Greens WebRing
EDIT LISTING
4.3.01 FTW |
I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun … As I am subtle, false & treacherous, ( R•III 1.2.25, 38 ) |
According to the Christic Institute's affidavit, Armitage was a key player in this team, helping to
funnel drug profits from Laos & Thailand into assassination programs in Vietnam & Iran.
Christic Institute's charges have never been proven, or fully investigated. Armitage's documented
history& associations do track allegations (see "Pentagon Aide Linked to Drug Ring," July 8,
1987). Armitage did come under investigation for his role in Reagan administration's Iran-Contra
scandal. He
testified he didn't know about the administration's secret sale of arms to Iran until Nov. 1986, when
they became public knowledge; independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's report laid out extensive
evidence that he knew about them a year earlier. Armitage apparently opposed the arms sales as
early as December 1985, on the grounds that Iranians were "sleazebags." Secord later testified he
met Armitage then to change his mind. Armitage claimed not to remember meeting, though
Armitage's own meeting logs show that he did.
Armitage kept 12.6.85 document describing legal ramifications of Iran arms sales, entitled
"Possibility for Leaks," locked in his Pentagon safe until June 1987, when it
was belatedly turned over to Walsh & congressional Iran-Contra committee. Armitage also
attended a Pentagon meeting Aug. 1986 in which Oliver North outlined covert activities in support
of the Contras he had been supervising through National Security Council. Armitage denied
remembering anything about this meeting as well. In his final report, Walsh said he declined to
prosecute Armitage for numerous dubious statements on these issues because he could not prove
they were knowingly false.
Withdrawal of Armitage's nomination as Army secretary was not exile. He was trouble-shooter for
first Bush administration, serving as Philippines & Middle East special liaison. After Soviet
Union breakup, he oversaw U.S. aid pgms to former Soviet republics as special ambassador.
From Clinton critic, he was adviser to Bush heir. … … then as now, Democrats who are
willing to ask the right questions are hard to find.
Armitage … Let me answer this as an ordinary American. America is a
country that was built by people seeking religious &and political freedom. The
founders of America were a minority in resisting England's colonialism and had to
believe strongly in what they were doing to move in the direction that they did. Therefore,
most Americans strongly believe that they, too, can change the direction that the world is
moving in, regardless of whether or not they are part of a minority. This is the first
reason. Second, America's security has always been provided for by the Pacific &
Atlantic Oceans. Since security has been guaranteed in this way, people have been able
to speak freely about what they believe in without fear. Thus, Americans strongly defend
& encourage that freedom of speech. …
From the anger & suffering that I went through when I served in Vietnam, I believe
that telling the truth is absolutely indispensable. When America moved into Vietnam, the
country was split in two because people had difficulty telling the truth. When I die, I will
perhaps be criticized in a number of ways: perhaps people will say that Armitage should
have been a better father or a better husband, or that he should have worked harder.
That doesn't bother me. However, I never want to hear anybody say that Armitage
should have told the truth.
Vietnam plunged America into an extremely complicated situation unnecessarily. The
idea that we had to prevent the spread of communism was correct, but the problem was
in how we went about doing so. I learned many things from the difficulty that the govt
had in telling the people the truth. I think that America would have won if Kennedy,
Johnson & Nixon had told the truth.
[ The truth is that the Tonkin Gulf incident was entirely manufactured &
all 3 presidents broke the law when they engaged in undeclared war, bribery &
assassination to control S.Vietnamese govt, and collusion in heroin trade to equip &
sustain conflict for CIA strategy. If they'd told the truth, it would have been evidence to
convict them. Armitage knows all this. ]
Q Do you mean that America could have won militarily?
Armitage: No, America did not lose militarily to N.Vietnam. It lost politically.
America lost in the peace negotiations, not on the battlefield. In the 1972 Christmas
bombing, we felt N.Vietnam was on the brink of conditional surrender. However, America
lost. Govt failed to tell the people the truth and the lies & deceit led to Watergate.
Mistrust of govt continues today. Therefore, people like me interested in politics have a
duty to tell the truth no matter how much we might be criticized. I hope as time goes by
stains of falsehood will disappear & stains of mistrust between the American govt
and the people will be removed.
[ Cessation of military action was counter to the goals of munitions mongers
like Cheney & Rumsfeld and CIA objectives such as co-opting intl heroin &
money laundering networks. Shadow U.S. govt rejected peace to sustain profits.
America lost because of Armitage's treason. Armitage deflects legal indictment by calling
it criticism. Laundering Armitage's stains requires prosecution. ]
Q … America had been on the military defensive since the Tet
Offensive of 1968.
Armitage: That was not the case. America was just one step short of military victory.
[ Prolonged carpet bombing failed. Armitage's victorious step would have
required nuclear attack to end a guerilla war of independence. ]
Q What effect did the split in American opinion have on American security
policy?
