CounterPunch: Col. Hackworth's Claymores (Wreck It and Run)

[unhappycamper]

Col. Hackworth's Claymores (Wreck It and Run)
By WILLIAM S. LIND
June 1, 2005

Among the many unhappy developments in American industry in recent decades has been the advent of "wreck it and run" management. A small coterie of senior managers takes over a company and makes a brilliant show of short-term profits while actually driving the business into the ground. They bail out just before it crashes, cashing in their stock options as they go, and leave the employees, ordinary stockholders and customers holding an empty bag.

It is increasingly clear that under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. armed forces have also been taken over by "wreck it and run" management. When Rumsfeld leaves office, what will his successor inherit?

* A volunteer military without volunteers. The Army missed its active-duty recruiting goal in April by almost half. Guard and Reserve recruiting are collapsing. Retention will do the same as "stop loss" orders are lifted. The reason, obviously, is the war in Iraq. Parents don't want to be the first one on their block to have their kid come home in a box.

* The world's largest pile of wrecked and worn-out military equipment (maybe second-largest if we remember the old Soviet Navy). I'm talking about basic stuff here: trucks, Humvees, personnel carriers, crew-served weapons, etc. This is gear the Rumsfeld Pentagon hates to spend money on, because it does not represent "transformation" to the hi-tech, video-game warfare it wrongly sees as the future. So far, deploying units have made up their deficiencies by robbing units that are not deploying, often National Guard outfits. But that stock has about run out, and some of the stripped units are now facing deployment themselves, minus their gear.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/lind06012005.html

[RC]

1. Watisdis comin down to?

The conscripts supplying their own equipment, guns, ammo? Stopping at Wally World to stock up on the needed gear, paying out of their own pocket, before being deployed to where ever? What a way to run a multibillon dollar war.

[bahrbearian]

3. A contractor Army ?

[wakeme2008]

2. Very good piece and

lets all remember the Military President Clinton turned over to B43. Strong and well stocked and with troops.

The one of the most major problems the Dem President in 2008 will face is rebuilding this force.

[necso]

4. Nice piece.

And to continue the theme, we are ruining ourselves economically, politically, socially, militarily and (I would argue) culturally, at a time of (relatively) rapid change -- and the rise of new world powers.

Moreover, at such a time we find ourselves in the hands of a clique of insane clowns -- and in the midst of a great reactionary movement -- and on the back end of many bad decisions.

One could expect those who are not our friends to play this to their advantage.

...Not to mention all those new "unfriends" we are creating as we go along.

Oh well.

[leveymg]

5. Anyone else suspect the wreckage may not be an unintended side-effect?

Look at it this way. The continued existence of the American middle-class -- a population that consumes far more per capita but is less profit generating than any other -- stands in the way of the development paradigm envisioned by the multinationals.

It's no secret that sellers in the American market have to take a real cut in their profit margins because it's highly price competitive and the US currency continues to be overvalued relative to most producing countries.

Add to this that we have an aging population and infrastructure that's becoming very expensive to maintain.

Our level of external indebtedness to GDP now rivals Argentina's, and there is no apparent way that we're going to increase productivity sufficiently to pay it back while maintaining current spending and consumption levels. The US maintains it privileged position by projecting military force and the coercion of our trading partners and debt holders. In short, we are viewed as a predatory threat to the entire global economy.

The solution, if one looks at it as a coldly calculating business decision, would be to hasten the demise of the American middle-class and knock the U.S. off its pedestal. This is accomplished by facilitating the rise of the most clearly incompetent and self-destructive political and commercial elites.

In one Presidential Administration, under such a regime, this country has gone from the world's greatest lender to its most risky creditor. The transfer of wealth, production capacity, and know-how abroad is freeing up sufficient capital to finance the rise of more cost-efficient consumer and worker populations, and -- it is hoped -- will restore profitability to the global economy.

That is, if we don't blow ourselves and the world up.:bounce: