US releases Quadrennial Defense Review
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Well, with the increase of the budget to that level, the US is now spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined, no longer the next 25 countries and much higher than I thought it would be.WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon Friday announced plans to significantly increase special operations forces, expand psychological warfare and develop a program to counter biological terrorism as part of a new broad-based military strategy for the 21st century.
The plan comes three days before President Bush sends Congress a 2007 budget that seeks a nearly 5 percent increase in Defense Department spending, to $439.3 billion, with significantly more for weapons programs, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Under the long-range plan, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon will increase special operations forces by 15 percent, including the establishment for the first time of a Marine Corps commando unit. And there will be a one-third increase -- or a jump of 3,700 -- in troops assigned to psychological warfare and civil affairs units.
There also will be a new $1.5 billion program to develop medical countermeasures for bioterrorism threats.
The plan will reduce the number of Minuteman III land-based nuclear missiles from 500 to 450, and calls for the conversion of a small number of nuclear missiles aboard Trident submarines to non-nuclear ballistic missiles.
The long-range strategy document outlines broad plans to reshape the military into a more agile fighting force better able to fight terrorism, while still preserving the ability to wage large conventional wars.
The document, more than a year in the making, refers to the terrorism fight as the Long War.
The review, which does not call for the elimination of any of the largest weapons programs, as initially expected, will guide how dollars are spent within the Pentagon budget.
"Now in the fifth year of this global war, the ideas and proposals in this document are provided as a roadmap for change, leading to victory," said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in an accompanying letter. This represents the second four-year review that Rumsfeld has led during his tenure heading the department.
As part of the effort to shift the focus of the military toward more non-traditional terrorist enemies, the plan calls for doubling the procurement of unmanned aircraft, particularly for surveillance; calls for the development of a new long-range strike system, as a greater deterrent against future threats and stresses the need to build strong partnerships both with other nations and other U.S. government agencies.
The plan also recommends reducing the number of Navy aircraft carriers from from 12 to 11, a proposal rejected by Congress last year.
Outside of all the terrorism aspects the review seems to imply that even more focus is being directed to countering emerging conventional military threats from other powers (i.e. China). It looks like the completion of the Full Spectrum Dominance Doctrine is going to be intensified. Aside from that the review appears to reflect some of the underlying reasons for why the US began the re-alignment of it's global posture less than a year ago. Geopolitically and historically it was rather inevitable that this would occur, but it looks like the the Joint Chiefs want to maintain a clear advantage over the Chinese should a flashpoint scenario ever develop over Taiwan or something else in that region.
Here are two other articles related to the subject for anyone that would like to read them, along with a Link to the official summary of the report itself.
The Times Union (Albany, New York)
January 29, 2006 Sunday
HEADLINE: Pentagon sees China challenge {SUBHEADLINE} Plan shifts Navy carrier forces to Pacific duty from Atlantic patrols
BYLINE: By ERIC ROSENBERG Times Union Washington bureau
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's new strategy that will guide development of weapons systems and deployment of forces will be released in one week and is expected to place new emphasis on countering China's growing military prowess.
The final draft of the strategy - known as the Quadrennial Defense Review - calls for increased Navy forces in the western Pacific Ocean shifted from the Atlantic Ocean.
The Navy will make available at least six aircraft carriers and 60 percent of its submarines in the Pacific "to support engagement, presence and deterrence," according to the draft obtained by Bloomberg News.
The Navy typically has had as many as five aircraft carriers and about 50 percent of its submarines available for use in the Pacific.
"The fleet will have greater presence in the Pacific Ocean consistent with the global shift of trade and transport," says the draft report.
The strategy will be made public Feb. 6 as part of President Bush's budget recommendations to Congress for the 2007 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
The Pentagon is already expanding bases on Guam to house more Air Force B-2 stealth bombers and robot aircraft.
The planned Navy expansion in the Pacific "is a clear indication of deterrence to the Chinese," James Lilley, former U.S. ambassador to China, said in an interview.
The stepped-up Pacific presence reflects growing U.S. concern over China's military aims. While the U.S. and China are major trading partners, the relationship in the last decade has been characterized by episodic flare-ups and occasional brushes with outright military conflict.
In 1996, for example, as Taiwan was preparing to hold presidential elections, China test-fired unarmed missiles 25 miles off the island's coast. The U.S. responded by dispatching two aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait, the 100-mile-wide channel separating Taiwan from China, in a massive show of force and solidarity with the island that Beijing regards as a renegade province.
In 2001, a Chinese fighter aircraft collided with a Navy EP-3 spy plane in international airspace, causing the American aircraft to make an emergency landing on a Chinese-controlled island near the mainland. The Chinese pilot was killed and the U.S. crew was detained for 11 days, sparking a tense, Cold War-style face-off.
Since then, the U.S.-China relationship has been delicate.
The U.S. needs Beijing's cooperation on combating terrorism, defusing the nuclear standoffs in North Korea and Iran and international trade matters.
On the other hand, U.S. planners are closely monitoring China's military expansion, a move that U.S. strategists believe is aimed at rapidly conquering Taiwan and thwarting any U.S. attempt to come to the aid of the island.
In a 2003 report to Congress assessing China's military capability, the Defense Department said that "preparing for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait is the primary driver for China's military modernization."
"With little warning, Beijing might choose to quickly seize key terrain on Taiwan using amphibi ous or airborne forces with the threat of major destruction as the means to compel some form of capitulation," the report said. From missile systems to jet aircraft, naval vessels and ground forces, from cruise missiles to anti-ship missiles, China is designing weapons to transform what is essentially a massive Third World military into a modern fighting force. Of particular U.S. concern is Beijing's increasing sophistication in building missiles capable of striking Taiwan. China has more than 650 short-range ballistic missiles, with the inventory expected to increase by about 100 missiles each year.
At the same time, China is developing longer range missiles capable of reaching Japan, where nearly 35,000 U.S. troops are based.
The Pentagon's most recent assessment of China's military might last summer said that Beijing "continues to invest heavily in its mili tary, particularly in programs designed to improve power projection."
"The pace and scope of China's military build-up are, already, such as to put regional military balances at risk," said the report to Congress.
"If you read China's military documents," Lilley said, "we are the enemy. That's what they are preparing for, to deter us from coming into the Taiwan Strait, to challenge us over time."
BBC Monitoring International Reports
February 4, 2006 Saturday
The US Department of Defence issued a new national security guidance document on 3 February, the "Quadrennial Defence Review" [QDR]. The report assesses and lays out strategic goals, forms of combat operations, resource allocation, and unit construction in the US military over the next 20 years, and so it is attracting a lot of attention. Compared to the previous such report, this one has a marked "anti-terrorism" flavour, embodying the basic trend in the national defence sphere which the United States has been following for years now.
Anti-terrorism warfare sparks a transformation
For a long time now, the US military has followed the operational ideology of the "1, 4, 2, 1" model, in which "1" means protect US territory, "4" refers to deterrence in Europe, Northeast Asia, coastal waters of Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, "2" means quickly defeat the enemies in two simultaneous wars, and "1" means secure decisive victory in at least one war.
"9/11" profoundly altered the US security concept. The US military is mired for the long term in an unconventional war in Iraq from which it cannot extricate itself, and that has also been a big shock to US military theory, one which has prompted an adjustment in its military strategy. The report's preface says that the United States is a nation "engaged in a long war", and that since 9/11 the United States has launched a global war against terrorism.
The person in charge of drafting the report, Deputy Secretary of Defence Gordon England, said that faced with new challenges and new threats, the US military must change the war readiness pattern which took shape during the Cold War era and shift its focus to fighting terrorism and other asymmetric and unconventional threats. Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld summarized the report with four key points: defeat terrorism organizations, defend against weapons of mass destruction, strengthen defence of US territory, and make strategic choices which influence so-called "emerging powers". The first three of these concern the fight against terrorism.
Adjusting strategy to deal with new threats
The report puts forth three countermeasures aimed at the first three of these key threats: expand special forces; appoint US Strategic Command to be responsible for coping with the threat from weapons of mass destruction, and to take the lead in establishing a rapid-reaction Joint Task Force headquarters to deal with the threat from weapons of mass destruction; and invest an additional 1.5bn dollars in the next five years to strengthen homeland defence and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States with biological and chemical weapons.
The report says that because terrorists are active worldwide, the US military must be capable of taking action worldwide, not just in the four areas mentioned above. In light of the US military's current predicament in Iraq, the new report stresses once again that the US military must have the ability to fight several wars in different parts of the world simultaneously, yet the report is forced to acknowledge that the expressions "swiftly defeating" and "winning decisively" are not at all applicable to asymmetric warfare. [as published; the QDR reads "may be less useful"]
The report also points out that to meet the needs of the war against terrorism and other unconventional conflicts, the US military must enhance its mobility and its reach, and improve its operational capabilities through the development of information technology and precision weaponry at the same time it downsizes manpower and the number of its weapons. The report also acknowledges that the US military is conducting a large-scale adjustment in its overseas force deployment and global bases in order to adapt to the new situation. The report points out that the goal of this is to enable the United States to deliver forces to hot spots anywhere in the world within the shortest length of time. With regard to operational planning, the new report asserts that this must be based on force capabilities, and not on numbers or on the threat faced.
Because of the international community's widespread opposition to the "pre-emptive" strategy which the United States adopted early in its war against terrorism, the new report no longer emphasizes that point. It asserts many new stands such as humanitarian assistance and equal treatment of allies.
No change in hegemonistic aims
Despite the new stands appearing in the report, Rumsfeld and other senior US military officials emphasize that this report is a continuation of US military strategy, and definitely not a "ninety-degree turn." And in fact, reading between the lines of the report, one can clearly see the thread of the basic military strategy which the United States has followed for many years now. US defence policy has changed several times since the end of World War II, yet the basic goal of ensuring US military hegemony has remained. Its specific characteristics are as follows.
First is its offensive nature. Although the military strategy of the United States has been amended many times, the intense US desire to "attack" has never changed. The new report takes the entire world as the anti-terrorism battlefield of the United States, showing clearly that US military strategy still advocates taking the initiative and attacking, using force frequently and relying on it.
Second is its theory that it is the only real power. The United States has always seen military power as the most important foundation for maintaining its position of global dominance, and a succession of administrations has continued huge military spending to protect the US position of power and promote the US global strategy. The new report does not eliminate a single one of the major weapons the US is currently researching and developing. That shows clearly that the United States still believes it can maintain its power and position only by continually increasing its military spending. And it is from that mindset that the new report notes with extraordinary concern the so-called "emerging powers" which might catch up with and overtake the United States.
Third is its strategy of alliances. The United States believes that forming alliances is helpful to maintaining its hegemonistic position. The new report says that one of the greatest advantages and resources the United States has is its numerous allies, and that to realize the strategic concept put forth in the report, the United States must maintain its close cooperative relationship with its long-term allies Japan, Australia, South Korea, and others.
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