Tomorrow, according to the Associated Press, the Commission on Wartime Contracting will present a bleak assessment of how tens of billions of dollars have been spent since 2001. The 111-page report, according to AP, documents poor management, weak oversight, and a failure to learn from past mistakes as recurring themes in wartime contracting.

The commission’s report is scheduled to be made public Wednesday at a hearing held by the House Oversight and Government Reform’s national security subcommittee.

While this is hardly the first report to document failings of oversight on private contractors it is nevertheless significant, as supposedly the U.S. government has taken significant steps in the past couple of years to improve its management of contractors. Yet apparently, to paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, contractors have numerous promises to keep and the government has years to go before it can sleep comfortably.

Having written a book on this subject I’m sure that much of what the commission will report will sound familiar. U.S. reliance on private sector employees has grown to “unprecedented proportions,” yet the government has no central database of who all these contractors are, what they do or how much they’re paid, the bipartisan commission found.

That is ironic, to say the least, considering the government has devoted much effort the past few years trying to do exactly that. It even created the Synchronized Pre-deployment and Operational Tracker database to track contractors. I know, I know; I’m picturing a government auditor calling, “Here SPOT, here boy.”

Humor aside though this is grim news. Regardless of what one thinks about the pros and cons of using private contractors on the battlefields and in conflict zones one thing is clear, they are not going away.

The Obama administration seems to recognize that contractors are now the American Express card; one does not go to war or do “contingency operations,” to use the favored government euphemism, without them. And if it doesn’t, it will certainly realize it as it conducts its own surge of U.S. military forces to Afghanistan.

This is why the Obama administration is worth watching. It has launched a campaign to change government contracting. In February it introduced a set of “reforms” designed to reduce state spending on private-sector providers of military security, intelligence and other critical services and return certain outsourced work back to government.

It also pledged to improve the quality of the acquisition workforce — the government employees who are supposed to be supervising and auditing the billions of dollars spent monthly on the contracts. If there is one single thing that is needed to make contracting work, that is it.

On the other hand, the White House has also promised to decide what work should stay in government and what’s acceptable to outsource. The introduction to Obama’s budget for 2010 noted, “The administration also will clarify what is inherently a governmental function and what is a commercial one; critical government functions will not be performed by the private sector for purely ideological reasons.”

Good luck with that. Many others have tried and failed. (more…)

Remember way back when, in March 2009, when everyone was so pleased and excited that the Obama administration had announced its “comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” As Mary Hopkin once sang:

Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.

It has been less than two months but the “strategy” is not looking so hot. Right now, policymakers charged with implementing it are probably reaching for an entire bottle of Jack Daniels, as opposed to the glass or two of wine in Hopkin’s song, as they contemplate the AfPak area of operations.

Consider a few news items from just the past week.

Over half a million people have fled the fighting in Pakistan’s Valley, bringing the total number of displaced since August to one million as 125,000 Pakistan soldiers fight a reported 4,000 Taliban militants there. Even assuming the Pakistani military is committed to the fight, something it has promised before but not followed through on, it is unclear whether it will succeed. Pakistanis in the area say the Taliban had so far held on to every neighborhood they had seized in the previous days and months. Witnesses said Friday that the insurgents remained in control of Mingora, the district capital, and many parts of the districts of Buner and Lower Dir.

And, if the Pakistani military does not decisively destroy the Taliban there that will put them far too close for comfort to various Pakistani nuclear facilities. As Leonard Spector Deputy Director of the Monterey Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation wrote:

Taliban fighters will surely be emboldened to probe into government-controlled areas closer to the capital and to several key nuclear sites. Given their enormous political and military salience, the nuclear sites would be particularly appealing targets. Whether government forces would fare any better in protecting these locations than in the Swat Valley would be hard to predict. If a site were overrun, local physical protection measures would mean little.

U.S. military and intelligence officials worry that Taliban forces pushed out of Afghanistan by reinforced U.S. troops this summer will flow unimpeded into Pakistan, as they did during U.S. operations in Afghanistan in 2001.

Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, said in an interview that Pakistan has become the nerve center of al Qaeda’s global operations, allowing the terror group to re-establish its organizational structure and build stronger ties to al Qaeda offshoots in Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, North Africa and parts of Europe. (more…)

I know the topic de jour these days is America’s torture policy, amplified by the recent release of Bush administration torture memos, but let’s not dwell on the past, as rightwing torture apologists, like to phrase it.

Instead let’s return to Afghanistan and Pakistan or Afpak in Washington jargon. Because if it is bad news in war zones that provide flimsy pretexts for torture, then Afpak seems likely to produce plenty in the future.

Let’s start with the under covered statement by Gen. David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command, who spoke at the John F. Kennedy School of Government on April 21. He said, “”We do believe we can achieve progress, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Petraeus. “When you go into the enemy’s sanctuaries, they will fight you for it. There will be tough months ahead, without question,” he said.

“Tough months?” Uh, General Petraeus? You meant tough years, didn’t you? Politico reported April 21 that the Pentagon’s senior military leaders are worried that the security situation in Afghanistan is stalemated or deteriorating, and now are preparing a far-reaching plan that would prepare the U.S. military for a war that could last three to five more years, officials said.

The effort, which is being coordinated by the Joint Staff and is still in its early stages, is designed to create an experienced cadre of officers and senior enlisted soldiers, who would rotate between assignments in Afghanistan and at their home stations until the end of hostilities.

The article goes on to say that “Until now, officers involved say, the Afghanistan war has been a secondary concern for the Pentagon, which has tended to view it as a short-term mission that took a back seat to the war in Iraq.”

Say what? 679 fatalities, and counting, in Operation Enduring Freedom since 2001, for a back seat “short-term mission?” If that really reflects the thinking of the past U.S. military and civilian leadership someone needs to be fired and perhaps court martialed or indicted for gross dereliction of professional responsibility.

Speaking of gross dereliction two weekends ago Afghanistan’s President Harmid Karzai asked Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, to explain allegations of six civilian deaths in two recent incidents. It was the second time in three days Karzai brought up the topic with Gen. David McKiernan.

The United Nations has said a record 2,118 civilians died in the Afghan war last year, a 40 percent increase over 2007. The U.N. said U.S., NATO and Afghan forces killed 829 civilians, or 39 percent of the total. Of those, 552 deaths were blamed on airstrikes. (more…)

Gasp, choke, cough. Ha ha, he he! Wait, control yourself; take deep, regular breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. Ahh, that’s better.

Oh, excuse me, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there. Pardon me but I was busy recovering from the laughing fit I’ve been on since April 6 when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates released the FY 2010 Department of Defense budget request.

With all the doom and gloom prophecies coming from the right wing – cue the grim faced, tight jawed warnings from major military contractors and their think tank and media proxies – (American Enterprise Institute, “Obama and Gates Gut the Military); (Heritage Foundation, An Adequate Defense Budget for a Full-Spectrum Force; (Lexington Institute) one might think that the Obama Administration had done something radical, like actually cutting the military budget.

But of course it did no such thing. What it did do was propose a base budget of $533.7 billion, a four percent increase over FY 2009. That budget was actually $513.3 billion (excluding funding from the American recovery and reinvestment Act of 2009).

In other words, a budget that is higher than last year’s is being falsely depicted as a cut. As they say, only in America.

It is also only $2.3 billion less than the base budget request for FY 2008, which was by the highest in the past five year 2006-2010 time period.

The 2010 budget request does not, of course, include the $83.4-billion war supplemental appropriations request the  White House sent to the Congress on April 9.

What do we get for our money, assuming the budget request is passed as proposed. It won’t, but for the sake of discussion let’s pretend it is.

It will support “additional permanent forces in the Army and Marine Corps, which will increase to 547,400 and 202,000, respectively, by the end of 2009. This growth is two to three years ahead of schedule and will reduce stress on servicemembers and their families, while ensuring heightened readiness for a full spectrum of military operations.”

