Governor Richardson gave
a major policy speech today that further detailed his position on our military. I will not post the Iraq portion of the speech since it is covered in
this thread and he is repeating his
plan for no residual forces.
He did make his view on Blackwater and other mercenary forces clear.
We must also remove the private mercenaries. As President, I will no longer privatize and outsource American security! By utilizing contractors who are not subject to the rules of war or the regulations of armed forces, George Bush has further undermined America's reputation and global leadership.
Governor Richardson presented some specific ideas on how we should restructure our military to address combating terrorism, securing failed states, and rebuilding nations.
We can strengthen and expand our military through several reforms. We need promotion and selection policies that incentivize learning the skill-sets needed for counter-insurgency, peace-keeping, conflict resolution, and training foreign militaries.
We should create permanent Civil Affairs positions -- troops who bridge the gap between soldiers and civilians -- into all appropriate units, and we should expand Civil Affairs training for all soldiers and Marines likely to interact with foreign nationals.
We must better integrate civilians into our military operations so there is seamless coordination among military, diplomatic and political actions. We need to increase cross-agency tours of duty between the military and other parts of government. The personal relationships and institutional knowledge shared during these tours will strengthen the versatility and effectiveness of our fighting forces.
We also need to make the military more attractive to men and women who have real experience in nation-building and social and economic development. Just as we do for chaplains, doctors and lawyers, professionals with such skills should be able to enter the military as Warrant Officers or at the rank of Captain.
As we reform training and selection, we must reorder our budget priorities. I have produced a plan that includes $57 billion in specific cuts to unnecessary Pentagon spending, such as the V-22 Osprey, freeing up resources for essential needs. We need to invest less in planes and more in people -- less in outdated missiles and more in state-of-the-art troops.
After years of excessive use, we must refit our military's depleted equipment stocks.
We must strengthen laws that protect our deployed Guardsmen and Reservists from losing their jobs and businesses.
...
Our national military effectiveness WILL, however, require more troops in uniform. We should never again hear the phrases stop-loss or extended deployment. We need two more Active Army divisions and one additional Active Marine Corps division. This will expand our military by some 50,000 troops and give us the flexibility we need for 21st century missions.
I'm still digesting what he said about his plan to promote greater ties between the civilian and military branches of our government. On the face, it seems like a good idea as long as the ties remain increased civilian involvement in the military and not increased military involvement in the civilian. He is calling for the former. There just needs to be some protections put in place to make sure that if (God forbid) another neocon takes the presidency in the future can't abuse the increased ties between civilian and military.
He refers to some of his previous speeches where he also provides more detail on the issues of
foreign policy,
nuclear weapons,
Iran, and
terrorism. Richardson outlined most of his proposed defense cuts in a
press release last week. If you're interested follow the links for more detail.
I enjoy reading his speeches. He uses few fluff phrases compared to other politicians and usually fills them with enough details to satisfy the wonkiest of readers.
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