We have insecure and few main logistics routes, amazingly difficult terrain, a very corrupt government, shaky NATO allies, ever-growing poppy fields, and a safe haven in Pakistan for al Qaeda and Taliban forces. Arguing that we need to stay and "fix" Afghanistan to become as stable as Switzerland is not going to work. Maintaining a small, elite force that focuses on counterinsurgency and training missions while the Afghan government develops its security forces might work better.

Scientists Make Lousy Policy Makers

The Global Security Newswire notes that some people are concerned that there are not enough scientists working for congressional panels these days. As a result, lawmakers may not be receiving the necessary scientific information to make key decisions. This could explain, in a way, how Congress overlooked the really horrible EPA/FDA/CDC/NASA decisions made by the Bush administration over the past eight years. But I kid. This article is more focused on arms control issues.

Science converges with nonproliferation in various fashions, panelists said.

"Scientists in government and international organizations provide input in the bureaucratic process of developing policy positions," said Pierce Corden, holder of a physics doctorate and a veteran arms control official at the U.S. and international levels. "They then contribute to the diplomatic negotiating process, translating positions into agreements.

"Once negotiated, scientists support verification and implementation through national technical means and international monitoring mechanisms," he added.

Corden described science as a method for analyzing and synthesizing information on a problem so that it can be placed in a larger construct. Science seeks to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information, he said: "It's a process of carefully thinking about an issue."

Practitioners have expertise that has been used in both sides of the weapons equation -- physics has contributed to nuclear weapons programs and to civilian nuclear energy, chemists helped to produce the compounds used in chemical weapons and biologists have offered greater understanding and countermeasures for viruses and bacteria that could be used as terrorist weapons.
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Panelists appeared to differ on whether more scientists such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu are needed in policy-making roles.

"Not particularly. I think for administrative positions you want administrators. You want policy-makers," said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund. Those officials, though, must be willing to reach out to scientists for assessments of threats and their possible solutions, he added.

Argued Levine: "I do think that there should be more scientists in policy-making positions. Not that they should dominate it, but ... there should be a salting of scientists mixing in with the rest of us. Because we don't always hear correctly when the scientists are speaking to us."

Joe's right on target here. Policy-makers often use the excuse of daunting technical challenges to avoid making decisions on important policy issues, and that's not right. As a result, one often gets technical experts involved in making - or recommending - policy solutions where they are not trained or experienced enough to make such recommendations. Scientists and engineers are good at executing policy, but not making it. They don't know what they don't know, and then you get really bad policy execution - like Project BioWatch, like the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, like the Army's chemical demil program - where the programs continue to fail to meet their objectives because policy makers refuse to make tough decisions.

Technicians should advise policy makers on options and on metrics that will allow the effective adjudication of said programs. But only a few exceptional scientists, those who demonstrate the ability to understand the nuances and challenges of national policy issues, ought to be selected to become policy-makers.

UPDATE: To be crystal clear, US policy making is very often disfunctional. That's the norm today. There are numerous examples of bad policy making where scientific advice was either not solicited or deliberately disregarded. The key for scientists who want to be good policy makers is to understand that logic is a variable, but not the most important one, in this process.

“This is true. There is little rationality in the political process. I’ve learned firsthand, what for years Rep. Brown tried to instill in the scientific community. If you are going to interact in a political environment, you have to know the reasoning and context of the people you are dealing with. Different stakeholders are driven by different perspectives. For example, a scientist and a politician are usually not motivated by the same circumstances or for the same reasons.”

I apologize if my artless communication has failed to make this point.

A Failure of Rendition Policy

You've heard of all those dangerous Guantanamo detainees that the US government has foolishly let go back to their native countries. Well, the New York Times notes this Muslim character, Binyam Mohamed, who has returned to his country of origin - the United Kingdom - after seven years of absence. The UK government released him from detention on the same day that he arrived, after the US government had dropped all charges, including one of planning "dirty bomb" attacks.

Mr. Mohamed, 30, was captured in Pakistan in April 2002; American officials said that he was part of a conspiracy to detonate a dirty bomb on American soil. But all charges against him were eventually dismissed. He has said he was held for 18 months in Morocco, where he says he was tortured, then was moved to Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The C.I.A. has repeatedly declined to say if Mr. Mohamed was held in Morocco, and has steadfastly denied that he, or anyone else in its custody, was ever tortured. Britain, where Mr. Mohamed established residence 15 years ago, had been seeking his release since August 2007.