In other words, it will help provide more forces for the war in Afghanistan.  If you think the war there will be won simply by supplying more conventional forces then it is a good idea.

The budget also states that “DOD’s new weapons programs are among the largest, most expensive and technically difficult that the Department has ever tried to develop. As a consequence, they carry a high risk of performance failure, cost increases, and schedule delays. The Administration will set realistic requirements and stick to them and incorporate “best practices” by not allowing programs to proceed from one stage of the acquisition cycle to the next until they have achieved the maturity to clearly lower the risk of cost growth and schedule slippage.”

This is what all the whining and wailing and gnashing of teeth is about. (more…)

Let the trumpets sound. And let the people rejoice. Let the heralds go forth and proclaim unto the world, we have a brand new bouncing baby strategy. Surely, our future victory in Afghanistan is now assured.

Well, before the heralds all get out of breath perhaps we should pause to consider this new strategy. For it is not as if we didn’t have one before. I’m sure that the Bush administration must have had something posing as a strategy in the six years we have been fighting in Afghanistan. Perhaps it was just hiding in one of Dick Cheney’s undisclosed locations.

But surely President Obama, like the Oracle of Delphi, will do better. Let us consider his vision.

A Regional Approach

For the first time the President will treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as two countries but one challenge. Our strategy focuses more intensively on Pakistan than in the past, calling for more significant increases in U.S. and international support, both economic and military, linked to Pakistani performance against terror. We will pursue intensive regional diplomacy involving all key players in South Asia and engage both countries in a new trilateral framework at the highest levels. Together in this trilateral format, we will work to enhance intelligence sharing and military cooperation along the border and address common issues like trade, energy, and economic development.

Building Capacity and More Training

For three years, the resources that our commanders need for training have been denied because of the war in Iraq. Now, this will change. The 17,000 additional troops that the President decided in February to deploy have already increased our training capacity. Later this spring we will deploy approximately 4,000 more U.S. troops to train the Afghan National Security Forces so that they can increasingly take responsibility for the security of the Afghan people.

In the President’s strategy, for the first time we will fully resource our effort to train and support the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. Every American unit in Afghanistan will be partnered with an Afghan unit, and we will seek additional trainers from our NATO allies to ensure that every Afghan unit has a coalition partner.

Who could possibly be curmudgeonly enough to criticize it? Well, let me be that curmudgeon for a moment. Let’s see, give more help to Pakistan. Well true, we don’t want a nuclear armed state lapsing in chaos so we have a stake in keeping it unified. Of course, that was the same rationale that kept us aiding former President by coup d’état Pervez Musharraf for years, until his resignation last August, and look at how well that worked.

Even worse, nobody seems interested in considering that it was doubtful that al Qaeda would seek to move into Afghanistan as long as it is based in Pakistan and that escalating U.S. drone airstrikes or Special Operations raids on Taliban targets in Pakistan will actually strengthen radical jihadi groups in the country and weaken the Pakistani government’s ability to resist them. (more…)

Last week Michelle Obama made her first major trip as First Lady, to visit with military families at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

In an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America she said she chose the occasion to highlight an issue near and dear to her heart, the struggles of our nation’s military families.

OBAMA: You know, this, this is an important issue for me. And it started taking shape on the campaign trail. I, I think I was like most Americans, pretty oblivious to the life of, of military families. Sort of taking it for granted. I just assumed that if we care about our troops and we send them to war, that naturally, we’d be taking care of their families. … You know, these are people who are willing to send their loved ones off to, perhaps give their lives, the ultimate sacrifice. But yet, they’re living back at home on food stamps. It’s, it’s not right. And it’s not where we should be as a nation.

Of course, this is the sort of thing one would expect a First Lady to say, especially considering that, back when he was a candidate, Barack Obama was criticized for his lack of military service.

Still, regardless of motivation, Mrs. Obama’s words are most welcome. Despite all the blather about supporting out troops since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq U.S. military personnel and their families, a much more important aspect of the military, since the inception of the All Volunteer Force, still live largely in a world apart from the larger civilian world.

