The Left and the Military

...Toward a Progressive Military Policy Several goals would distinguish a progressive military policy...

...A host of serious practical problems blocks consensus...

...Before he released his "Bottom Up Review" of military requirements last year, then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin floated the idea of "win-hold-win" sequencing of the two-war strategy: fight and win the first war, while stalemating the second...

...Defensive restructuring is not, primarily, a matter of banning "offensive weaponry...

...In an increasingly interdependent world with rapid communications and travel, even remote threats can seem too close for comfort...

...By contrast, a defensively structured military would seek to deter aggression principally by lowering an aggressor's probability of success...

...And few nations have armies as large as America's second army—the Marine Corps...

...What is lost when the left remains outside the military policy debate...

...The continuing emphasis on active duty forces is flawed and dangerous...

...military power can play a positive role in the world...

...This will mean that the United States will try to organize coalitions or rely on alliances to pursue large-scale interventions...

...But few nations have air forces as large as the "aviation arms" of the United States Navy and Marine Corps...

...Their militaries all have the capacity to "project" power far from their borders—a primary offensive characteristic...

...This does not preclude banging the drum occasionally for select interventions...

...By calling for the capacity to fight two major wars without reliance on significant coalitional help, the strategy requires very large U.S...

...Although the national strategy makes passing reference to the importance of multinational alliances and UN mandates, it is fundamentally unilateralist...

...The dissolution of the Soviet threat makes it reasonable to transfer part of the force structure to the reserves...

...By setting goals of extraordinarily quick, decisive victory it requires emphasis on active duty forces and massive strategic airand sealifts...

...The Gulf War marked a new, although fragile, precedent for large-scale U.S...

...By relinquishing the threat of large-scale cross-border offensive action, a "defensive defense" reduces the pressures for escalation...

...Defensive restructuring seeks to alleviate the security dilemma by limiting a nation's capabilities for cross-border attack, improving its capacity to resist aggression, and discouraging arms races...

...Greater reliance on the reserves would serve the goals of both economy and democracy...

...Progressives, by contrast, have been badly overtaken by events...

...I begin from the premise that military force is sometimes justified and that the problem of war does not arise solely because of the policies of any single state or group of states...

...Role of the United Nations The left has usually denied that U.S...

...Second, nations can negotiate measures that selectively limit those weapons most vital to large-scale offensive action...

...But a progressive military policy is both possible and necessary — necessary to the achievement of progressive goals and to the credibility of the left in American politics...

...Today a centrist Democrat occupies the White House...

...One measure of this ambition is the current plan to deploy a force of nearly five Army divisions anywhere in the world in eight weeks...

...His defense policies are barely distinguishable from those of his conservative Republican predecessor...

...However, the UN is far from ready to assume such a role, and most nations are not yet prepared to cede it to the UN...

...Two current issues illustrate the point: the question of "activereserve mix" in the United States military and the debate over armed forces roles and missions...

...To support the defense of Western Europe, the United States needed active duty forces that could move into combat in days and weeks rather than the months necessary to mobilize reserve forces...

...Putting more emphasis on reserves would not only save tens of billions of dollars a year, it would also put a constraint on the capacity of political leaders to go to war without the backing of the American people...

...I also assume that the mere existence of complicating factors—domestic repression, dirty hands—cannot excuse aggression, or strip the victim country of its right to self-defense, or relieve a group of nations of the moral responsibility to aid victims of aggression...

...In 1993 General Colin Powell used a semantic distinction to dismiss this issue, stating that "America has one air force—the U.S...

...This is particularly true if Nation A's defense strategy calls for a retaliatory offensive against Nation B. Strong offensive capabilities may make Nation A feel more secure, but they will make Nation B feel less secure, with a number of undesirable consequences: (1) tensions will increase if Nation B reciprocates with an offensive strategy of its own...

...Yet instability and conflict continue to beset many regions of the world...

...interests in the post–cold war world and mindful of other national needs, we can find a large area of very reasonable strategy options for the left to counterpoise...

...Once was during the Vietnam era, as people began to feel that the real threat was not a distant communism, but rather the continuation of a costly and dangerous war that they neither supported nor understood...

...Defensive Restructuring In international relations theory, the security dilemma posits that measures to improve one nation's security will tend to diminish another's...

...Although often supportive of greater reliance on the UN, the left has been unable to address many of the practical problems that recent experience has revealed...

...The Future of Armed Forces Reserves Only in recent years has the United States maintained large professional standing armies in peacetime...

...This is a positive direction for United States foreign policy...

...Worse yet, they can give the appearance of lack of concern for the lives of American soldiers and the security of the nation...

...This sense of insecurity also stirs a desire for a moral force in the world— something that can respond to aggression and contain the madness of war...

...and (3) military competition will stimulate increased acquisition of armaments and increased investment in military technology...

...Operation Desert Storm was the fastest largescale logistics feat in history...

...But it does mean that whenever the left relates to military policy, it relates as an outsider...

