Debates about whether to cut military spending always lead me back to the Korean peninsula, and June 25, 1950, when 135,000 North Korean troops swarmed into South Korea, quickly capturing its capital before the U.S. could even respond.
A little less than five years from the end of World War II, the U.S. military had been demobilizing, and wasn’t fully prepared, with either personnel or equipment, to immediately blunt the invasion. It would take three years, and more than 54,000 U.S. troop deaths and about twice as many war wounded to essentially reach a stalemate that exists to this day.
Now the Army has announced it will trim the force of 490,000 to 450,000.
And there could be more cuts on the way.
“If no change takes place regarding sequestration spending caps scheduled to return scheduled Oct. 1, the Army’s end-strength will be further reduced to 420,000 soldiers by the end of fiscal 2019,” according to the Pentagon.
That would represent a total loss of 150,000 soldiers from the regular Army, a 26-percent cut over a seven-year period, according to the Pentagon.
All this at a time when the world is a pretty volatile place, with top military leaders now expressing a greater worry over Russia and its actions in Ukraine, then they do over what’s taking place in Iraq and Syria with the Sunni jihadi group that calls itself Islamic State. And they are still pretty worried about those places, along with the Pacific, Africa and pretty much anyplace you want to pick on the globe
It was against this backdrop that I reached out to Mark Moyar, who until last month was an instructor at U.S. Special Operation Command’s Joint Special Operations University.
With so much at stake at such a perilous time, I like to talk to people with a wide spectrum of beliefs and backgrounds to help inform my reporting.
At the university, located for now just outside the gates of MacDill Air Force Base (a new building, inside the gates, is under construction), Moyar taught a course on the history of special operations.
He was in town a few weeks back, giving officials from Socom and U.S. Central Command, along with some of their foreign partners, an overview of his latest book — “Strategic Failure: How President Obama’s Drone Warfare, Defense Cuts, and Military Amateurism Have Imperiled America.”
I’ve never really been a believer in the old adage of how you can’t judge a book by its cover, and the title of Moyar’s book is further proof. In 387 pages, including footnotes and index, Moyar makes it clear how he feels about the Obama administration’s foreign and military policies.
He’s not a fan.
In a nutshell, the book chides what Moyar says is Obama’s overly heavy use of the light-footprint approach — commandos and drones to take out bad guys. That, plus myopia in places like Libya and Yemen, and dithering in places like Syria, has left the world a mess and the nation at greater risk, Moyar argues.
A well-annotated compendium of the past six years, with an addendum dealing with the rise of Islamic State, the book reads like a review of a lot of what I’ve either covered or followed since taking on this beat.
Moyar, who has consulted for senior leaders at both Centcom and Socom, says that during his visit to MacDill, he “talked about my frustration with the administration’s policy” and how that led him to write the book.
It is a frustration that he says many in the military share, but can’t openly voice, which is a big reason he left the university.
“We talked about the difficulty of criticizing administration policy from within the military,” Moyar says. “But I have been fortunate in that I had another opportunity. People in the military can’t easily find another job.”
Now with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Moyar says that “I think the frustration is high,” pointing to his own anecdotal information and a poll last December by Military Times that showed Obama has a 15 percent approval rating among the troops.
Part of that discontent, Moyar points out, has to do with issues like pay and benefit cuts and even the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell preclusions against gays and lesbians openly serving.
“But there is a fair amount of sentiment that the President has put political considerations, partisan politics, before national security,” Moyar says. “There is also a sense that the administration is not comfortable with, or adept at using military force.”
Much of the book hinges on how the use of drones, while taking out some jihadi leaders, has ultimately limited effect, often creating more enemies because the intelligence needed to carry out a successful strike is often not available. That’s a factor that is becoming increasingly alarming as the U.S. has lost its ground presence in Yemen, for example. The book also examines how, despite the success of missions like the one that took out Osama bin Laden, special operations is not a panacea.
Speaking of special operations, Moyar agrees with those worried that cuts to the services could adversely affect commandos.
Moyar points out that Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Ray Odierno has said that the readiness of Army units has already suffered.
“Fewer regular Army soldiers will make it more difficult for SOF to get the people they need,” Moyar says.
Interestingly, our conversation came a week before I reported about a Government Accountability Office report suggesting that, as good as special forces are, perhaps the conventional forces can take some of the burden off that force. And that, though the services contribute about $8 billion on top of Socom’s nearly $10 billion annual budget, nobody really seems to have a handle on what the service contribute actually is.
Moyar shares my concerns about the lessons of Korea.
“We are making the same mistakes again,” he says. “I do think we have a pretty consistent record of having to get into wars we are not expecting and we are not hoping to fight.”
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The Pentagon announced no new troop deaths in support of ongoing operations last week.
There have been 2,347 U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, seven in support of the anti-ISIS campaign Operation Inherent Resolve, and two U.S. troop deaths and one civilian Department of Defense employee death in support of the follow-up Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan.