Lower Oil Prices Put Iraq's Security Forces In Bind at Crucial Time
By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 20, 2009

BAGHDAD -- Reeling from a sharp drop in oil prices, Iraq's security forces are trimming bloated payrolls and will be unable to purchase ships and aircraft that Iraqi officials had hoped would allow the country to develop a basic ability to fend off external threats by 2012, the United States' projected withdrawal date, according to U.S. military officials.

The budget crunch is also preventing the Iraqi government from keeping billions of dollars worth of U.S.-donated equipment in working condition, representing a potentially colossal loss for a key American investment, U.S. officials say.

The squeeze is threatening the progress of Iraq's security forces, already beset by ineffective management, corruption an d political interference. As the U.S. military begins to withdraw from cities this summer, the Iraqis will be increasingly in the spotlight.

"The budget crisis is going to degrade the rate at which Iraqis will be able to develop their capabilities," said Lt. Gen. Frank G. Helmick, who supervises the training and equipment of the Iraqi security forces. "We're in a situation that the Iraqis have not had to face. They can't pay for it, and we don't have the money to pay for it. For the first time, the Iraqis will have to prioritize, and these will be tough choices."

The Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry will get $4.1 billion and $5.3 billion, respectively, this year -- roughly half the amount each was counting on last year when oil traded at $140 a barrel. Now oil, Iraq's main source of income, is $58 a barrel.

The most significant long-term initiatives jeopardized by the tightening budget are the development of a navy capable of securing oil platforms, an air force large enough to support ground operations, and a border force that can block the flow of fighters and weapons that have historically poured in through Syria and Iran, U.S. officials say.

Vehicles Breaking Down
Of paramount concern, the officials say, is the Iraqi government's failure to spend money on maintenance and spare parts for the vast fleet of armored vehicles and other military equipment donated by the United States in recent years.

The Iraqi army and National Police have received more than 5,000 U.S. Humvees in recent years and expect an additional 4,000 as U.S. troops continue to withdraw. Many vehicles are starting to fall apart, U.S. officials say. American military experts told the Defense Ministry that it needed to allocate at least $68 million this year for spare parts for U.S.-donated equipment. The ministry set aside $1 million, U.S. officials said.

As the Iraqi army's Humvees have begun to break down in the field, U.S. officials say, Iraqi commanders have cannibalized them for parts. Some commanders are reluctant to take the vehicles in for repairs because they are unlikely to get them back for months and because they do not want to give up a fuel stipend.

"This culture has not had the necessary system in place to maintain things," Helmick said. "What we want to try and avoid is having them drive something till it breaks and use the broken vehicle to go get spare parts [from]."

The United States has spent more than $628 million on building the Iraqi army's maintenance capabilities but has had limited success, the Defense Department's inspector general for Iraq reconstruction said in a report issued last month. That figure is $420 million more than the projected cost because the Iraqi government has not assumed responsibility for maintenance, forcing U.S. taxpayers to continue funding it, the report concluded.

'Ghost' Personnel
At the urging of U.S. military officials, both ministries recently started conducting personnel audits to trim payroll, which far exceeds their authorized manpower.

The audits are expected to purge from rosters thousands of "ghost" soldiers and policemen, those who exist in name only, U.S. officials said. They also will result in the dismissal of officers and soldiers who were hired despite disqualifying factors, such as illiteracy, advanced age and medical disabilities.

The Iraqi army has 262,000 soldiers on payroll, roughly 12,000 more than its authorized strength. Because Iraq's security forces are paid in cash that is passed down the chain of command, many commanders lie about how many soldiers they supervise, U.S. officials say.

According to the U.S. military's summary of the Defense Ministry's personnel audit, some Iraqi army majors make $70,000 a month through embezzlement. U.S. officials say they believe that as much as 25 percent of the ministry's annual payroll budget is stolen, according to a U.S. official who provided the confidential estimate on the condition of anonymity.

Because the audit is likely to expose corrupt officers, the U.S. assessment said, some Iraqi army leaders are "predicting violent outcomes." One senior Iraqi leader agreed to participate on the condition that the building where the audit is being conducted receive more security because "he's convinced someone is going to blow it up," according to the U.S. document.

The Interior Ministry, which had planned to add about 67,000 police officers this year, is instead freezing hiring. One of its top goals, to create a National Police brigade trained in counterinsurgency for each of Iraq's 18 provinces by year's end, has been indefinitely delayed.

The ministry employs 480,000 people and roughly 80,000 contractors -- above its authorized strength of 476,000, said Maj. Gen. James. M. Milano, who oversees police training.

The budget problems are also heightening concerns about the Shiite-led government's ability to continue paying U.S.-formed -- and formerly U.S.-funded -- Sunni paramilitary groups that are now under its supervision. The government promised to shift 20 percent of the 94,000 men in those groups to security jobs, but because of the hiring freeze, fewer than 5,000 have made the transition.

In recent months, many Sunni guards have walked away from their checkpoints after working unpaid for months. U.S. officials fear that the dissolution of the groups could refuel the insurgency, widen the sectarian divide and destabilize the government.

After the Iraqi parliament failed to allocate money to the program, the Interior Ministry, under pressure from the U.S. military, agreed to pay the men from its budget.

View all comments that have been posted about this article.

Source:www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog

It's always interesting to me that whenever Christians or Jews cite the Bible, it's considered deep and meaningful: remember the lesson of so-and-so.

And we have our beliefs, to include the rather fantastic notion of God's return to the planet. When exactly? A fudgey notion at best. But we believe and consider these attributions to be quite sacred and thus suitable for people of great faith and understanding.

But when we are confronted by very similar concepts in other faiths, they typically strike us as bizarre (You celebrate what? You expect THAT guy to suddenly show up again on earth and usher in some new era? Are you nuts!!).

We get a lot of reports about Iran's "fanatical" leaders, their innate desire for self-immolating total war, etc., and yet the historical record since 1979 indicates nothing more than your run of the mill revolutionary movement that seeks to sow mischief abroad, fights asymmetrically when confronted by superior power, and cynically manipulates proxies to go just far enough to cause its enemies great problems but not enough to cause those enemies to directly attack the sponsoring source (how Soviet . . .). As always, the revolution fades at home (so much young fervor was burned off in the Iran-Iraq war, where Iran, BTW, eventually negotiated for peace with its arch-enemy Saddam--but that time doesn't count, of course), as follow-on generations by and large can't be bothered to give a rat's ass about what--for them as young people (70% of Iran is under 30, meaning they were at best kids during the deadly war)--is now ancient history. Yes, they will perform as minimally required, and good shows are always had for foreign cameras, but these follow-on generations are essentially lost. They opt out. They withdraw from public life and lead lives largely hidden from state view, indulging in their petty vices (such as they can be achieved) while maintaining the proper public face.

Ah, but up on top, the revolution thrives in the most rhetorical manner. "Blows" against "demon enemies" (required for all revolutionary movements once in power) are constantly being struck--to huge effect, their leaders claim. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everything just seems to get old and decrepit and dysfunctional, while "infidels" nearby seem to live the good life with a vengeance.

Covering the bankruptcy at home, the "glorious revolution" continues abroad by having the regime buy alliances opportunistically with those looking for proper sponsors. The people back home often grumble about how much all this useless "solidarity" is costing them, but no one agitates too much. Why bother?

But, of course, all that mendacity and predictability pales in comparison to the death-wish religious fanaticism on top. While, outwardly, this crew may resemble stalled revolutions the world over and throughout history, these guys are different: they want death more than life, which is why they cling so decisively to power. They are ready to sacrifice the entire nation in the name of their God, which is why they're so eminently patient in extending their influence--such as it is purchased--regionally at great cost. All of this--all of it, is readily sacrificed at a moment's notice for the greater revolutionary/spiritual goal. Moreover, despite making such efforts to solidify their rule at home for decades and to make great efforts to achieve defense against their mortal enemies, if given even the slightest chance to pass on deadly technologies to their proxies, thus giving those proxies the right to determine the timing and conditions under which their entire nation is sacrificed, they will do so immediately, because their beliefs tell them that any big enough blow leveled against their opponents is worth the entire destruction of their civilization.

Naturally, the people are behind the regime on this score--100 percent. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is just itching to end their lives. When you meet Iranians, you know what I mean: they all talk about national suicide like it's a fantastic holiday just around the corner. That's why no one bothers with education, much less college in Iran. There is no point when the country is so close to its deathwish goal! I mean, if Israel doesn't light up the place with several hundred warheads (as it intimates it's so ready to do), then the Americans will jump in with just a few of their thousands!