...Many on the left, however, admit exceptions: the Second World War, or, currently, intervention in Bosnia or Haiti...

...From the perspective of national interest, however, continuation of the status quo has nothing to do with maintaining a quality fighting force and everything to do with squandering scarce resources...

...The proponents of large active forces who now dominate policy making argue that the reserves are not prepared for combat maneuver missions in the first several months of a crisis...

...However, in the new international environment even significantly 462 • DISSENT smaller active forces can hold a defensive line until reserves are ready to be deployed...

...Left advance requires supplementing the familiar reactive stance of protest with a positive vision of a military policy for the United States...

...And because this approach seeks to build on the inherent strengths of a defensive posture, it can provide security at lower cost...

...After the Second World War large Soviet forces remained in Eastern Europe...

...The first is an effort to effect structural guarantees that armed forces will be properly used—that is, with restraint and for truly defensive ends...

...The left, however, remains conspicuously absent from the policy discussion...

...Comprehensive defensive restructuring for global or inter-regional military powers, such as the United States, Britain, France, or Russia, is a special issue...

...Instead, the most fundamental cause of war today is the anarchic international system in which states are free to pursue their interests by means of military force...

...An effort to achieve any positive end in military policy must respect this area of policy as an integrated whole...

...Several avenues of defensive restructuring can be encouraged through arms control, arms transfer, and military assistance policies...

...Twice in recent times the American left succeeded in defining the public terms of security policy discourse...

...it will move down only 3 percent from its 1990 level of 65 percent...

...But without a comprehensive vision of how a military should operate, budget cutting arguments remain fundamentally weak...

...2) instability will grow as disproportionate investments in offensive capabilities make the defenses of both nations less reliable...

...We require a transitional security policy—one that attends to immediate security concerns using the tools at hand while forging new tools that can carry the world into a realm of greater freedom...

...At best, the left has an inclination on military issues—and that inclination has been consistently anti-military...

...interventions...

...Within this system all states, big and small, exist in some degree of basic insecurity...

...The United States military is a very large, multipurpose, and complex institution...

...Although these efforts to deny options to political elites have been partially successful, they have not brought about lasting improvements in the political prospects of the left...

...Today the world stands poised between a past in which nations sought to ensure their security primarily through armed deterrence and exclusive military alliances and a future in which inclusive global agencies and nonmilitary means can play the leading role in guaranteeing the peace...

...The next level of development of a global security apparatus may be the creation of a multinational "peacemaking" force under UN command...

...Nevertheless, a process that moves beyond the singular prerogative of U.S...

...National strategies, by design, are very general statements, but they set the framework for debate...

...Addressing the problems of service autonomy, rivalry, and redundancy would help us to lower defense expenditures and to field an effective fighting force...

...With more countries involved in coalition decision making, war objectives will probably be more limited and large-scale intervention less frequent...

...This strategy, which reflects the low probability that the United States will have to fight two wars at once, left the door open to a reduction in force size...

...But we can be certain no progressive will be elected unless the American people are convinced that the left takes their security concerns seriously...

...Finally, arms-exporting nations can agree to limit the transfer of offense-oriented systems, while leaving uncontrolled the transfer of systems vital to defense...

...While progressives have remained fixated on achieving savings by challenging the cost effectiveness of individual weapon systems, they have paid far less attention to the much larger problem of structural redundancy...

...Would a UN force that is truly multinational be able to act in an efficient and timely fashion...

...However, Aspin was immediately attacked from the right, and he retreated to a formula of "fighting and winning two wars near simultaneously," and Clinton has since pledged not to reduce forces below the levels recommended in the Bottom Up Review...

...The Roles and Mission Debate Closely related to the issue of active—reserve "force mix" is the issue of armed forces roles and missions—the allocation of combat tasks among the various service branches...

...Emblematic of this problem is the existence of four United States air forces...

...Whether or not the left is up to this challenge depends on its capacity to outgrow its old habits of thought...

...Despite the continuing preference of U.S...

...But despite the left's consistent attention to military matters, it lacks a coherent approach to military policy...

...As a further confidence-building measure such defensive support missions should be strictly multinational in character and under the auspices of global agencies...

...Being a good chairman, Powell sought to close an issue that could set off a revolt of generals and admirals...

...Political Importance of Military Policy The American left has played a leading role in objecting to the abusive exercise of American military power...

...it took twelve weeks to deploy such a force then...

...The definition of roles is particularly important in evaluating structural redundancies among the services...

...On several occasions it has made a critical difference: Vietnam is the most prominent recent example...

...Both the Vietnam War and the Reagan administration's nuclear extremism provided an opening for the left...

...Such forces could be refashioned for "defensive support" missions with the aim of bolstering the defenses of smaller nations threatened by aggression...

...What matters is how the units are put together, the operational doctrine, and the national strategy...

...Finally, a progressive military policy would aim to meet today's defense needs in ways that help create global conditions in which nations can confidently attempt a general demilitarization...

