Bulging muscles won’t win the next war

By David Hackworth

In 1631, Gen. Tilly’s imperialist Roman Catholic army was whipped by
a significantly smaller force under the command of King Gustavus
Adolphus.

For more than 200 years, the formations Tilly fielded that day — the
Tercios — had dominated the battlefield. But Gustavus had secretly
developed a lean, agile army that struck like lightning — employing
combined-arms teams of artillery and infantry led by a new breed of
leaders. Not only did Gustavus win, he revolutionized how wars were
fought.

For all of its awesome power, the Tercio was an obsolete,
muscle-bound organization — no match for a more flexible opponent. Only
after his butt was kicked did Gen. Tilly realize his Tercio structure
wasted manpower, was redundant and could not compete with Gustavus’
streamlined killing machine.

Replace the name “Tercios” with the U.S. armed forces and you’ll have
a clear snapshot of our military in year 2000. An obsolete, bloated,
top-heavy force still structured to fight the Cold War. An outfit that
won’t cut it in the totally different kinds of wars we’ll be waging this
century.

A truism of war is either change with the times or get whipped.
Remember Kasserine Pass? Remember Vietnam?

And look at our recent track record:

In the war with Iraq, it took the Pentagon five months to field a
tank-heavy army that, once deployed, refought World War II — mass
bombing, units on line and virtually every movement controlled by the
top. In the end, Saddam Hussein and his army escaped. And nine years
later that unfinished war may be back on page 1 tomorrow.

Similarly, In the recent dust-up with Serbia, it took the U.S. Army
six weeks to move a 5,000-man force to Albania — a force which then
proved incapable of fulfilling the hype the Pentagon had put out about
what was going to happen to the Serbs when it got there. The air
campaign was just as ineffective. Even with smart weapons — which
missed 50 percent of their targets — and twice as much air power than
was initially tasked for the job, air power blew it. After being struck
by more bomb tonnage than Ike used against the Nazis at Normandy, the
third-rate Serbian army was able to withdraw from the field in fighting
shape. It still remains a threat to peace in the Balkans.

Future warfare demands that to win tomorrow, we must invest today in
information-age weaponry and develop flexible forces that are light and
agile, lean and mean, with max muscle and minimum flab.

In short, we need a military that’s as modern and mobile as an FBI
SWAT squad.

But neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush has spelled out how to do what
Gustavus had the smarts to do 369 years ago. Both talk about throwing
more money at the Pentagon but give few concrete details about how
they’ll reshape the nation’s military for future battles.

Both presidential candidates need to know that money isn’t the
answer, even though it’s pure heroin to their porker supporters.
Instead, they need to come up with a bold, clear vision to rid the
Pentagon of the blubber and bureaucracy and get our defenses ready to
meet the challenges of the 21st century.

What’s needed is to execute ideas that have been floating around for
decades, ideas such as:

  • Consolidating our ground forces.

  • Getting rid of the Air Force, returning tactical air to the
    ground and Naval commanders.

  • Reorganizing the Reserves.

  • Reducing the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1,000
    self-perpetuating bureaucrats to no more than 10 aides.

  • Replacing the highly political Joint Chiefs of Staff with a
    permanent General Staff of seasoned professionals from all services who
    would deal with all strategic planning and operations.

  • Cutting the officer corps by at least 50 percent.
  • Consolidating all intelligence services.

  • Forming functional forces to handle administration, training,
    logistics, support, tactical and strategic tasks.

The Pentagon spends more than the rest of the world combined on
our military — preparing for the wrong war and in the process taking
care of the porkers and the generals’ retirement jobs.

Reforming the Defense Department should have at least the same
priority as cleaning up Social Security, education and the environment.
If we’re whipped on the battlefield, those programs won’t mean zilch to
the victors. Or to us.

David Hackworth

Col. David H. Hackworth, author of "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts," "Price of Honor" and "About Face," saw duty or reported as a sailor, soldier and military correspondent in nearly a dozen wars and conflicts -- from the end of World War II to the fights against international terrorism. Read more of David Hackworth's articles here.