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U.S. Response: Pentagon Plan Focuses on Pre-Emption, High-Tech Tools Classified Pentagon guidelines for the U.S. military over the next five years focus on improving abilities to respond to WMD threats, to carry out pre-emptive strikes and to fight Afghanistan-style conflicts, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday (see GSN, May 8). The guidelines, contained in an annually updated report called Defense Planning Guidance, call on officials to focus spending on five areas: intelligence, cyberwarfare, airstrike capabilities, military systems in space and counterterrorism and combating WMD threats, the Times reported. The report shifts previous military strategy, reflecting recent statements by U.S. President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that emphasize the need to attack potential enemies before they can strike at U.S. forces or territory, according to the Times (see GSN, June 7; John Hendren, Los Angeles Times, July 13). Launching “unwarned” strikes against U.S. enemies is the main tool for responding to potential threats, according to the report. It focuses on a more “interventionist, proactive strategy,” defense analyst William Arkin wrote in the Times. The plan “envisions the U.S. military as a global strike force capable of unilateral action anywhere, any time, with minimal risk to American lives,” Arkin wrote. Pre-Emptive Strike Tools The Pentagon report calls for developing certain weapons and intelligence capabilities that would enhance the military’s ability to launch first strikes. For example, the report recommends developing by 2009 a Mach 10 hypersonic missile that could travel 600 nautical miles in 15 minutes or less, providing capability to hit mobile missiles such as the Iraqi Scud shortly after launch and before the launcher could move (see GSN, July 8). The plan also calls for deploying 12 unmanned combat aircraft that could drop a variety of weapons by 2012. It calls for accelerating development of nuclear-armed earth penetrators that could infiltrate deeply buried bunkers in three rogue countries simultaneously (see GSN, March 29). It also recommends developing laser and microwave weapons capable of attacking underground targets (William Arkin, Los Angeles Times, July 14). The guidelines state the need for improved intelligence to warn of growing crises, to identify targets and to monitor military campaigns (Hendren, Los Angeles Times). Missile Defense Although the plan’s focus on pre-emptive attacks overshadows the Bush administration’s earlier emphasis on anti-missile defenses, the plan still supports continuing missile defense development, Arkin wrote. It calls for continuing other current efforts to protect the United States, particularly from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Criticism Although the Pentagon plan embraces Rumsfeld’s idea of military transformation, it could actually slow the transformation process, Arkin wrote. The relationship that Rumsfeld and his close advisers have with military officers is not good, he added. Another problem is that the plan emphasizes pre-emptive intervention in countries such as Afghanistan but does not provide a way out, Arkin said. The plan indicates a belief that the campaign in Afghanistan was successful and could serve as a model for future military efforts, but it ignores the political difficulties that have followed the Taliban’s overthrow, he wrote (Arkin, Los Angeles Times). Some other defense analysts expressed concern that the Pentagon document reflects a belief in “push-button warfare” that involves few U.S. casualties. “It’s this concept that we can sit in our air-conditioned bunkers and push buttons,” said Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution. “That leads to the absurd decision to fight a Kosovo war without a ground component. It leads to relying on insurgents and precision strikes to overthrow [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein]. It’s absurd to think that that’s the way we ought to fight warfare in each and every circumstance,” Daalder said. “Wars are still fought and won in the old-fashioned way: by killing more of the others than they kill of you. And by taking territories,” he added (Hendren, Los Angeles Times).
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