Ah, to commit suicide simultaneously at the hands of the Little Satan and Big Satan! Tell me this isn't the dream of an entire nation!

So when these Iranians cite their religious beliefs, I can guarantee you that they're completely nuts. I know, because I read about it all the time in the newspapers.

But if somebody on our side was willing to risk nuclear war in the region, to include their possible self-destruction on a grand scale, and did so because their reading of their spiritual past says God gives them the right (in the end, aren't we all chosen people?) to do whatever is necessary to their enemies--including attempted genocide, then we say this is reasonable and good and not nutty whatsoever.

And I get to read that in the newspaper all the Times too.

Cool how that works, isn't it?

In the end, I get the feeling we're being told that it would be a good thing to pre-emptively wage genocidal war against Iran to make sure it can't try the same with Israel, and because our version of God okays it, it must be the right thing to do.

Yes?

Muslim Brotherhood Falters as Egypt Outflanks Islamists
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt -- Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is on the defensive, its struggles reverberating throughout Islamist movements that the secretive organization has spawned world-wide.

Just recently, the Brothers' political rise seemed unstoppable. Candidates linked with the group won most races they contested in Egypt's 2005 parliamentary elections, gaining a record 20% of seats. Across the border in Gaza, another election the following year propelled the Brotherhood's Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, into power.

Since then, Egypt's government jailed key Brotherhood members, crimped its financing and changed the constitution to clip religious parties' wings. The Brotherhood made missteps, too, alienating many Egyptians with saber rattling and proposed restrictions on women and Christians. These setbacks have undermined the group's ability to impose its Islamic agenda on this country of 81 million people, the Arab world's largest.

"When we're not advancing, we are retreating. And right now we are not spreading, we are not achieving our goals," the Brotherhood's second-in-command, Mohamed Habib, said in an interview.

Across the Muslim world, authoritarian governments, Islamist revivalists and liberals often fight for influence. Egypt is a crucial battleground. A decline of the Brotherhood here, with its shrill anti-Israeli rhetoric and intricate ties to Hamas, strengthens President Hosni Mubarak's policy of engagement with the Jewish state. It could also give him more room to work with President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to visit Egypt next month, on reviving the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Brotherhood leaders caution against reading too much into the current troubles, saying the 81-year-old group has bounced back from past challenges. Others say the government's suppression of the Brotherhood, Egypt's main nonviolent opposition movement -- paired with arrests of Mr. Mubarak's secular foes -- can unleash more radical forces.

"If it continues this way, it's very dangerous and could lead to the return of extremism and terrorism in Egypt," says Ayman Nour, a liberal politician who ran for president against Mr. Mubarak in 2005 and was later imprisoned on campaign-fraud charges that the U.S. government condemned as politically motivated.

Formed in 1928 amid a backlash against European colonialism, the Muslim Brotherhood remains a deeply entrenched force, with hundreds of thousands of members and affiliates across the Middle East. Operating under the slogan "Islam Is the Solution," it aims to establish an Islamic state governed by religious law.

The Brotherhood engaged in assassinations and bombings in the past, and one of its ideologues, Sayyid Qutb, developed a radical theology that still motivates jihadi groups such as al Qaeda. Since the 1970s, however, the Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence and rejected Mr. Qutb's more fiery theories. It has focused instead on building an Islamic society from the bottom up, through proselytizing, social work and political activism.

Biggest Opposition Bloc
Though it is outlawed by the Egyptian state, the Brotherhood operates here more or less in the open. It maintains hundreds of offices and fields electoral candidates. In part thanks to American pressure to liberalize Egypt's authoritarian political system, these candidates -- running as independents -- were allowed to contest 145 seats, almost one-third of the total, in parliamentary elections in November and December 2005.

By winning 88 races, the Brotherhood cemented its role as Egypt's dominant opposition force. The next-biggest opposition faction, the liberal Wafd party, garnered just seven seats.

The poll results, and the subsequent Hamas takeover in the Gaza Strip, provoked a government counterattack. In 2007, Egypt amended its constitution, skewing future representation in favor of registered parties and against independents, the only candidates the outlawed Brotherhood can field. When local council elections, initially due for 2006, were finally held last year, the state disqualified most Brotherhood candidates. The group boycotted.