The United States and Britain have wrangled in court over what documents related to his case can be released. The case has been viewed by some as a test for President Obama and his promise to break sharply from his predecessor regarding the treatment of detainees. Continued detention of a prisoner with no charges against him, whose release was sought by the United States’ closest ally in the war on terrorism, loomed as potential source of diplomatic tension for the new administration.

David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, said that he was “pleased” Mr. Mohamed had been given his release, and that it had come after “intense negotiations.”

Mohamed is a thirty-year-old Ethiopian native who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1994. He admits to traveling to Afghanistan in June 2001 and receiving paramilitary training from a Taliban training camp. He traveled back to Pakistan after 9/11, and when he was trying to return to the United Kingdom, he was grabbed by the Pakistani government, bounced around a few secret CIA prisons for three years, and then landed in Gitmo. The US government charged him with conspiring with Jose Padilla to build a radiological dispersal device. You all remember how well that case went - the US government eventually dropped the "dirty bomb" charge against Padilla.

In August 2007, he was one of five Gitmo detainees whom the British government requested released from detention, since they had all been granted refugee status. The US government response was to refile charges against Mohamed in June 2008, leading to continued petitions from the British government for his release, or at the least, evidence of his crimes and alleged abuse. The British High Court decided that this was unnecesssary, as it might damage the "special intelligence relationship" wth the United States. But he's out now, after seven years of confinement, torture, and no trial.

He's out, and although there was no evidence that he ever had the capability or knowledge to make a "dirty bomb," he just might now. We better give DHS hundreds of millions of dollars to build that global nuclear detection architecture and to make sure that he doesn't ever slip the United Kingdom and come visiting the United States. Because payback is a bitch. And then there's our detainees in Bagram, Afghanistan, which (as Kilo notes) we studiously ignore. I hope President Obama is being up front about shutting down Gitmo's detention facilities, because it's just amazing to me what serious damage the Bush administration has done to America's reputation by these kind of actions.

Analyst Misses The Point

The Washington Post tries hard to see both sides of the VH-71 White House helicopter issue. Is it a dangerous gamble to delay the over-budget, over-schedule defense program? Or was it an over-engineered, gold-plated obscenity? I'm leaning toward the latter, but Loren Thompson prefers the former.

But Loren Thompson, a defense consultant for the Lexington Institute in Virginia, disagrees. The current presidential helicopter is "dangerously outdated," he said. Thompson's clients include Lockheed Martin Corp, the prime contractor on the new helicopters, though he is not working for the company on the program.

Of course we have to trust Thompson to be a professional. But what could cause a simple program - bringing in commercial helos and just adding a few mods - to come to a point where each helo cost more than Air Force One?

Cost overruns and delays have plagued Lockheed's helicopter program due partly to aggressive plans by the Bush administration to incorporate anti-missile defenses, communications equipment, hardened hulls and other advanced capabilities on the aircraft following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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The Navy _ which is in charge of overseeing the helicopter program _ told Congress in January that the program's price tag had soared. That notification triggered a formal process mandating the program be re-certified as a national security requirement by senior Pentagon leadership.

The Navy waited nearly a year before formally disclosing the information to lawmakers as it sought to find ways to keep the program within budget. Those efforts failed.

Yes, I suppose those could be reasons why the program ballooned from $6.8 billion to nearly $12 billion. But here's the catch - Loren - it may be true that the requirement exists for a special White House helicopter exists, but that doesn't justify gross program mismanagement. You don't win an argument for continuing a broken program and spending billions on "well, we have to have it." I think the Marines can keep up the maintenance on the current Marine Force One in the meantime.

Short Rounds

I heard there was a speech about something last night. But I was too busy looking at these stories.

The British-French submarine collision and American-Russian satellite collision were foreseen by astrologers. There is no such thing as coincidence.

Conservative analysts don't like that President Obama might actually endorse nuclear nonproliferation activities. And they've had such a strong track record of being right over the past eight years...

The Army Emergency Relief (AER) fund managers must have learned how to do its job from managers of Bank of America and CitiGroup. And yes, I also resented my military chain-of-command's shake-down tactics - er, I mean, aggressive encouragement - to ensure that I donated to that organization every year that I wore a uniform.

Dr. Ash Carter, despite having limited acquisition experience, is going to reform the defense acquisition process. That's assuming if he is confirmed as the next AT&L and if the powerful military-industrial complex doesn't break him down.

One of his first projects for reform could be the $11.8 billion VH-71 project, which (if allowed to continue) would make each helicopter more expensive than Air Force One. It seems that neither Republicans (at least McCain) nor Democrats (at least Obama) want it, but that didn't stop DOD from including it in the FY10 budget.

