Can you hear me now?
From the Sunday Times ...
America's traditional means of projecting power abroad is growing “increasingly obsolete” and its billion-dollar military hardware could be as ineffectual against future threats as the heavily fortified Maginot line was in defending France against the Nazis, a senior Pentagon adviser has warned. In a wake-up call to US military chiefs, Andrew Krepinevich, a leading architect of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, argues that the Pentagon is ill-equipped to counter rising powers such as China, hostile states such as Iran, the threat from irregular forces such as Hezbollah, and terrorists such as Al-Qaeda. It is also wasting billions on weaponry that could be outdated before it rolls off the production line.
In an interview, Krepinevich said the military, like many bureaucracies, was in danger of “drinking its own bathwater” and discounting new challenges, including the proliferation of precision-guided weapons and threats from space and cyberspace. Last week Robert Gates, the defence secretary, rewarded him for his prescience with a seat on the influential defence policy board at the Pentagon. Aircraft carriers, navy destroyers, short-range fighter aircraft and forward bases such as Guam and Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean are becoming increasingly vulnerable to technology and tactics being developed by America’s rivals, Krepinevich argues in the July issue of Foreign Affairs journal.
In an interview, Krepinevich said the military, like many bureaucracies, was in danger of “drinking its own bathwater” and discounting new challenges, including the proliferation of precision-guided weapons and threats from space and cyberspace. Last week Robert Gates, the defence secretary, rewarded him for his prescience with a seat on the influential defence policy board at the Pentagon. Aircraft carriers, navy destroyers, short-range fighter aircraft and forward bases such as Guam and Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean are becoming increasingly vulnerable to technology and tactics being developed by America’s rivals, Krepinevich argues in the July issue of Foreign Affairs journal.
Even new areas of supremacy, such as US dominance of global positioning satellites that guide “smart” bombs to their targets, are becoming a “wasting asset” as states such as China develop the space technology to destroy them. China already has the ballistic missiles and laser technology to destroy low-orbit satellites on which the military depends. Krepinevich claims America should devote more resources to cutting-edge nanosatellites to maintain its technological lead and should invest in missile interceptors and laser energy defences that could counter the threat from adversaries deploying their own “smart” weapons. “Britain came out of the first world war with all the world’s aircraft carriers but fell behind between the wars,” said Krepinevich. “Being the leader doesn’t necessarily help you over time.”
A chilling and prophetic read and it deserves your attention.