Mr. Habib, the Brotherhood's white-haired deputy chief, says its candidates are unlikely to win more than five to 10 seats in parliamentary elections slated for next year.

The regime launched a wave of arrests and military trials against the group, as well, the harshest such security clampdown on the Brotherhood in decades. This dragnet ensnared thousands of rank-and-file members.

It also netted some Brotherhood leaders who ran the financial apparatus that funnels millions of dollars in donations and investment proceeds into campaigning and social outreach. The group's third-in-command, businessman Khairat al Shater, was arrested in December 2006 and sentenced last year to seven years in prison for financing a banned group.

Government officials are unapologetic about the crackdown, which disrupted the Brothers' social services. "We're dealing with a clandestine organization," says Ali Eddin Helal, information secretary of the ruling National Democratic Party.

The regime pressed its public-relations campaign against the Brotherhood last month, when it said it had cracked a cell of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia that was spying in Egypt and smuggling weapons to Hamas. State media painted the Brotherhood as an unpatriotic hireling of Iran, which sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Brotherhood has put up little resistance, and its only attempt at showing its muscle backfired. A 2006 militia-style march by masked Brotherhood students at Cairo's Al Azhar University provoked public outcry, reminding many Egyptians of the group's violent past. More arrests followed.

"Their [nonviolent] strategy doesn't allow them to react -- it doesn't allow an escalation," says Issandr el Amrani, a Cairo-based analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank.

Brotherhood leaders say its base remains dedicated. "If they say we are weakened, why are they still afraid of us?" asks Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, one of two dozen members in the Brotherhood's topmost body, the Guidance Council. "Let's have a free election, and we shall see who wins!"

Alexandria Duo
The government's strategy against the Brotherhood is playing out in Alexandria's Bab Sharq parliamentary district, set inland from this sprawling city's colonial-style beachfront mansions and boulevards. Once a freewheeling, cosmopolitan port, conservative Alexandria is now a Brotherhood stronghold.

Under Egyptian law, every district elects two lawmakers -- one a worker or farmer, the second a professional. The Brotherhood's Saber Abul-Foutouh, a 45-year-old petroleum-industry union organizer who wears dapper suits and a jet-black moustache, won in the worker category in 2005. The professional seat went to local shipping magnate Mohamed Mouselhy, a member of the ruling NDP. Both are freshmen legislators.

Because of his parliamentary status, Mr. Abul-Foutouh has enjoyed immunity from arrest. Not so the staff at his three Alexandria offices: They have been in and out of jail since the elections.

Mr. Abul-Foutouh complains that government representatives have attempted to sabotage his activity on behalf of constituents. "They tell everyone in government offices not to deal with us -- and even those government officials who know us very well fear to help us because they can be punished," he says.

In such an environment, the Brotherhood's strategy has long been to run heavily publicized parallel social services, from job placement to child care to health. "We collect our own money to help the poor -- we serve the people and have a feeling for people's needs," boasts the lawmaker's top aide, Mahmoud Fathallah, who spent February through April behind bars. Two free Brotherhood clinics operate in the area, he added, serving dozens of patients every night.

But the Brotherhood's social-services pitch doesn't always match reality, in part because of the campaign against its financing.

On a recent evening visit to the two Brotherhood clinics, no doctor or patients could be seen. The clinics themselves turned out to be tiny rooms tucked into corners of Brotherhood offices. Behind the flimsy curtains, they contained little more than a cupboard full of pills, rickety furniture and a blood-pressure gauge.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mouselhy, the ruling-party lawmaker, has opened a clinic of his own in the area.

His renovated two-story building, attached to a mosque, is a grander affair. Inside, a framed photo shows the grinning parliamentarian side-by-side with Gamal Mubarak, President Mubarak's son and rumored successor. On a recent evening, pink-clad nurses primed dental, gynecological and pediatric equipment as the clinic's manager, urologist Ahmed Abdul-Aty, received patients.

Dr. Abdul-Aty says the clinic charges patients a symbolic thee Egyptian pounds per visit, or about 50 U.S. cents. For the poorest, it waives even this fee.

Sitting on the pavement in front of their small used-goods store in Bab Sharq, enjoying the evening breeze, several members of the Abdelghani family discussed the relative merits of their two representatives. "Mouselhy wants to be popular, and so he helps out. He gives 20 pounds to anyone who is poor," said 66-year-old Mohamed Abdelghani. "As for the other guy, the only time we saw him here was when the Brothers were collecting money for Gaza."

