Moseley: Gates was Right; 'Zero Chance' of War with China or Russia

By Noah Shachtman June 09, 2008 | 10:54:00 AMCategories: Crazy Ivans, Eye On China, Paper Pushers & Powerpoint Rangers, Strategery


Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired Air Force Chief of Staff General "Buzz" Moseley after repeatedly accusing the service of being unable to focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a fascinating interview with Air Force Times, conducted right after his removal, Moseley said the critiques were dead-on.
It's an eye-opening admission. For years, Moseley's generals have been warning about the dangers of China and a resurgent Russia -- and downplaying today's counterinsurgency conflicts. Now, Moseley is saying there is "an almost zero chance we will fight a nation-state" like Russia or China. Which makes you wonder why the Air Force has been so preoccupied with these countries.
Q. Secretary Gates has said the services, and the Air Force, are focused on “next-war-itis.” What’s your view?
A. I don’t have a critique of Dr. Gates, because I believe the services have to be able to do everything — across the entire spectrum of conflict. We have got to be able to fight a counterinsurgency, an irregular war scenario, all the way up to the high-end theater. And we have to be able to do that 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
You don’t get to pick when and where you do this. You have to be able to do it on a global scale. And I surely 100 percent support the notion that the bureaucracy is very, very slow at being able to capitalize on creative innovative opportunities. ...
I’m as frustrated as Dr. Gates with a bureaucracy that is very, very slow at adapting to things like this, whether it’s this war or the next, or whether this notion of the next war, I think we are going to have to do better on this...
We have to think about this; we have to discuss this; invest in it heavily; test it to see what works and what doesn’t; and we have to have a much more robust understanding of warfare from counterinsurgency to irregular to high-end theater war.
I do not predict nor believe that we will have a nation-state versus nation-state conflict sometime in the near future. If we do the deterrence and dissuasion piece right, we will avoid conflict...
While I believe there is an almost zero chance we will fight a nation-state, I believe there is a near 100 percent chance we are going to fight very sophisticated systems on the land, at sea and in the air.
I believe the best way to deter and dissuade is to be able to wholly dominate the land, sea, air, space and cyber domains.