Armitage: Net impact on American security policy was positive. First, America now thinks
about what is really best for America, whether it is better to always play the leader in
intervention, going straight in with weapon in hand or whether it might sometimes be
better for America to limit its role & merely support the actions of other countries. In
this way, the U.S. has learned that it must take into serious consideration just how it will
go about protecting the national security of other countries. Secondly, the U.S. now
recognizes how important it is to obtain the support of the American people prior to
military intervention. Thirdly, when military intervention does take place, there is now
always a strategy for pulling out of that intervention. Furthermore, pullout must be
accomplished in a way that also safeguards American national interest.
[ There is no recognition in Armitage's remarks that America repeatedly
armed both sides in the Cold War since Harry Dexter White's WWII Russian Lend-Lease
pgm & the Ford Co. Kama River truck plant thru the agricultural loans to Saddam
Hussein and Stinger missiles to Osama bin Laden. As paid lobbyist of death merchants,
Armitage markets fear to "obtain the support of the American people" rather than
promoting intl peace. Arms sales do NOT "safeguard American national
interest". ]
Q So you think that the sacrifice of Marines was not in vain.
Q Then why did America, which moved into Bosnia without hesitation,
avoid involvement in E.Timor?
Q What is America's national interest, human rights & democracy or
pure national interest? If democracy is the gauge by which the U.S. determines how it
will act in certain situations, then why is it that, for example, while there is little difference
between Myanmar & China, America is harsh in its criticism of one & soft on
the other?
Q So are you saying that America decides whether or not to impose
sanctions depending on if that country has a market economy?
Q Why is America imposing sanctions on Myanmar?
Q What would you say to people who say the Army transformation got
jump started from Task Force Hawk, but that's all? It's just a short term response to
Hawk.
Q You mentioned adaptability to change in relation to the Army. Can you
talk about that just in terms of the basic perception?
Q General Wesley Clark gave a speech and he said that Bosnia &Kosovo aren't training
distractors. They are the mission. Is there a certain reluctance of taking on these efforts?
Q You said in (a recent) speech that land forces would separate the good
from the bad. What do you mean?
Q It seems that the National Training Ctr in California is not exactly the
place for preparing soldiers for what the conflicts of the future are going to be. How
would you characterize it?
Q You talked about tiered readiness. In layman's terms, what's wrong
with having certain forces readier than others?
Q You have said that we can't fall into the trap that you felt the French
& British did between the world wars and that was applying new technology to old
structures.
Q The new units out at Ft Lewis WA are going to be about 5000. They're
called brigade combat units. They're combined units. Isn't General Shinseki getting
towards what you are talking about.
Q Do you think that the solutions lie in breaking down the division
structure?
Q There was an article in the Washington Times last week that quoted
active & retired generals in unanimity of opposition to the transformation. What's
your opinion about the lack of support from people like this.
Q People have seen proposed changes come and go. What makes you
think this I going to be different?
Q Rep. Thornberry, House Armed Svc Committee & Senator
Lieberman, Senate Armed Svc Committee are saying they admire the fact that the Army
transformation is going quickly, but they wanted to go more slowly. Is Shinseki going too
fast?
Q The Washington Times story said Shinseki is sacrificing short-term war
fighting ability to fund his long term vision & accusations of sacrificing weapon
systems. Do you agree with that?
Q John Hillen said there's been the biggest increase since the end of the
Cold War, but he said hawks should be also concerned about the rise in the budget. He
felt those who want a bigger defense budget should also be concerned because
everybody calls it the death spiral. If you're clinging to the old ways of funding weapons
systems, you're going to wind up funding the past and it's going to be irrelevant.
Q In the Citadel speech where Gov.GWBush first announced a new tack
on the military, he talked about skipping a generation of weapons.
Q Fred Kagan, West Point instructor, said he's not so sure skipping a
generation was the right thing to do. What you need to do is to keep funding, keep
upgrading. You can't skip a generation, you have to fund them, field them, test them
& then set them aside.
Q Is the Clinton administration getting a bum rap on spending too little on
the military?
Q Last year there was a firestorm of criticism when the Tenth Mountain
Division was rated C4 (unready).
Q What would you say to the people who say if we can't do with our
present resources, if we can't manage our smallscale peace, we don't have a readiness
problem, we've got a management problem?
Q Now the joint chiefs have just issued a statement last week that they're
going to ask for $30 billion more and everybody is prepping for what's going to come in
September in the budget. But what people are saying is the Pentagon's now got their
three different core structures. All we're going to have is a rerun of what we had four
years ago, that they're calling for more money and then divvy it up. True?
Q There was a study about a year ago saying there was going to be a
defense train wreck and it predicted a budget shortfall in the next 30 years of $75 to
$100 billion a year.
Q How do you convince an American public that what's really needed is
increased defense spending when the peer competitor (Soviet Union) has been wiped
off the map. There is no immediate threat on the horizon. Isn't this just another gambit by
the services to get themselves more money if a Republican Administration comes back
to Washingrton? Or even if there is a Gore administration, this will bump spending up to
the good old days.
Q Irony in a $250 billion budget for the military and ammunition shortfalls,
lack of readiness, marines rummaging on Saturday night trying to get a suit of clothing.
And then you hear about a $350 billion or, if you include other aviation systems, up to a
$750 billion budget.
Q The services divide up the pie pretty equally, but doesn't there need to
be joint appraisal of who gets what money? Maybe the Army transformation is the most
important thing that has to happen. And other services have to sacrifice a little bit in
order for that to happen. Is that even a remote possibility?
Q What do you say to people who say I don't want any more increase in
defense money? We're looking at the U.S. and its allies around the world spending over
70% of the world's military expenditures. And the countries we would presumably be
fighting against have less than 20%. We've got the second largest army in the world,
active army in the world if you count reserves. Aren't we just in an arms race with
ourselves?
And it's not cheap. The American public do have an appetite for this if the services
themselves & the Defense Dept can prove to the public that they're worthy of the
support. If opinion polls are to be believed, the public is prepared to believe this but this
means that we have to make good procurement decisions. We have to make good core
structure decisions. We have to make good recruiting & retention decisions and
we've got to prove capable stewards of this account. If we do that, I think the public will
buy in.
Q Is the 2 major theater of war, or two MTW, a stumbling block to actually
getting us security as a country?
Q Regarding Army war games at the War College, are those games
helpful to us in assessing how our enemy is going to fight us in the future and how we
should shape our forces? Is the word game too trivial a word to apply to them or is it
accurate?
Q How does transformation tackle the Task Force Hawk problem?
Q And what about the wheels versus tracks debate? Was it just about a
vehicle?
Q Do you think that wanting to hang back a little in the Congress is nit
picking, or do you think that's a legitimate concern?
Q What about legacy systems like the Wolverine and Grizzly? Shinseki
was willing to give them up. Congress put them back in the budget. The House
Appropriations Committee report said the Army is going to have to make tough decisions
about weapons programs. Isn't that one of them?
Q Ft. Knox KY commandant General Bell was behind the transformation.
Do you think that there are misgivings in the armored community that are not being
voiced or voiced behind close doors?
Q Is the Army too top heavy?
Q Are we going to spend more money to change to smaller units or
less?
Armitage: That is correct. That question has always been debated, but in Asia it has
become more complicated because of the sheer size of China. China provides economic
opportunity, but it can also cause concern. Unfortunately, there is no security
organization that can deal with that problem, and I do not see any enthusiasm for
forming such an organization. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is not a
suitable forum for discussing such issues; the only countries that could play significant
roles in the region are America, Japan and Australia.
Armitage: I do not know in which foreign problems America is prepared to intervene at
this time as each administration formulates its own regional policies during the time it is
in power. However, what I do want to say here is that E.Timor is a poor region with a
population of 800,000 while its adversary, Indonesia, has a population of 210 million.
Given this marked gap, it is understandable that the U.S. would not want its relations
with Indonesia to be marred by this problem. At the same time, however, while America
does not have any strategic interests in E.Timor, given its alliance with Australia, the
U.S. would feel considerable pressure to support this ally through interference.
Armitage: That's a completely different problem. The Myanmar govt does not
maintain a free market economy or an equal opportunity system. Under China's present
political leadership, however, the free market and capitalist systems are gradually
changing and developing.
Armitage: Market economy will eventually bring about change in China's political system.
There are various kinds of American intervention; basis for intervention differs
accordingly. However, in any type of intervention, there must be a basic objective. One
such objective is to leave a particular region in better condition than that in which it was
found.
Armitage: The reasons are simple. First, in Myanmar there was an appealing pro-
American type of heroine in Aung San Suu Kyi. Then, America was prodded into action
by a vocal minority that pressed its case strongly. Then, there is the fact that it was easy
for America to decide to intervene in Myanmar, where few competing American interests
would be affected.
New tricks per old dog
Q What went wrong with Task Force Hawk in 1999?
Interview with Richard Armitage excerpted
6.9.00 Michael Chandler Arlington VA Frontline "The
Future of War" episode
Armitage: In the main, it was a failure of leadership and a failure of anticipation.
You had a situation in Kosovo, which was rapidly devolving. The U.S. was rapidly being
brought into it. In Germany you had our most deployable, self-deployable unit in the
Apache units. And yet the leadership of the Army and the US military failed to take the
necessary steps beforehand to make sure this unit was a deployable asset.
… It gave those who have been crying for transformation a real rallying cry, …
like the famous task force Smith in the Korean war where we can now cry, "No More
Task Force Hawks!" No more both failures of leadership and indeed, as it turned out,
failures of technology. … Task Force Hawk was neither agile or mobile enough for
the present situations. And in my view it wasn't lethal & hostile enough for the
present situation. … air power alone has never forced anyone at the end of the
day to do something against their will. It is only land forces which can close &
destroy the enemy. It is only land forces which can change govts & ultimately
change govt's behavior.