'Like Everyone Else'
Mr. Abdelghani's 22-year-old daughter Karima, a newly minted lawyer, interrupted to voice her disappointment. "In the beginning, the Brotherhood had a lot of popularity -- people thought they'd achieve something," she said, cradling her year-old son. "But once they got into parliament, they've become just like everyone else."

The nature of parliamentary politics has forced the secretive Brotherhood to take a stand on issues it often preferred to keep vague, chief among them the role of Islam in running the state. "Before, they could just use their big slogan -- 'Islam Is the Solution.' But now in parliament, they've had show their true colors," says Mohamed Kamal, a professor at Cairo University and a senior NDP lawmaker.

When constitutional changes came to a parliamentary vote in 2007, an NDP-sponsored amendment to Article 1 defined Egypt as a state "based on citizenship" -- overshadowing a later clause about Islam being "the religion of the state." The new text was meant to enshrine equal rights between Muslims and the Christian Copts, who make up an estimated one-tenth of Egypt's population.

The Brotherhood has long insisted it holds no prejudice against Christians. Yet an Islamic state -- based on faith, not citizenship rights -- remains the group's core belief. So the Brotherhood lawmakers, unwilling to vote for or against the amendment, ended up walking out of the parliament floor.

Later in 2007, the Brotherhood attempted to clarify its vision by distributing a draft program for a political party it aims to establish. The document stated that a woman or a Christian cannot become Egypt's president, and called for the creation of a special council of Islamic clerics to vet legislation.

The draft appalled the government media, the secular opposition and even some relatively liberal members of the Egyptian Brotherhood itself.

Essam el Erian, the head of the Brotherhood's political bureau, says he has worked on a draft party program for years. The version that ended up being distributed by the group, he quipped, is so wrong that it probably "has been exposed to a virus."

Stung by the criticism, the Brotherhood's senior leadership eventually said the document it had released was not final. The group, whose 80-year-old supreme chief, Mahdi Akef, plans to retire in January 2010, froze the program's drafting.

The latest controversy surrounding the Brotherhood stemmed from its behavior during Israel's Gaza war, a campaign initially seen as a boon to the Islamist movement. Harnessing widespread popular feelings of sympathy with the Palestinian cause, the Brotherhood organized two massive street demonstrations in Alexandria and Cairo during the war, attacking President Mubarak's regime for failing to help Gaza's Hamas rulers.

But these protests soon fizzled. Calls by some Brotherhood leaders to send fighters to Gaza alienated many Egyptians who have no desire to see their own country, at peace with Israel since 1979, embroiled in war once again.

"They went too far and just frightened the street," says Mahmoud Abaza, the leader of the Wafd party who, because the Brotherhood faction is technically made up of independents, serves as the leader of opposition in parliament. "It was a miscalculation."

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

The New Rules: The Good News on the Global Financial Downturn
THOMAS P.M. BARNETT | BIO | 25 MAY 2009

WORLD POLITICS REVIEW


When the global financial contagion kicked in last fall, the blogosphere was quick to predict that a sharp uptick in global instability would soon follow. While we're not out of the woods yet, it's interesting to note just how little instability -- and not yet a single war -- has actually resulted from the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Run a Google search for "global instability" and you'll get 23 million hits. But when it comes to actual conflicts, the world is humming along at a level that reflects the steady decline in wars -- by 60 percent -- that we've seen since the Cold War's end. As George Mason University's Center for Systemic Peace (CSP) notes, that trend applies within the Muslim world, too, so even America's "war on terror" has not quite lived up to the pessimists' expectations.

Wikipedia's page for "ongoing conflicts" cites a whopping seven wars with annual death rates of 1,000-plus. And they're all familiar situations:

Arabs-Israel, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and Mexico. None have been helped by the financial crisis, but all predate it. Iraq's internal situation has actually improved, despite slumping oil revenue. And as for fears that Mexico might soon become a "failed state," that government's recent response to the swine flu indicates otherwise.

The CSP's database lists only three new conflicts since 2008 -- Russia-Georgia, Kenya and southern Sudan. None can be blamed on the global economy. Meanwhile, Colombia's internal security has improved dramatically, and Sri Lanka's stubborn separatist movement just collapsed.

