The Next War

You all know the old adage that Generals are always preparing to fight the last war.  Like most adages, it’s largely true.

As a side note, possibly the best exception to the rule is the military’s preparation to fight Desert Storm.  We had pretty much the right equipment, tactics, and mindset for that conflict before the conflict started.  We were prepared.  Of course, one could make a legitimate argument that the preparations for Desert Storm were the result of having prepared for the old Soviet Union conflict rather than correctly anticipating the future Desert Storm and that the resulting match between forces and warfare needs was more fortuitous than predicted.  Moving on …

If the adage is generally correct, what is today’s military and Navy preparing to fight – the last “war” of neverending low end conflict or the next war, whatever that might be?

Let’s start with the easier question – what are we preparing for.  Our preparations are fairly clear and straightforward.  We’re downsizing our explosive power and armor in favor of lightness, mobility, and information (networks and data/sensor sharing).  The Marines are shedding tanks and artillery, ignoring amphibious assault, and focusing on expeditionary aviation and aviation based light infantry operations.  That’s clearly a terrorist, low end, third world focus which is exactly the “war” we’ve been fighting for the last two decades. 

On the Navy side, we’re focused on increasing the numbers of low end, light vessels like the LCS, JHSV, and LPD-17 while shedding Aegis cruisers, frigates, and large amphibious ships.  Air wings are shrinking, the fleet is steadily shrinking, and explosive combat power is vanishing.  The Navy is clearly moving from a combat force to a presence force which is what we’ve been doing for the last two decades.

On a more general level, we’re increasing the number of women in combat, increasing our diversity efforts, focusing on sexual assault prevention, changing titles to eliminate “man” from them, requiring sensitivity training, and debating women’s uniforms.  Honestly, I’m not sure what war this is preparing us for!

So, our actions make it clear that we’re preparing to fight the last war, meaning a continued focus on low end, anti-terrorist, anti-insurgency, peacekeeping, and democracy building with a dash of social engineering thrown in.  We are living proof of the “preparing to fight the last war” adage. 

Recognizing the trap we’ve fallen into, what war should we be preparing to fight?  Well, that’s the challenge, isn’t it?  It’s easy to see the last war but it’s harder to predict the next war, right?  Wrong!  It’s easy to see the next war(s) coming.  All we have to do is ask ourselves,

1. Who’s mad at us?
2. Of those that are mad at us, who has, or is building, a credible military force?
3. Of those that are mad at us and have a credible military force, who has a demonstrated set of actions and goals that conflict with our interests?

The countries remaining at the end of that simple set of questions will be the ones that constitute the next-war possibilities.

Who’s mad at us?  Perhaps an easier question is to ask who isn’t?  The list of countries and entities that are mad at us is long.  Aside from the obvious answers of Iran, NKorea, Russia, and China, we have to add several Central and South American countries, several African countries, every Middle East country to varying degrees, Pakistan, India (from time to time), Philippines, Japan (wherever our military comes in contact with their civilians), every terrorist organization (by definition!), the entire Islamic faith, and others.

Well that didn’t narrow things down much!

Of those countries and entities that are mad at us, which ones have, or are building, a credible military force?  This is where the list begins to narrow rapidly.  Only Iran, NKorea, Russia, Japan, China, and India have credible forces.

Finally, of those countries who are mad at us and have credible military forces, which ones have demonstrated actions and goals that conflict with our interests?  That leaves Iran, NKorea, Russia, and China.  This is our set of potential next-war possibilities.

Iran barely qualifies as having a credible military threat.  Further, they seem content with tweaking America when they can and funding terrorism.  They are probably the least likely to initiate an actual war.  Of course, when they obtain nuclear weapons this assessment will change given the fanatical and zealot nature of their leaders.  The most likely future with regards to Iran is an endless series of small scale confrontations though we could be dragged into a war on behalf of Israel.

NKorea has a credible, though low end, military and possesses nuclear weapons though without a reliable delivery system.  NKorea’s actions are generally contained and limited although that assessment has to be tempered by the realization that their leader is mentally unstable.  As with Iran, war is relatively unlikely although smaller scale confrontations will continue.