Armitage: Well I think that is the real question. The question that many have about what
General Shinseki is trying to do now is whether he's actually trying to fight the Kosovo
war better or whether he's really trying to take his army 10 to 20 years out. I don't think
any of us have the answer to that question yet. I mightily admire General Shinseki's
willingness to take on some of the iron rice bowls which exist in his own service. But I
don't know if what he ultimately wants to do is just to fight Kosovo better. But he started
on a track and I think those that come along behind can accelerate and modulate that.
… his vision has not been communicated sufficiently, not throughout his service. I
question whether, if you were to walk around different divisions in the Army and ask
what the chief was about, that they'd all have the same answer. I don't want to
underestimate the difficulty of the task that General Shinseki is undertaking. But I think
it's going to take tremendous, sustained heavy lifting by the Chief & the Vice Chief,
of the Army to bring this about. It's going to take sustained top down support from the
SecDefense & the Army Secretary.
Armitage: It starts with the view that although we are in a situation of pre-eminence in
the world, it won't last forever. Second, we ought to use this relative interlude in terms of
peer competition to develop those technologies and tactics and core structure that will
allow us to solve the future dilemmas that we'll face. It is quite reasonable to assume
that the US Army and the other branches of our service are going to face an enemy in
the future who has learned the lessons of the Gulf War, that has learned the lessons of
our forward forces & bases. And consequently, they will do their utmost to assure
that they deny those bases to us which puts a premium on the ability to project power
over long distance without forward bases. This puts a premium on light adjunct forces,
which makes much more use of stealth & agility than it does thickness of armor for
protection of forces.
Armitage: There certainly was a reluctance in understanding which way the situation in
Kosovo was going. You were sitting in Europe with our most deployable force, one that
in the Gulf War actually self-deployed to the Gulf from Germany. And yet we (the Army)
weren't able to get ourselves in a situation to be of any use in Kosovo when we finally
got there. They were trained in their own techniques. They didn't have the proper
equipment et cetera. That's a failure of leadership. It wasn't a failure of budget. It wasn't
a failure of pilots, it was a failure of leadership. … General Clark, I hope, would
hasten to add that the ultimate mission of our armed forces and our army is to fight and
win the nation's wars when our survival is threatened. That was not the case in Kosovo
or Bosnia.
Armitage: I take as a given that, unfortunately, future conflicts will be much more
conducted in urban environments than any serviceman or service leader would like.
Then you're going to have to have ground forces who are able to separate combatants
from non combatants, that are able to make decisions on the spot about who's a good
guy and who's a bad guy. You can't do that from 15,000 feet in the air. You can't do it
from behind an AWAC screen. You can't do it no matter how network-centered you are
at the Navy. It takes a t-shirt and muddy boots on the ground to conduct that mission.
… land forces have a separate nature. They're not antiseptic in their approach to
conflict. It's very up-close & personal. It puts a premium on leadership skills. …
future battlefields look a lot like Grozny or Somolia, or for that matter Kosovo..
These distractions, which General Clark referred to in Bosnia & Kosovo, put a
premium on the judgment & ability of NCO & junior officers to make decisions
which ultimately may turn to out to be strategic. There's a tremendous difference.
Armitage: Yeah the National Training Ctr has been an interesting experimental ground
for the digitized army. But it's not totally joint in its approach to things. And I think it
doesn't foster what I think is going to be a necessary factor of experimentation. It's not a
situation which allows people to fail. You learn a lot more from failures than you do from
success. Particularly when we're all experimenting in what's the proper way to go to the
future. So the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Louisiana is a much more
experimental. The very nature of joint ventures (more than one armed service involved)
allows for a little more freedom of action, freedom of decision making, and, as we're
trying to find the right mix and match of joint capabilities, then there's a little more
tolerance for failure. …
Armitage: Tiered readiness does indicate that there are degrees of readiness. It has not
worked well in the Navy. I know tiered readiness. You never are totally able to
understand who might be deployed when & who might be called on for what. So
tiered readiness may enable you to have a front line unit which is basically 100% but
give you a false sense of security because your units that aren't on the front line are
sometimes seriously lacking. And yet they may be called upon to perform given
contingencies. So it's better to have general readiness rather than a tiered readiness.
… crystal balls are generally muddy and therefore you can't pick which units are
going to have to go. Generally all have to be ready.
Armitage: There's a misunderstanding of what the revolution in military affairs is &
the transformation in strategy is. I think many think it's just a function of technology
stealth et cetera. It is not. It is technology to a certain extent. But it's tactics as well
& it's core structures. Now firepower is so great that you can have an army brigade
cover what during the Vietnam time it took a division to cover in terms of fire power,
footprint. It's not reasonable to always assume that we're going to have to march forward
into the 21st century with division-sized units. There has to be a smaller but organically
deployable sized unit. You apply the new structure with new tactics to new technologies.
