Four-year blueprint for military reflects view Iraq war is an anomaly

[bigtree]

Pentagon Planning Document Leaves Iraq Out of Equation

A four-year blueprint for the military reflects a view that the war is an anomaly. There's talk of robots and drones, but no force buildup.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military24jan24,0,706286.story?coll=la-home-headlines

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has long been accused of always planning to fight its last war. But as the Pentagon assesses threats to national security over the next four years, a major blueprint being completed in the shadow of the Iraq war will do largely the opposite.

The military went into Iraq with a vision that a small, agile, and lightly armored force could win a quick preemptive war. Although the U.S. easily crushed Saddam Hussein's army, the subsequent occupation has proven far costlier in lives, money and international standing than most expected.

As a result, the U.S. military has no appetite for another lengthy war of "regime change."

The Pentagon's last major review in 2001 concluded that the military would be large enough to simultaneously fight two major wars, and be able to carry out "regime change" and occupation in one of the two. In light of the Iraq experience, some in the Pentagon argued last year that this requirement was unrealistic, and advocated a change for the upcoming document.

The new blueprint does include some changes. According to Pentagon officials, it will place a new emphasis on "irregular warfare," typified by the counterinsurgency battles U.S. soldiers and Marines have fought in Iraq since the summer of 2003. The Pentagon review will also endorse a large increase in the number of special operations troops, and more foreign language education and cultural-awareness training for all U.S. troops.

full article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military24jan24,0,706286.story?coll=la-home-headlines


related articles:

The Other Big Brother: The Pentagon has its own domestic spying program.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965509/site/newsweek

Implausible Denial: The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, or OUSD(I) in Pentagonese, was originally conceived by Rumsfeld as a centralizing measure, a way to give him "one dog to kick" rather than a "whole kennel" of individual civilian and uniformed defense intelligence agencies.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040531/vest

[long_green]

1. of course we crushed Iraq's army

That's what a military is for, to fight and defeat the armed forces of other nation states. Period. Everything else is a waste of their training, their equipment, and, of course, their lives.

Wonderful that we're going to respond to this tragedy by having more "irregular warfare" and more spec ops. We'll always have more spec ops. The taxpayer must fund the training of the next generation of super killers so the next generation of private security firms has someone to hire when the gov't gives them huge contracts filled with taxpayer's money.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Inept bunglers to get more money for future bungling.

These jerks and their political bosses should have been fired long ago. They're still trying to kill mosquitoes with sledge-hammers. Very expensive sledge-hammers.

[bigtree]

3. The money comes from within the defense budget

easy to approve a lot of it hidden under the guise of national security. Rumsfeld wants forces that are easily deployable, don't need big, public allocations (or a fanfare of pre-approval) from Congress, and are able to carry on several muckraking missions at once. This meshes with Bush's shuffle of the Pentagon succession line to elevate the new intelligence office over the traditional branches of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The new intelligence office is headed by Rumsfeld's neocon buddy, Stephen Cambone.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. A guy named Himmler did the same thing.

Raised the SS over the heads of the traditional military.

[orwell]

5. Translation...

"The new blueprint does include some changes. According to Pentagon officials, it will place a new emphasis on "irregular warfare," typified by the counterinsurgency battles U.S. soldiers and Marines have fought in Iraq since the summer of 2003."

Hooray. Big new defense contracts for completely different equipment.

Tanks are so pre 9/11. Now drone predator aircraft, that is soooo 21st century.

:eyes:

[bigtree]

6. The robot soldier is coming.

Pentagon has sights on robot soldiers

Major automated force expected within decade

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
February 16, 2005
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050216/news_1n16robot.html

The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the U.S. military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in U.S. history.

By April, an armed version of the bomb-disposal robot will be in Baghdad, capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute. Though controlled by a soldier with a laptop, the robot will be the first "thinking" machine of its kind to take up a front-line infantry position, ready to kill enemies.

The hunter-killer at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center is one of five broad categories of military robots under development. Another scouts buildings, tunnels and caves. A third hauls tons of weapons and gear and performs searches and reconnaissance.

A fourth is a drone in flight; last April, an unmanned aircraft made military history by hitting a ground target with a small smart bomb in a test from 35,000 feet, flying 442 miles an hour. A fifth, originally designed as a security guard, will soon be able to launch drones to conduct surveillance, psychological warfare and other missions.

"They don't get hungry," said Gordon Johnson of the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command. "They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot.

full article: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050216/news_1n16robot.html

[orwell]

7. Coming...

...to a town near you.