China has a peer level military that is on track to surpass us in the relatively near future.  Disturbingly, their near term goals of seizing the entire South and East China Seas and every disputed territory, combined with their longer term goals of recapturing Taiwan and their poorly concealed interest in the second island chain and, eventually the entire Pacific, put them on a collision course with the US.  Add to that their demonstrated willingness to physically confront the US and eventual war seems inevitable.

Russia has a near-peer military but is a bit of an unknown in that their long term goals are yet unclear.  Unfortunately, it looks as though Russia will not be content with the few territories already seized.  Russia appears to be preparing to seize the Black Sea and Baltic Sea, operating bases in Syria to support further Middle East expansion, and is solidifying their hold on the far eastern territories and the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea.  The unanswered question is whether Russia will continue to seize territories and expand west and south into Europe.  At the moment this appears somewhere between possible and likely.  Further, like China, Russia has clearly demonstrated a willingness, almost enthusiasm, to engage in confrontation with the US.  They clearly are not deterred by US military, political, or economic power.  While eventual war with Russia seems less inevitable than is the case with China, war is certainly possible.

We see, then, that there are two likely war scenarios.  War with China is almost  inevitable and war with Russia is possible.  These, then are the future wars we should be preparing for.  Other wars, such as with NKorea, Iran, South American or African countries, are subsets.  If we’re prepared to handle war with Russia and China then we can handle war with other, lesser militaries.

There, now that wasn’t so hard, was it?  We can see who we’ll have to fight.  The next question is how we’ll have to fight.  Will we have to invade mainland China?  Will we have to drive Russia back to previous boundaries?  Will we have to assault a seized Taiwan?  These are geopolitical strategic questions that must be answered in order for the military to come up with comprehensive operational plans.  Still, there are certain absolutes that transcend specific strategies.

For any kind of conflict with China we will need very long range aircraft and lots of them.  We will need a Navy that can support long range Air Force strikes and conduct their own strikes while suppressing China’s Navy and Air Force.  A war with China will be one fought over vast distances from the air and sea.  Ground combat will be quite limited.  Long range, high explosive missiles will be the predominant weapon.

A war with Russia will be a ground and air war with limited direct naval involvement.  Such a war will be up close and incredibly violent – European WWII combat on steroids.  Heavy armor and artillery will rule the battlefield.  Operational strategy will be subservient to attrition.  Last man standing will decide the victor. 

In both cases, electronic warfare will play a major role.

With all of the above in mind, and knowing, clearly, what the future war will be, why are we still preparing to fight the last war?  It’s clear that the future war requires a vastly different preparation path than we are currently on.  We need heavy tanks, more and heavier artillery, supersonic high explosive missiles (cruise and ballistic), long range air superiority fighters, high end naval forces, etc.  Instead, we’re building LCSs, JHSVs, Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, short range, small payload F-35s, and short range, subsonic anti-ship missiles.

There’s no excuse.  We know what war we should be preparing for.  Let’s start doing it.

I would be remiss to close out this discussion without briefly touching on the Third Offset Strategy.  Let’s be perfectly fair.  Very recently the military has taken the first steps towards planning for the next war.  Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work has imposed his personal vision of future warfare which he calls the Third Offset Strategy.  The cornerstone of this vision is networked sensors and weapons and a heavy focus on unmanned vehicles.  The premise is that superior information will compensate for the lack of numbers and explosiveness that we’ve created for ourselves. 

I give the military leadership some tiny bit of credit for beginning to plan ahead.  Unfortunately, the chosen path of the Third Offset Strategy completely misses the mark as to what wars we will fight and what we will need to fight them.  Work’s personal vision for the next war is as flawed as his championing of the LCS.  Continued pursuit of the Third Offset Strategy is going leave us woefully unprepared for the next war.

I’ve laid out the future for the military.  Now, they need to take heed and begin preparing for it.