New communications technologies allow you to operate free from the clutter of buildings
and then you've got a transformation. One of those three alone is not sufficient to give
you transformation strategy.
Armitage: #133; He's searching for them. We want to search for them too. And I think
there's room for a certain amount of experimentation. That's why I've said I really
support the arduous task that Gen. Shinseki has put on his shoulders. But I'm not sure
whether he's really trying to work 20 years into the future or actually solve the problem
that he found that he had during Kosovo. And this will be something that can be
determined through a series of experimentations. I think he has to spell out to his army
what his hopes and aspirations for his army are. He's got to rigorously tell them how
difficult & painful it's going to be for certain elements of the service. The muscular
armored community, for instance, they're going to have to give up some. And just having
cannons that shoot or howitzers that shoot slightly longer than present day howitzers,
but are no more deployable, is no longer sufficient. I think also that Gen. Shinseki has
got to continue what he started working on with Capitol Hill so he can get enough
members of congress to buy in. Legislators such as Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator
Rick Santorum & Senator Pat Roberts, AR, need to be consulted so that they will
have the strength & convictions to stick with the Army during this period.
Armitage: It's time to move away from the division structure; I am persuaded by the
firepower print argument. Much of the affection for the division structure lies in having a
flag & the division standard. But it's not easy to break traditions to go against the
big retired community who has a great affection for days gone past. I understand this.
It's human nature. I think it's not entirely fair just to lay this on the back of one service
chief. That's General Shinseki. All of the services need to have a transformation
strategy. All of them deserve to have leadership & guidance from a SecDefense
who will support them when they are right and will be right in their face when they are
wrong. I think it's been lacking. … Colonel McGregor's "Breaking the Phalanx" is an
energetic & innovative proposal. The only problem that I really see with Col.
McGregor's solution is that he's working in a very narrow part of the Army. The Army is
not just combat forces. The Army is support forces. It's logistics. It's families, it's health
care, it's education & schooling. It's a lot of things. Col. McGregor's excellent &
innovative book on breaking the phalanx addresses firepower & combat. The chief
of the service has a lot of things on his plate he has to worry about simultaneously. I
would argue that Gen. Shinseki should bring people like Col. McGregor & young
Turks inside the tent to get the benefit of their energy & their experience. He should
also explain to them the breadth of his responsibilities as Army Chief of Staff so they can
march forward together and it's won't be seen as one group pitted against another.
Armitage: The article is indicative that Luddites are alive & well in the US Army.
Learn from the past & from the difficulty we've had in deploying and do what's
necessary to be able to make sure our army is relevant to the future. Part of the reason
these folks dared to be so resistant is they're not sure that Gen. Shinseki's vision is
really going to get traction. They've seen in the army historical attempts at changes.
Gen. Shinseki alone, no matter how hard he works & no matter now many 46 hour
days he puts in, is going to be incapable of doing this. He needs to have a SecDefense
who strongly supports getting the job done. If you get enough people in the Defense
Dept becoming involved in General Shinseki's vision, then you'll find the resistance will
go down. To the extent people are unsure whether the transformation is really going to
take, then you're going to have that resistance. … The SecDefense is going to have
to lead the charge on transformation and give his service chief & his service
secretary some cover. And that has certainly not been the case. If it had been the case,
the House committee would not be calling for it.
Armitage: What the House & the Senate see on the one hand is this continuum, but
they see no procurement decisions which connect the dots. And nobody in the army has
been able to connect the procurement decisions to look like a series of discreet different
armies. Now that's what they're complaining about. What Congress & the American
public want to see is someone connecting the dots. They want to understand that I'm
making this procurement decision which will allow me eventually to get here to the "Army
after next" of Gen.Shinseki's vision. To the extent the Army says they want to have a
force that's in a different structure, deploy in 96 hours, etc. and doesn't' make
procurement decisions that support that, then you have a disconnect, confusion &
trouble.
Armitage: … The whole picture hasn't been laid out for the Congress; there's
anxiety.… There's a lot more enthusiasm in the case of Gov. GWBush who,
early in his presidential campaign, said transformation of the military is one of his 3
major goals.
Armitage: Whoever is chief of staff of the Army is going to have to sacrifice some
weapons systems. All of the weapon systems that were envisioned in the 1980s are not
going to be applicable for the situation in 2020. … The nation's going to be better
for it in the long run. Chief (Shinseki) has already cut back on the Crusader howitzer
because it was not as deployable as necessary. That makes a lot of sense. He said
there will be some further questioning of aviation accounts, particularly the Comanche
helicopter, which is a fine helicopter. But there are a lot of them. The Wolverine has
been canceled. Gen. Shinseki is the guy who's got to make the decision.
Armitage: Gov. GWBush indicated early our armed forces have been robbing
procurement accounts to pay for the operations & maintenance count. Therefore,
we've got a real short fall in our procurement budget. But before Bush asked for an
increase in the defense budget, he wants to feel confident that we're making wise
choices. Wise choices will be to curtail or to forgo some legacy system upgrades or
perhaps some actual procurements of systems that are not going to be applicable to the
problems of the 21st century. I think that's what John Hillen's talking about. You can put
more money in the defense budget, but if the procurement choices aren't wise, then it's
wasted money. You can put 20 billion dollars a year in for uniforms. And it's not going to
make a damn bit of difference in terms of combat power. What will make a difference is
the ability to have service men who feel that they're properly appreciated by the nation
and the ability to have properly trained personnel. This is a function of wise choices as
much as it's a function of the bottom line of the budget.
Armitage: The Clinton administration robbed the services for the past 7 years. …
Gov. Bush says it's not sufficient to just command great forces; you have to support
those great forces. One of the best ways we can support our forces is to take a leap in
technology. We can do this because of the interlude we enjoy right now and because we
are faced with no peer competitor. We have got plenty of operations for our military, but
we do not have the riveting superpower confrontation, eye ball to eye ball, that we had
for the 50 years of the Cold War. And we can either take advantage of this or just drift
along.
Armitage: He's not entirely right. If you start with the concept of just having a gun &
keep improving the gun or a cannon on a tank, you'll never get out to where you need to
be for the 21st century. Get away from something that depends on an iron mountain of
shells to be dragged along behind it. Go to, for instance, electromagnetic energy as
weapon. Then you are indeed skipping a generation, a generation of upgrades to an
existing gun. If you're successful, you will have eliminated the iron mountain which slows
down our ability to deploy. Test & evaluate what Gov.Bush is talking about.
Start with the concept. Put money into research & development so we can think
what should be out there in the future, what best can solve our problems. We need to
project power; we need to put force on target. But we don't want to have an iron
mountain dragged behind us. Start with that concept & work back.
Armitage: President Clinton funded the military at one level but he operated them far
beyond the operations & visions set during the end of Pres.Bush's term. The
Clinton admin seriously eroded military capabilities; in every measure you could imagine
recruiting is down. Pilot seats are down, retention is down. If that's not a sign of
problems with morale, what is? Procurement shortfalls are a matter of record; everybody
from the Congressional Budget Office on have been screaming about it for some time.
You have severe challenges in terms of leadership. Some active duty officers are
actually stepping up &and challenging the chief (Shinseki) formally in the
newspaper. That's evidence of a loss of good order & discipline. There's every right
to criticize the Clinotn administration. VP Gore has been by his own words a very active
forceful participant in the decisions of the Administration. So I think the Pentagon should
look forward to a sign of being under new management.
Armitage: There was anecdotal evidence of this 4, 5 years ago. And no one stepped up
to it. None of the chiefs of service stepped up to it. Two recent army divisions were rated
as C4. Not deployable. It's not a state secret that we're in a pretty dismal state. And now
you've seen newspaper articles where the chiefs of service, suddenly Rip Van Winkel-
like, have awakened and found we need to up our budget by $20 or $30 billion. Where
were they for the last 5 or 6 years?
Armitage: We have a management problem. We've got a readiness problem first. One
exacerbates the other. I don't think the SecDefense or service secretaries have taken
very seriously the tenet the first general order. That is: you take charge of all govt
property in sight. They haven't done it. There has been too much of a laissez-faire
attitude in my view. And it's allowed both management & readiness problems to
come to the fore. The benign comment is that they probably thought they would just do
the best that they could do & try to ameliorate the situation as best they could. A
more dark view would be that they weren't willing to put their stars on the line to correct
a situation. I'm not sure which is the right answer.
Armitage: Gov.Bush has clearly signaled he's up for new business. And that's why in his
Citadel speech he talked about doing business in a different way and he talked about
putting money into R&D and he talked about allocating up to 20% of the
procurement budget to fund the new transformation. He talked about a SecDefense who
is going to have an immediate & thorough top-down review. And he talked about
standing up behind the decisions he'll make. He knows people are going to be unhappy.
Fine, they'll get over it. They will see that Gov.Bush has the courage of his convictions to
see it through to the end. And the end will mean a better, more capable military with
service members who are appreciated not only by their leadership but by the American
public.
Armitage: The CSIS budget study was an embarrassment; they're guilty of hyperbole.
The facts are horrible enough. The Ctr for Budget Analysis, CSBA, is known as having a
much better handle on these matters. $20 billion dollars or so is a legitimate shortfall that
needs to be addressed. Before you start adding money, you've got to make sure you're
making the right choices to sustain any increase in the budget otherwise Congress won't
buy in with us. We've got to prove to them that we mean business and we'll stand behind
the decisions we'll make.