...First, nations can move in informal concert to modernize their armed forces along nonoffensive lines...

...The new strategy seeks to better by one-third the Desert Storm deployment time...

...In this way, it increases the scope of diplomacy and helps create an atmosphere of trust without compromising national security...

...then fight and win the second...

...forces...

...Such reactive stances only serve to undercut the left's moral credibility...

...The election of a progressive who would set a fundamentally different course is a distant prospect...

...Defensive wars are almost always fought in a "hold-win" sequence, the allied strategy in the FALL • 1994 • 461 Second World War being a prominent twentiethcentury example...

...The concept of a defensively oriented military represents a break with the dominant trend in security policy, which stresses punitive deterrence and, in the event of war, a quick transition to large-scale offensive action...

...The left has often stood ready to restrain military power, cut military spending, and support alternative global and nonmilitary security mechanisms...

...Today that debate is more open than at any time in recent history...

...The set of policies applicable to it is correspondingly large and complex, covering issues of national military strategy, doctrine, operational concepts, force size, force structure, roles, missions, military modernization, and personnel...

...Should deterrence fail, it would seek to contain and exhaust aggression while avoiding escalation...

...We can expect that through the practice of multilateralism norms of intervention and coalition warfare will develop, although at first these will not be codified as law or applied consistently...

...This is an appealing goal, but its realization will likely require both the prior evolution of global security agencies and a broad-based defensive restructuring of national militaries...

...The other time was during the Nuclear Freeze movement, when people began to perceive that the real threat to life and morality was the extremism of their own government...

...Unless they are addressed, the prospects for a FALL • 1994 • 463 significant global peacemaking force will wither under a barrage of "realist" skepticism...

...The left has an opportunity to speak out for the ideal of a citizens' army or militia—in today's form, the National Guard and other service reserves...

...There is no tradition in the American left of argument about any of these issues—although it is at this level of discourse that military capabilities and budgets are determined...

...By default, conservatives have controlled public debate about the great question of post–cold war national strategy...

...Left opposition to military priorities has most often been expressed as a consistent opposition to new weapon purchases...

...Second is an effort to ensure that the maintenance of a strong military is met in ways consistent with progress toward other national goals—such as fiscal responsibility and the meeting of human needs...

...Nonetheless, current planning keeps the active force component at nearly the same proportion as during the cold war...

...Hence, in this view, it would have been proper for the United States, France, and England to come to the aid of Poland when it was attacked by Nazi Germany even though the Polish regime was at the time a dictatorship and even though the United States, France, and England were far short of benevolent in their international relations...

...Given the low level of objective threats to U.S...

...Rigorous defensive restructuring would involve a dramatic rollback in their capabilities and entail their abstention from unilateral military activism...

...it relates as though the realm of military policy is unremittingly hostile to progressive values...

...For the most part the left has filled this opening with a combination of facile anti-militarism that asserts that there are no real military threats and a reflexive anti-interventionism that seems ready to abandon weak nations to the aggression of others...

...An affirmative answer is possible, but it depends on deepening the discussion of organizational and operational issues...

...A comprehensive military policy from the left can assuage people's fears and offer progress toward a higher moral ground...

...The underlying assumption is that large combat forces must be ready to go on the offensive early in a future war...

...Air Force . .. other services have aviation arms...

...Left and right continually contend to define the source of insecurity and the nature of that moral force...

...Among the problems facing a UN command are issues of command and control, doctrine, division of labor, and cooperation among diverse national armed forces...

...To address concerns about military hegemony, the major powers could design their defensive support units to be structurally dependent on the defensive forces of host nations...

...In 1992 Colin Powell, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George Bush, drafted a new national strategy, now largely accepted by the Clinton Pentagon...

...Seeking the capacity for an early offensive "win" option in two theaters is radically ambitious and extravagant...

...So far the "realist" and "unilateralist" opposition to UN development has monopolized the discussion of these issues...

...Nonetheless, the major powers could begin 464 • DISSENT limiting their offensive forces in a number of stabilizing ways...

...FALL • 1994 • 465...

...If indeed there are, from a progressive perspective, instances when the resort to military action is justified, then it is incumbent on the left to join the debate on when and how force should be used...

...This is a complex mix, but it is not so complex that it defies meaningful analysis or policy development...

...These concerns do not reflect a simple or precise calculation...

...An effective armed force needs to be able to carry out tactical defense and offense and must have the requisite units, weaponry and training...

...It would also help open a debate about national strategy and the proper use of military forces...

...My point, however, is that progress toward these ends (1) requires a comprehensive engagement with military policy, and (2) cannot be achieved apart from an effort to ensure that the military remains able to fulfill the fundamental function of deterring and defeating aggression...

...power toward global norms of acceptable behavior represents progress and a significant opening for the left...

...leaders for the freedom of unilateral action, America's declining economic power and global trends toward interdependent international relations make multilateralism increasingly attractive in the post—cold war era...