William Boston at the Christian Science Monitor believes that European companies ought not be allowed to get Iraqi government business. He is a firm believer in "first you have to break the country's infrastructure, subdue its people, pay off the government, and then you can overpay your own country's firms to replace everything."

Educating the Media

This NY Times editorial has been bothering me all day, so I'm not waiting till tomorrow to note its inane sense of superiority. The Times is concerned about the recent British-French nuclear submarine collision, in that terrible things might have happened to the ocean depths. And if it happened to them, it could happen between the US and Russian submarine fleets.

Fortunately, the damage to the submarines was minor, and the warheads were not compromised. British and French missiles, like those of the United States, are protected against accidental launch or detonation of their warheads. But a stronger impact could have sent both subs and their crews to the bottom and possibly dispersed plutonium into surrounding waters.

The warheads on the two submarines that collided could, if ever launched, kill millions of people. And Britain and France together have far fewer than 1,000 nuclear warheads in their arsenals. The United States and Russia still have more than 20,000.

President Obama must move quickly to revive arms negotiations with the Russians — committing to deep reductions both in deployed weapons and the many thousands more in storage. He must then bring the British, French and Chinese into the talks.

The most important missiles to retain in any shrinking arsenal would be those based on submarines. Because they are quiet and constantly moving, they are essentially invulnerable to pre-emptive attack; there is less pressure to use them or lose them. That advantage is also at the root of this month’s accident.

Okay, one thing at a time. First of all, I'm no Navy expert like Galrahn, but I have a surface knowledge about depths. If a submarine is damaged, and they are huge mothers, no doubt, and if they sink, the pressures collapse the sides (depending on the depth). It's not as if a collision will break open the ship AND break open the ballistic missiles to a degree that plutonium will be scattered on the surface floor. They are contained. Now the nuclear reactor, that's another story, but that's not plutonium-based. And even if, worst case, such a thing could happen - so what? The ocean is HUGE. The effects of a few pounds of plutonium would be insignificant compared to the damage caused by over-fishing by industrial ships, garbage thrown into the water by luxury cruise liners, and the agricultural and industrial run-off that's creating dead zones in the ocean.

Somehow, the editorial jumps to the obvious conclusion that we need less nukes in the world. Considering that Britain and France have so few ships and a collision happened, does that equate to a need for the US and Russian fleets to downsize to their level? That's just stupid. Not to mention that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are just a little larger areas than the deep waters between France and England. Just a little. And as for inviting Britain, France and China into arms control negotiations, no, we really don't have to do that at all. There are two superpowers with nuclear arsenals that count. They're the only two that need to talk about reductions, because they've pointed most of them at each other. Let the others figure out their own strategy.

But the really funny part of the editorial is this advice on how to avoid future accidents:

All that would have to happen is for the nuclear navies to agree on respective cruising depths (like airplanes do to prevent midair collisions). Their actual locations would remain secret; they could be anywhere in the Atlantic. And these assigned depths could even be rotated every few months between the navies so that no one could possibly feel advantaged or disadvantaged.

Yes. Brilliant. What we really want to do is broadcast to potential adversarial nations exactly which depths our nuclear ballistic missile subs are going to be traveling. NY Times, you seriously need a military analyst on your staff. My rates are very reasonable...

Responsible DOD Budgeting?

Spencer Ackerman points out that DOD leadership still doesn't quite appreciate the need for tough decisions in this economic climate.

So it'll take some time before Defense Secretary Bob Gates issues his fiscal 2010 budget, capped by the White House at $537 billion, not including the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Before Congress and the Obama administration get around to spending that money, though, Gates has told the White House that he's going to need at least $83 billion more to cover operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September 30, when the fiscal year ends. Jacking up troop levels in Afghanistan makes up the lion's share of the difference. Given that there was already a separate funding request for fiscal-2009 war costs last year, this would bring total war costs in fiscal 2009 to $149 billion. Good thing there isn't a worldwide economic crisis or anything.

Gates indicated in Senate testimony last month that he wants to end the practice of covering war costs in so-called supplemental funding requests, a dubious innovation of the Rumsfeld Pentagon that discouraged Congress and the Pentagon from taking hard looks at irrelevant and wasteful defense programs by making them appear detached from the immediate demands of the war. I will resist making an obvious joke about the parallels between supplements in Pentagon budgeting and in baseball.

I appreciate the fact that operations in the Middle East cost big bucks, but I really thought that SecDef Gates was of the mind that it was time to stop requesting defense supplementals for military operations that aren't really "emergency" oriented. It's time for those tough decisions, Mr. Secretary.

Ackerman also points to a recent decision to take "force development"  - what used to be DOD transformation capabilities - out of ASD(SO/LIC) and into the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning, which is under the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (see organization here). This is a good thing - it was a mistake for Rumsfeld to move that responsibility to ASD(SO/LIC) after his Office for Force Transformation closed. Maybe DOD transformation will have the chance to get moving again with a direct line to the USD Policy.

At What Cost Our Defense?

If you have at least half an hour, I strongly recommend you watch this video from a recent conference at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. It features Frank Hoffman, Research Fellow at the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, as he talks about the significant challenges of developing a defense budget under the Obama administration. He's absolutely on target, and he makes a strong argument for reshaping our defense strategy and funding.

The key to his argument, I think, is that we ought to have a defense strategy that is aligned with what we can afford. That is, instead of developing excessive commitments without considering the budget, first we ought to develop a defense budget that balances against other national demands and not overcommit beyond our resources.  What a concept... He thinks we could make do with $460 billion for defense, based on the US federal budget and needs. He sees the mantras of "jointness," roles and missions, transformation, and acquisition reform as panaceas without much value - they are all good things, but don't seem to result in any budget savings. Specifically, he calls for these adjustments:

• Less assertive and unilateralist foreign policy
• Reduced forward basing
• Reduced strategic force levels
• Reductions in Joint Strike Fighter
• Reshape Future Combat System
• Reframe Navy shipbuilding
• Resize and reshape ground forces

He doesn't ask for much, does he? It's not entirely original stuff, but he outlines - in about 30 minutes - a very sound set of rationale for why this is necessary. Go check it out.

Easy Answers to Obvious Questions

Joshua Keating Tom Ricks asks at Foreign Policy Magazine, "Will Obama repeat Bush's big mistake in Iraq?"

Answer, "No." This has been another edition of "easy answers to obvious questions.

Seriously - if Joshua Tom thinks that President Obama is overly optimistic about pulling most of the combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months, that's fine, that may be his opinion. But to equate that policy decision - and that's what it is - to the repeated and significant failures of the Bush administration over the past seven years, that's just inane. The key to his decision, as it's always been, is determining what exactly are the US government's strategic interests in Iraq. If the goal is to get Iraq into some perfect form of democracy where everyone gets along, as some of our general officers seem to think, no, we probably aren't going to do that within two years. If the goal is just to get Iraq to accept the need for self-governance and step up to administering its own security challenges, sure, it's absolutely possible. In fact, the military is already planning on how to get its material out of Iraq.

Bottom line, it's not overoptimistic to think we can get our troops out and that Iraq won't fall apart when we do move out. And it's certainly not repeating "the mistakes of George Bush."

UPDATE: I swear the original tag line said Joshua Keating. Ah well.

Fleischer - Still Conning Us

The only thing more amazing than Ari Fleischer's calm career of covering for the Bush administration as the White House press secretary is his firm consistency of that initial fiction he started in 2003. From the D.L. Hughley show:

FLEISCHER: It was a different era for George Bush. And as time went on, it got a lot, lot harder for him.

HUGHLEY: Why? Why harder?

FLEISCHER: Because we were wrong about weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq. If he had been right and we found stockpiles, as bad as the war turned out to be, much worse than we all thought it would be, I think most Americans would still say, well, I didn't like going to war but thank god we stopped Saddam from using those.

HUGHLEY: When you found out...

FLEISCHER: We were wrong.

HUGHLEY: I don't know that I've ever heard anybody associated with the president say that. I just don't know. But when you found out you were wrong...

FLEISCHER: Yes.

HUGHLEY: ... how did that make you feel? You know that you have been part in parcel of the war? So...

FLEISCHER: You just scratch your head. How can we be wrong? It wasn't just us who thought he had weapons of mass destruction.

HUGHLEY: Right.

FLEISCHER: The Egyptians thought it, the French thought it, the Germans thought it, the United Nations thought it. Bill Clinton, CIA thought it. We all thought it. Saddam was the big liar here. He put up a whole myth to act like he had them, in part, to bluff us and in part to bluff Iran. And we picked up that bluffing. We picked it up on the electronic intercepts.

People say George Bush is a liar. No. He was telling what he was told by our CIA. Saddam was the liar.

If only we found WMDs in Iraq... but we didn't. It's like he's the only one who maintains this ficton that the entire invasion was based on Saddam's threatening the United States with chemical and biological weapons (since he had no nuclear weapons at all). The intel never said that. Just about every other member of the Bush administration has changed their story to say that the invasion was about creating a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. So why, Ari? Why can't you admit that the WMD story was just a fig leaf for the administration's invasion?