Yes, we suffer from Somali piracy, and American and Chinese subs continue their cat-and-mouse games off China's otherwise quiet coast. Still, many expected more from a financial panic that, according to the IMF, erased roughly 6 percent of global GDP: Beijing and Washington locking horns, for instance, instead of letting Taiwan negotiate peace with the mainland.

But disappointment abounds for the doom-and-gloomers:

- Instead of coming apart at the seams, China implemented a stimulus package that seems to be working at home and abroad (see America's construction industry exports). Beijing's flagship companies have exploited the crisis for the extraordinary buying opportunities it has created, locking in long-term commodity and energy contracts in exchange for much-needed cash. Meanwhile its central bank has swapped $100 billion worth of currency with major trade partners.

- Asia's big powers should be at each other's throats over sea-based energy deposits, or at least over North Korea. And yet recently we've witnessed the first China-Japan-South Korea summit, followed soon after by the creation of a $120-billion liquidity fund to help out their smaller neighbors.

- India's Congress Party just won a decisive victory in national elections, allowing it to rule without relying on anti-globalizing elements like its native Communist party. Expect another young Gandhi to champion India's next round of reforms.

- The EU definitely regrets its fast integration of all those now-shaky Eastern European economies. And yet, as Washington Post economic columnist Steve Pearlstein recently noted, ". . . the real story in Europe may be how firmly market liberalization seems to have taken hold. Not only have there been few, if any, calls for renationalizations, but some countries are still moving toward privatization and reregulation. Instances of protectionism are outweighed by the examples of cross-border mergers and acquisitions that have been accepted as a matter of course . . ."

- In the Middle East, the Arab world's biggest state, Egypt, remains committed to opening up its state-heavy economy even more, while Arab sovereign wealth funds continue their aggressive investment in Africa, where China and India's portfolios also grow.

- In Latin America, market-friendly forces (e.g., Brazil's Lula) are gaining steam, while market-hostile ones (e.g., Venezuela's Chávez) lose traction.

- Even "axis of diesel" Russia has quieted down considerably over the past nine months, with Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, slowly emerging as a force of level-headed moderation.

Add it all up and it's clear that assessments such as "the world is in chaos" -- a David Rothkopf beauty -- just don't fly. Periodic riots do not an Armageddon make.

Instead, this crisis has elicited unprecedented cooperation among the world's great powers on both coordinated stimulus spending and making intermarket financial flows more transparent (keep an eye on the IMF). It's also triggered awareness of the need for an additional global reserve currency to help the euro balance the dollar (a convertible renminbi would help).

If chaos is in short supply, can't we at least admit that, "We are all socialists now"?

Hardly. As the Economist recently argued, "Poor countries are not fretting about the boundaries between state and market. Instead, they are debating whether to rely on domestic or foreign demand."

In a global economy plagued by massive structural trade imbalances, that debate is right on the mark. And notwithstanding the doomsday predictions of last fall, it is being carried out, yes, with urgency, but in relative calm.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC and a contributing editor/online columnist for Esquire magazine. His latest book is "Great Powers: America and the World After Bush" (2009). His weekly WPR column, The New Rules, appears every Monday. Reach him and his blog at thomaspmbarnett.com.

Photo: The Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy, November 2008, Washington, D.C. (White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian).

smallwarsjournal.com


The Post Oceanic Navy

By SWJ Editors


The Post Oceanic Navy, the New Shadow Zones, and the U.S. Navy’s Force Structure Challenge
by Claude Berube, Small Wars Journal

The Post Oceanic Navy (Full PDF Article)

For the past century, the United States Navy has grown from an emergent force among traditional colonial powers able to compete on a world stage to one able to act as a counterbalance in a bipolar environment. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. became the naval hegemon, able to assert national power as needed through the traditional application of a large force with comparably large capital ships. The nation’s investment in smaller platforms to combat smaller threats, such as the deployment of gunboats on the Asiatic station or of riverine craft during the Vietnam War, has ebbed and flowed, a condition that remains true in the early twenty-first century. But the traditional U.S. naval paradigm may need to change due to changing political and fiscal realities and emerging asymmetric maritime threats. This essay examines the domestic and foreign conditions challenges to tomorrow’s navy and how a changing force structure may be required.

The Post Oceanic Navy (Full PDF Article)

By SWJ Editors on April 16, 2009 7:32 PM