Armitage: There's no easy way to do this. We start from a pretty good basis. Bush said
he's going to make defense an issue in his campaign. It's not that it was burning issue in
the minds of the American public, but he made it so because the first duty of a president
is to protect & defend this nation. And this is very different for a politician. He's
willing to make the decisions that he realized that he'll not benefit from during his time in
office. Some successor, Democrat or Republican, will. … Working in surplus right
now makes the job slightly easier than it might have been otherwise.
Armitage: Do we need new tactical aircraft? Yes. Do we need 3? Probably not. Do we
need the 3000+ that are envisioned? Absolutely not. Gov.Bush has said it will be one of
the first orders of business to review the tactical aviation account. He said correctly also
the support aircraft. Cause you can't just look at the attack air account without taking into
consideration suppression aircraft & the rest of it. … A lesser number although
per-unit cost will be slightly higher & money in R&D for a 21st century fighter.
Even the F22, as capable an aircraft & as stealthy an aircraft as it is, is late-1980s
technology.
Armitage: If you looked at history, you'd say probably not. … A mission approach to
the services breaks that paradigm of equal slice of the pie. For example, combat in an
urban environment. We know we're going to have to operate there and see what
services and what combination of services can best handle it. It might turn out that the
Army is best suited, or the Marine Corps best suited. Or the Air Force has the ability with
their technology to be somewhat helpful. But it'll be the combination of abilities brought
to bear & the experimentation that we would hope comes at the joint forces
command in Norfolk which would give us the beginning of the answers on how to divvy
up the procurement moneys.
[ Couched phrasing for Kosovo as test market for all new R&D that renege
Clinotn admin MilSec contracts]
Armitage: It is one of the duties of a president is to preserve & prolong our
preeminence as a force in the world, as long as humanly possible. One of the ways
we can do that is to make sure that we have the ability to protect our interests &
allied interests wherever & whenever.
[ Absolutes like wherever & whenever necessitate
absolutes throughout such as however, placing ends before means which unveils
the ideological fanaticism of the National Security State that always threatens the legal
primacy of democracy. Muslim holy war is no less myopic. ]
[ Note verbs used for end goals connote purchase while means are
characterized as consensus, indicating sales rather than defense is the purpose of the
MilSec budget . ]
Armitage: 2 major theaters of war is a stumbling block and we started it. It's a
mistranslation of what was Europe & Asia. We had to be able to operate fully
& completely in both areas. It wasn't simply a function of major theater wars. It
became, over time, core structure matter, particularly for the Army & particularly for
their Korea force, the second infantry division. We are both a European & a Pacific
power. We've got to be able to work simultaneously in both areas. Get rid of the word
war and just talk about major theater powers. That means we're going to have to make
certain decisions to be able to move ourselves both by sea & by air to potential
areas of conflict. We're going to have to pre-position in both theaters if an emergency
occurs. But major theater of war has become a harmful political code.
Armitage: The word game is not too trivial to apply to what occupies the minds and the
energies of a lot of officers in our service. And there are a lot of lessons learned out of it.
How we can be vulnerable, for instance, to asymmetrical approaches by an enemy. It
allows us to really believe in our hearts & in our minds that a future enemy may
really be intent on not allowing us to use forward bases. So to that extent, it's useful.
… The Army ultimately took away the right lesson from 1999 failure of Task Force
Hawk. That is, we're on the verge of being irrelevant to the national command authority.
It doesn't do us good to get close. We're the only service who has as a mission to close
with & defeat the enemy. If we're not able to close with & defeat the enemy,
then we're not good. We're going to lose out to the other services.
Armitage: It puts a premium on the ability to be mobile, agile, hostile, lethal. …
That's what Gen. Shinseki's transformation is all about. Whether it's sufficient for the
needs in the 21st century is something that we'll see, but he's well on his way to
changing the mindset of the US Army. … He has to be a lot broader in terms of his
communication to his entire army. Just who's the winner, who's the loser, what it's all
about. He's got to broaden his constituency on the Hill & he needs to spend a
lot of time working with the contractors who are his customers to make sure they
understand his vision so they'll be able to spend some of their R&D moneys to meet his
needs. That's still missing as far as I can see from this distance.
Armitage: Now the wheels-tracks debate, I think that was unfortunate; Shinseki should
have stuck to a sort of descriptive phrase such as agility & mobility. And I don't
think any of us know the answer to whether all wheels or all tracks, or both, are the
answer. The point is Shinseki is saying we've got to be able to get to the fight. It doesn't
do us any good to get there too heavy, too late. So he wants to get there on time, agile
enough to be effective and to affect the outcome of the conflict. That's what he's really
saying, whether it's wheels or tracks. I don't know the answer, nor does he.
Armitage: I think it's a legitimate concern if they're not sure where the Army is going.
They don't want to see money just frittered away. I think they need to feel that Gen.
Shinseki is able to connect the procurement dots. When he comes to Congress within
budget for next year, he needs to show them how the decisions he made and the
procurements that he's going to forgo make his army the one that can be relevant to the
21st century. If he can do that, then I think a lot of these anxieties will go away. If he
can't do that, then the cacophony of sounds will increase.
Armitage: The legacy system upgrades question is a tough one. I take the point of view,
particularly on the M1 tank, that we already outgun and outmaneuver every tank in the
world. Our own problem is right now we don't deploy very well. And these tanks have a
big iron mountain that goes behind them . We already outgun everyone, so why
would we want to upgrade these tanks? Save the money & apply it to R&D for
the future tank? In Gen.Shinseki's view, a much lighter, more deployable tank is around
35 tons or so. That depends more on its agility & stealthiness than it does for the
thickness of armor to protect soldiers. Now this takes a real cultural change & a
mind set of people who run around in tanks for a living. They've got to have confidence
in the technology. That's not going to happen because Gen. Shinseki says so. It's going
to happen because people test the concept & get confident of their system. This
doesn't' happen in a year or 3.
Armitage: Of course there are misgivings in the army community. If this were easy, the
leadership would have already made these changes. There are huge misgivings. Most of
them don't fight it out on the front pages of the newspaper. Some did. And they voice it
to the Chief. Or they drag their feet, so they can have the luxury of saying, oh I told you
so, if a new guy becomes Chief of Staff and changes things back to the old way. That's
why I say, if Republicans come in, things aren't going to back to the old way. We're
going to get into the 21st century whether they like it or not. … We're never going to
know until we test the concept.
Armitage: All our services have too many generals. There are now three admirals there
while there was one during the Cold War. Clearly things are a little out of balance.
Armitage: I think ultimately it'll be less money, but probably way in the future. There will
be savings. You're not going to have any savings immediately. To change the
force structure simply for savings is wrong. Change the force structure so we'll be better
able to do the nation's business. Ultimately there will be savings. The reason to
transform is so we can better do the nation's business.
Those who criticize General Shinseki that he's only building a peacekeeping force are
not listening to what he said. He's got a clear strategic reserve at Ft Hood which is quite
heavy & is what I call the "what if" force. What if we're wrong about the future, what
if a future enemy wants to take us in our strength in traditional heavy battles? We can do
that because we've kept a strategic reserve at Ft Hood. Those who want to criticize Gen.
Shinseki had better make sure their criticisms are totally accurate, not partially.
9.9.97 Sec. Armitage says it best; we're here to play and we're here to stay. That's our goal & we want China to understand that. Our presence is not aimed at China. Our presence is aimed at preserving peace & stability and we're going to continue to play that role. We want very much for China to understand that and not to take steps to undermine it."
DoD briefing 7.16.00 SecDef Wm Cohen Oakes: The leaders you met in China, are you now quite confident that they accept there should be no attempt to use armed force to regain Taiwan? Cohen: Well, what the Chinese leadership has said is that they reserve the right to use force, although they indicated they have no intent to use force against Taiwan. And my message |
Last weekend's lunch menu at the Redstone Arsenal Al Martin
… Regarding the 51 Russians who were kicked out of the country … The Armitage-Carlucci Cabal is
back. … It's never stopped. … This is what these contingency programs were all about, developed by Oliver North and the National Programs Office (as described in The Conspirators). It's the reason why the Reagan Bush Admin reactivated the CILF Program, Civilian Inmate Labor Facility program. That's why they had an active plan to launch a coup d'etat against themselves, ostensibly done by people not under their control, in other words, to take control directly, if it became necessary. The military would have carried it out,- but under Bush auspices. They would make it appear to be a coup d'etat, when in fact it wasn't. It was just an excuse to take control,- if this cascade effect became apparent to the public. … |
Oakes: I raise that because of comments made last year by Richard Armitage. I guess, as the one
Republican in the Democrat administration you'd know him. He advises Republican candidate GWBush and used
to advise his father. Did you read his comments where he said that Australia has a role in preventing Beijing from
using military force against Taiwan, and Australia must stand ready to give military support to Washington if the
U.S. goes to war with China?
Cohen: Well, I didn't read his comments on that. I might point out that Mr. Armitage is only one of GWBush's
advisers. There are quite a few others. But the fact is that Australia has always been supportive of the U.S.,
certainly during the 20th century. In every conflict that we've been involved, Australia's been side-by-side with the
U.S.
[ Nugan Hand Bank, for example, although this resembles sodomy more than co-lateral
collaboration. ]
Oakes: I am interested, though, in finding out how generally held these views are. Mr. Armitage said that Australia can't pick and choose. If tension in the Taiwan Strait led to war between the U.S. and China, Washington would expect Australia to contribute to, and I quote, "the dirty, hard & dangerous work".
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FPIF China
Crimes of Patriots ¹
Politics of heroin in SE Asia Alfred McCoy |
member Defense Policy Board former Asst Secretary of Defense for Intl Security Affairs former U.S. Ambassador to the Newly Independent States (exUSSR) extensive regional security experience in former Soviet Union, E.Asia & MidEast CIA station chief in Saigon graduate, US Naval Academy |
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