And can you imagine that the Iraqi people would forgive the United States for its invasion just because Saddam had an active WMD program? Maybe the US public would understand better the proferred rationale, but it's not as if the insurgency would not have happened, given the same attitude of trying to fight the war on the cheap. Come out of the shadows, Ari. Stop being such an asshole.

It's Not News

SHORTER Washington Post: "We're going to focus on the 10 percent of Gitmo detainees who decided they can't forget what the US government did to them, instead of the 90 percent who quietly went home after spending years in confinement without trial or access to their families."

Suicides and Long Tours

Admiral Mike Mullen has figured out what has stumped Army leaders - that long and repeated combat tours in the Middle East are increasing the suicide rates in the Army.

Mullen told about 680 soldiers at Fort Campbell during a town hall style meeting that soldiers are getting too little time at home after spending as much as 15 months in combat.

"I can't believe that is not a huge factor," Mullen said.

Almost all the soldiers at Mullen's town hall raised their hands when asked who had served at least two deployments. More than half indicated they served three deployments, while about a third indicated they served four deployments.

Fort Campbell, the sprawling post on the Kentucky-Tennessee line that is home to the 101st Airborne Division, reported that four soldiers killed themselves near the installation. About 14,000 soldiers from the two wars have returned to the post since October.

The Associated Press reported earlier this month that there have been seven Army suicides confirmed in January, while another 17 were under investigation. That follows a record rate in 2008. Mullen cited the number 24 in his comments Thursday, referring to January suicides.

"The rate is going straight up. The rate now exceeds the national average," Mullen said Thursday.

Maybe the economic crisis - combined with the new hope that Obama might actually finish this combat and bring troops home - will bring some fresh and new talent into the Army. Lord knows we need the manpower more than more MRAPs.

Chemical Weapons - Good for Business

Syria appears to be getting back into the chemical weapons business, and I think that's great!

"The satellite imagery that ... Jane's has examined suggests that Damascus has sought to expand and develop Al Safir and its chemical weapons arsenal," said Christian Le Miere, editor of Jane's Intelligence Review.

"Further expansion of Al Safir is likely to antagonise Israel and highlight mutual mistrust, even as peace talks between the two neighbours progress intermittently," he added.
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"The site contains not only a number of the defining features of a chemical weapons facility but also that significant levels of construction have taken place at the facility's production plant and adjacent missile base.

"This does not suggest that Syria is arming itself for an offensive but it could have regional security implications given Syria's tension with its neighbour, Israel," it said in a statement.

There's far too much attention on Iran's nascent nuclear weapons program, such as the media's unwarranted fear of how much low-enriched uranium that country has. We need to remember that there are other forms of WMD. For the sake of my job security, let's focus on some realistic weapons programs out there.

Let's Buy More MRAPs!

Kings of War and Wings Over Iraq are both talking about this article in International Organization that suggests mechanized forces do not beat insurgencies; and in fact, they may encourage them. This trend is increasingly seen after the 19th century.

…this shift can be ascribed to the increased reliance of states on mechanized forces as the cornerstone of their militaries in the post–World War I era.   Nineteenth-century militaries were organized around “foraging” principles in which soldiers extensively interacted with local populations to acquire supplies in the conflict zone.   The collision of industrialization and World War I forged a new “modern” system of military organization, one premised on the substitution of machines for soldiers to increase mobility and survivability on contemporary battlefields.  Built for direct battle, mechanized forces struggle to solve the  “identification problem”—separating insurgents from noncombatants selectively—because their structural design inhibits information-gathering among conflict-zone populations.  Faced with “information starvation,” mechanized forces often inadvertently fuel, rather than suppress, insurgencies. (emphasis added; p. 68.)

Starbuck adds:

Not surprisingly to those of us in 2009, we know that "commuting to war" every day in up-armoured Humvees and returning to base  isn't the way to win insurgencies.  Buttoned up in the hatch of an armoured vehicle or flying above the battlefield in a helicopter shuts off your typical soldier from the subtle nuances of a counter-insurgency environment.  To paraphrase counterinsurgency expert John Nagl, the more secure you make your forces, the less successful you will be.  

In related news, a former US Ambassador penned an article in Foreign Affairs magazine discussing the same sense of risk aversion among the US State Department.  He noted that, since 1983, US embassies have turned into isolated "fortresses", "far from city centers" and are counter to efforts to improve American public diplomacy.

So, of course, what the US government is doing is buying more MRAPs for Afghanistan. BRILLIANT! Because the correct philosophy is to protect troops at all costs and extend the combat mission for as long as possible...  That's the only conclusion I can make.