But Mrs. Obama might want to note that although the families of those on active duty often have it tough those on active duty often suffer even more. Consider some of the news in the past month.

In Kentucky Fort Campbell officials struggling to stem a recent increase in military suicides hope family members will be able to spot signs that soldiers may be depressed and hesitant to seek help from the Army.

Eight Fort Campbell soldiers have killed themselves since the beginning of the year. Suicides in the Army have increased yearly since 2004 as soldiers deal with longer and repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials at Fort Campbell declared a “state of emergency,” and the Army has also made suicide prevention training mandatory for soldiers and leaders to combat the trend. (more…)

Last Friday President Obama announced his plan for withdrawing U.S. military forces from Iraq. The planned withdrawal, if not graceful, will certainly be overdue, at least to most of his political base, if not to the military itself.

But the devil is always in the details so let’s examine a few. First, announcing a goal is easy, implementing it is difficult. For the military, which never goes anywhere without literally immense amounts of baggage, this means logistics, logistics, logistics.

As this post in Wired’s Danger Room blog notes, “How do you remove from the country in a year and a half 90,000 or so troops, 40,000 aircraft and vehicles, and 80,000 containers (not to mention 100,000 contractors) spread across more than 280 installations in anything approaching an orderly way?”

See also this 2007 article by veteran military reporter David Wood for details.

This is not to say it is impossible. After all U.S. forces withdrew the bulk of its half a million plus forces in a matter of months after Operation Desert Storm in 1991. But back then the U.S. had not constructed numerous huge military bases. Still, if the U.S. really wants to keep the timetable it better kick planning into high gear now.

It is not just a matter of packing up. Assumptions need to be rethought. Consider the February 12 testimony of Janet St. Laurent Managing Director, Defense Capabilities and Management United States Government Accountability Office to the House Armed Services Committee. She said, “with regard to an Iraq drawdown, DOD’s plans will need to consider the fact that some early planning assumptions about the conditions and timing of redeployments may no longer be applicable in light of the SOFA and evolving U.S. strategy.”

Evolving U.S. strategy is code for send more troops to Afghanistan. But if troops are delayed leaving Iraq it will mean delays, perhaps, not immediately, but certainly in the long run, in deploying troops to Afghanistan, due to the need to rotate troops.

And while you may be able to send more troops to Afghanistan in the near term, providing them with all the necessary equipment may be problematic. St. Laurent said:

the availability of equipment may be limited because the Army and Marine Corps have already deployed much of their equipment to Iraq and much of their prepositioned assets also have been withdrawn to support ongoing operations. Similarly, DOD will need to assess its requirements for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to support increased force levels in Afghanistan, given its current allocation of assets to support ongoing operations in Iraq.

(more…)

I have been bemused, to put it politely, by the assertion by various people, many of whom know better, that the recently passed stimulus package should include money for military spending.

I mean, after all, the very last thing the Pentagon needs is to be stimulated to spend more American tax dollars. In its entire history it has never lacked a reason, good or fanciful, for spending money. Indeed, to itemize all its rationales recalls Elizabeth Barret Browning, “Let me count the ways.”

But for some inexplicable reason normally level headed people are giving the Pentagon a share of the stimulus package. Admittedly, it is not a huge share, although how small a few billion is remains an interesting question.

But one of the defenses being trotted out is that military spending will trickle down – yes, right, remind you of anyone – and help create jobs in cities across America.

Look, there are legitimate reasons for spending money on the military. For example a lot of military housing is frankly crappy and should be demolished tomorrow. One might also want to repair or build new hospitals, clinics, child-care centers. But none of this is a secret; it has been known for many years.

But this is why we have something called, wait for it, wait for it, an annual budget. The idea that you should pay for it in a stimulus package is beyond me. Perhaps the Obama administration figures tossing the Pentagon a bone now will make it easier for them later on. Note to administration: appeasement never works.

By the way, if you are confident that any money given to the Pentagon will be well spent you should note that part of the money going there includes $15 million for the office of its Inspector General .

