Defense planners must include all military missions, not just combat requirements, when sizing its force and budget, a new report from the American Enterprise Institute said.
“No longer should combat requirements be considered adequate to achieve both war and peacetime operations,” wrote Mackenzie Eaglen in the March 2015 report, U.S. Force Sizing for Both War and Peace. Eaglen is resident fellow at the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI.
The post-Cold War period relied on a force-sizing construct of a military able to conduct two wars simultaneously, the report said. However, that standard was found inadequate over the years and particularly so after 9/11 in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Eaglen argued not only must planners opt for a “true” two-war standard, but take into account the steady demands of peacetime, for missions such as presence, training, and rotational deployments–the daily meat and potatoes of military forces. Such operations are vital in shaping the world, preserving order, reassuring allies and potentially deterring adversaries.
According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, just under 190,000 active duty military are stationed outside the United States, the report said.
“With demands on U.S. forces growing and new crises emerging because of disease, terrorism and great power aggression, the time is ripe for defense planners to incorporate the totality of military demands–and responses to smaller contingencies into America’s force-sizing construct,” Eaglen writes.
At a time when forces are returning from Afghanistan and the force is to become smaller, the day-to-day demands on the military continue and grow, including a shift in focus to the Pacific.
Last year’s bipartisan National Defense Panel said the United States must have the “capability and capacity” not only to conduct a large-scale war, but to be engaged in multiple operations elsewhere, the study said.
Photo: U.S. Navy
Current conflicts are blurring the lines between war and peace, Eaglen writes, using the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) as an example. During deployment in the summer of 2014, the Bush went from striking enemy targets in Afghanistan, and then moved toward Iraq and the ISIS threat.
“Forward-deployed forces serve as both war winners and war preventers–yet under current force planning constructs, no ready categorization exists for these types of missions,” the report said.
War planning often characterizes forces as either at war or peace. It does not take into account the fact that global commitments are not shrinking but the size of the U.S. military force is.
Using a more inclusive framework for planning would not only provide a more accurate picture of defense needs, but of the costs involved for a better grip on investment and budget.
“Only by adding these peacetime demands to a two-war force-sizing construct can the Pentagon plan to win the wars of today and prevent those of tomorrow,” Eaglen wrote.