Navy Chief: After These Wars End, Come See Us

[unhappycamper]

Navy Chief: After These Wars End, Come See Us
By Spencer Ackerman
October 12, 2010 | 2:27 pm

University of Chicago professor Robert Pape has a provocative thesis: If you want to stop suicide terrorism, stop putting U.S. troops in other people’s countries. Admiral Gary Roughead, the head of the Navy, likes where this is headed.

In a Washington speech that Pape introduced, the U.S.’ top naval officer said the Navy was “fully committed” to supporting the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But after the U.S. involvement there comes to a close, he said, it’ll be the Navy that takes point in defending the country once again.

The basic idea Pape promotes is called “offshore balancing,” and it means that the U.S.’s long-term security interests are better served by keeping troops near unstable or failed states but not actually stationing them there, where their presence provokes local resentment — and, ultimately, violent resistance. That’s the conclusion of his new book, Cutting The Fuse, which finds that keeping ground and tactical air forces in insurgent-contested countries motivated 87 percent of documented suicide attacks since 2004. (You can check his work in an online database he established.)

So if the Army — and, to some degree, the Air Force — are problematic instruments of long-term security, who does that leave? You guessed it. Roughead called the case for an offshore-balancing strategy “compelling” and dismissed the idea that it’s “inherently anti-engagement even isolationist,” pointing to the fact that the Navy’s already deployed all over the world putting a version of it into practice. Offshore balancing doesn’t look timid to either Somali pirates or the Chinese navy, for instance.

“Naval forces preserve both the option and the capability to deliver decisive force in the event instability becomes disorder,” Roughead said in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center. “An offshore balancing approach can afford our forces protection in the fullest sense of the term, as they execute the security and assistance missions our nation has asked of them.”

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. thank you Captain Mahan

for that little lesson in history repeating

[zipplewrath]

2. Sounds good but...

Aircraft carriers are basically offshore military bases. He's basically calling for more carrier battle groups. That's expensive. I understand what he is getting at, but ultimately he is arguing for a different form of force projection. We may need to think about the real need, and the dangerous incentives to us of, imposing our authority around the world. This methodology got started as part of the "containment" policy with respect to dictitorial communism and it isn't clear it is still required or desireable.

[Mudoria]

3. It's true Carrier groups are expensive

but on the other hand it's a lot less expensive than having thousands of troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also serve as excellent stations for special forces units which would be quite capable of taking on many problems that need to be dealt with.

[zipplewrath]

4. It depends upon what he is envisioning

Trying to maintain a battle force large enough to execute a battle plan in Iraq and Afghanistan, compeletly off shore, would approach the impossible. And anything close would require us to double the number of battle groups. I suspect he is intimating this approach only for smaller efforts, such as off shore of Yemen and Somalia. And I'm dubious he is suggesting we leave Okinowa.

[bherrera]

5. What problems need to be dealt with?

The question I ask myself: what problems do Americans like you see that need to be dealt with by brute force?

From the view point of an European, I see you guys as a violent imperialistic warmongering brutal people. I do not mean to insult, but you do have a serious problem. And the funny thing is, these military guys you have are worthless. They can't win a single war. If you think you WON, that's because you are brainwashed. You Americans NEVER win. Everytime you start a war, in the end history shows your country is worse. Think about it.

It is so nazi of you guys to debate the methods you will use to impose brute force on the world. And then you wonder why people hate you and US embassies have to be like fortresses.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

9. pretty funny, considering from whence

we learned it, huh?

[Sherman A1]

6. As long at the Carriers can protect themselves

this is a valid argument. The problem comes with advances in weaponry (missiles) that will push them farther out to sea or make vulnerable to a potential opposing force (think China here).

[unhappycamper]

8. Have any of you guys been looking at the price tag for new carriers?

The new USS Gerald R Ford (the new Ford-class) is going to cost somewhere between $16 to $40 billion dollars, compared to the $4.5 billion dollars Nimitz-class carriers cost prior to the G.H.W. Bush.

And that's just the price for the floating thing; airplanes and people are extra, as is the Carrier Battle Group.

[old mark]

7. The Navy historically has had to sell itself in peacetime. In the 1920's and '30's

used to engage in air races and all sorts of fleet exercises competing against each other for points...eventually, this became less of a competition than a pre-arranged movement that guaranteed that no commander would look bad. The Navy made their "training" so Officer friendly that they was little real value to it. Many careers were enhanced and many days sailed at great cost to the taxpayers and little good effect to the crews. Despite all this, much of the Navy was unprepared for WWII, especially in the Pacific...The Atlantic fleet had haad some actual experience escorting convoys to Europe.

The Navy should be smaller, more efficient, and better trained in REAL situations. It has served us well - we should do right by those who are serving by giving them realistic training and proper, functional equipment to help them survive real combat.

mark