The idea that military spending is an efficient way to create job is laughable. Every other form of non-military governmental spending is more effective. Hiring Dick Cheney to sell shotguns on behalf of the NRA would be better. It is theoretical military Keynesianism, pure and simple, which has long been debunked by all reputable economists. That would exclude the loonies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Even Kim Holmes, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation, wrote last month, “A word of caution. More defense spending is needed, but not as a jobs program, as some defense contractors recommend. That would be bad economics (there are more productive ways to stimulate the economy, like reducing taxes). It also would be a misappropriation of public funds.” That should tell you something. (more…)

Just how badly has America been hurt by eight years of the Bush administration? Let us consider these words:

AMERICA IS in unprecedented decline. The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq War, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today’s world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration years as the death knell for American hegemony.

We’ll have more in a moment but try and guess where those words were published, The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, Mother Jones, Atlantic Monthly, New York Review of Books, New Yorker, or other liberal publication?

Nope, not even close. Those words were written by political scientist Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago and appear in the current issue of The National Interest. TNI’s honorary chairman is Henry Kissinger. This is not a place known for its sympathy for antiwar protesters. So, it is revelatory, to say the least, to see them publish Pape’s article.

When a group like TNI publishes an article that echoes the like of Paul Kennedy’s famous 1987 book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 8 it is the equivalent of the memorable phrase from the Apollo 13 moonshot, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Let’s return to Pape. For those who have watched with dismay over the past eight years the hubris and arrogance of the American unilateralists and hegemonists he comes across as a refreshing gin and tonic.

For nearly two decades, those convinced of U.S. dominance in the international system have encouraged American policy makers to act unilaterally and seize almost any opportunity to advance American interests no matter the costs to others, virtually discounting the possibility that Germany, France, Russia, China and other major powers could seriously oppose American military power. From public intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer and Niall Ferguson to neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Kagan, even to academicians like Dartmouth’s William Wohlforth and Stephen Brooks, all believe the principal feature of the post-cold-war world is the unchallengeable dominance of American power. The United States is not just the sole superpower in the unipolar-dominance school’s world, but is so relatively more powerful than any other country that it can reshape the international order according to American interests. This is simply no longer realistic.

(more…)

I have been in the midst of a transition to a new, albeit temporary, job at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) where I will be helping to run the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers. So now, I am in Norway, and, yes, it is snowing as I write this.

As such, what with traveling, unpacking, settling in, et cetera I have not been checking in to the PSA blog every day. But I assumed people would continue to comment on the important issues of the day.

Hmmm, maybe not. Where is the commentary re Israel’s invasion of Gaza? Checking the blog I’m seen just one, and I find that rather appalling.

I have to say, especially as a Jew, that I used to consider the charge of lack of balanced coverage of Israel in the media to be frequently overstated, similar to the charge that America’s Middle East policy was set by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

But not this time. Since some people erroneously assume that Jews around the world fully support Israel in everything it does, like the people in this demonstration, I feel I must dissent from the orthodoxy.

And I am not the only one. Consider what J Street, the American Jewish David to AIPAC’s Goliath, recently wrote:

J Street understands that Hamas is a terrorist organization and a harsh enemy.  We are neither dovish nor pacifist, nor are we blindly opposed to the use of force.  We support Israel in defending and protecting its citizens from attack, including through military action if necessary and appropriate to the threat.  We believe, however, that force cannot be Israel’s only or preponderant response – even to Hamas.

We are pragmatists grounded in the real world and the lessons it teaches.  As such – and as avid supporters of Israel – we are asking whether the specific actions taken by Israel in Gaza actually do advance Israel’s and America’s interests.  In this case, J Street believes they do not.  We believe that the actions taken this week – disproportionate to the threat and escalatory in nature – will be seen, with time, as counterproductive.  They will further isolate Israel and the US internationally, deepen hatred among the Palestinian and Israel peoples, foment extremism throughout the Arab world and undercut the position of more moderate Arab regimes.

(more…)