Cut defense

We can afford to field fewer troops

Americans need to pay close attention to Washington in coming months to be sure we don’t get dragged unnecessarily into another war, this time possibly against a truly formidable opponent.

Two bright and shining warning signals turned up last Thursday.

First was the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee of Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., whom President Barack Obama has nominated as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Appearing before warmonger and committee chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and reflecting U.S. military nostalgia for an enemy who required expensive equipment to fight, Mr. Dunford deemed Russia an “existential threat to the United States” and called its recent activities “alarming.”

Any head-scratching that this alarmist assessment might have stimulated, among the senators or the public, was overshadowed by the reporting the same day of the Obama administration’s intention to cut U.S. Army force levels from 490,000 to 450,000 by 2017, with the possibility of more cuts if budget “sequestration” continues as a means of taming federal deficits.

The Dunford-McCain thesis runs that if we make these cuts — part of a longawaited peace dividend — the Russians will get us. This is silly, but it is fully consistent with Pentagon and arms industry efforts to scare Americans into continuing to shell out enormous sums of money for “defense,” as opposed to meeting the urgent need to fix our roads, bridges and schools and to provide other public services.

The Pentagon has cleverly put military facilities in the districts of virtually every member of Congress so our lawmakers feel obliged to fight to retain them, no matter what. Arms companies and others who benefit from having military installations in their regions also are generous contributors to the political campaigns of the legislators in question.

A prime case in point in Pittsburgh is the ongoing fight to protect the presence of the 911th Airlift Wing. It is a little hard to argue that its being located here is vital to the defense of the United States, Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh. But it does bring some money in and gives us and our legislators a stake in the Defense Department budget.

In fact, it would not be difficult to see where cutting troop levels could take place without damage to U.S. national security. Gen. Dunford argued, for example, that the 3,300 U.S. troops in Iraq are enough now but more might be needed. Does anyone without a stake in that game believe U.S. troops can make events in Iraq come out even vaguely desirable to the United States? It is a stormy center of fighting among the Shiites running the Iraqi government, the Sunnis opposed to it (including those in the Islamic State), the Kurds and a large collection of tribal militias. All the U.S. presence there does is prolong the fighting.

Then there are the nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The 14-year war there has left a shaky government, the Taliban, the Islamic State and another motley array of tribal militias led by warlords. U.S. efforts to train a national army have stumbled miserably.

We could free up another 5,000 or so troops by returning to the situation before President George W. Bush created an Africa command in 2008. We now have a base replete with fighter-bombers and drones in the tiny African country of Djibouti. We still have a certain number of forces chasing the Lord’s Resistance Army, a small group of murderous religious zealots, around Central Africa. Back in 1994 I thought there should be an Africa command. My calculation didn’t account for what appears to be the irresistible growth of American military commands. Now, I think we could easily dispense with that one.

We also could easily cut some or all of the 50,000 U.S. forces in Germany and 55,000 in Japan, 70 years after World War II, as well as the 28,500 in South Korea, 62 years after that war. Let Germany, Japan and South Korea, all wealthy countries, see to their own defense, and pay for it.

Thus, I don’t see an 8 percent reduction in U.S. Army force levels as alarming at all. America has always been able to mobilize to meet a real threat — as opposed to imaginary ones such as ragtag separatists in Ukraine backed by Russia — quickly and effectively. See, as examples, World Wars I and II.

I see as desirable, not alarming, “threats” to the defense budget that would help put America’s finances in order. I just wish that enough of the senators who heard Gen. Dunford would see it that way and reject his nomination. He and Mr. McCain make a real team. Of course, Mr. Obama nominated Gen. Dunford and is, in principle, commander-inchief of our forces.