Why the Pentagon Fears Rumsfeld’s Review

When the Bush administration took office last January, the Pentagon ended several years of (to borrow from a recent movie) “Waiting to Exhale.”
Soon they were gasping again. Now, once more, they’re holding their breath. Nothing quite like this has ever happened in Washington, D.C. That’s because no nation has ever faced the military situation this nation confronts. And the next year or so will determine what triumphs: Pentagon and Beltway politics-as-usual or the 21st-century security needs of the United States.

First some recent history, then a simple paradigm, then a way to make sense of it all.

No one expected defense to become a major issue. George W. “Help Is on the Way” Bush and Dick Cheney made it so. The Pentagon assumed that help meant money.

Donald Rumsfeld said no, not yet. First, the new secretary of defense refused to press for large supplemental appropriations. Then he convened a klatch of high-level independent and confidential panels, “The Rumsfeld Review,” to study every aspect of defense and come up with a basis for future thinking and action.

Soon, Rumsfeld found himself on everybody’s hit list. The Pentagon, an array of conservatives (the kind who never met a weapon they didn’t like) and an array of leftists (who never met a weapon they did) launched a well-publicized campaign to discredit the review. Publicly, nobody seemed sure how many panels there were, or what they might eventually report out. What mattered was to trash the product, perhaps even Rumsfeld himself.

Why?

Of course, it’s possible to explain everything in terms of turf battles, bureaucratic politics, budget anxieties, etc. True enough. But they miss a larger point, one that every undergraduate business major learns, or should learn, the first day in class: the difference between the sales and the marketing mentalities.

The sales mentality starts with a product. We sell horseshoes. True, the horses don’t come to town much anymore, but we still sell the best damn horseshoes around.

The marketing mentality starts a question. What is the need to be filled? Horseshoe consumption’s not what it was. But the market for auto parts seems to be growing.

To simplify a bit: The Pentagon operates on the sales mentality. Rumsfeld and his people want to operate on the marketing mentality.

The Pentagon says: We drive tanks, we sail carriers, they’re the best damn tanks and carriers in the world, and they will be for decades.

The Rumsfeld approach: What is the 21st-century need?

Need is not always easy to define, since it’s determined as much by how a product fits into the total mix as by its own qualities. Take one brief example, aircraft carriers.

Since World War II, these magnificent ships justified their existence by meeting two needs: bombs on-target and presence. They could ferry aircraft beyond the range of land-based planes and they could remain for long periods in international waters.

Nobody denies that they’re still capable of it. But when you can attack targets with long-range B-2 bombers and cruise missiles launched from almost any platform; when carriers grow increasingly vulnerable to shore-based missiles; when you may not need gray hulls offshore to intimidate the locals; and when they’re so expensive to build and operate . . . how many do you still need?

A hundred other examples could be adduced. But they all feed into a single question: What is the need?

This is the need. Today, the most powerful nation on Earth faces a growing array of old and new threats from old and new sources. No conventional “peer competitor” is likely to emerge. But conventional “regional near-peer and non-peer competitors,” from China to Iran and Iraq, pose continued challenges. These the military must be able to handle quickly and lethally, while dealing with the ever greater dangers of proliferating weapons of mass destruction (nukes), mass death (chemical and biological), and mass disruption (cyberwar) in the hands of nations, politically and religiously motivated terrorists, and organized criminals who may not be averse to attacking the American homeland.

Defense requires exploiting multiple technological revolutions in everything from computers and robotics to nano-technologies, on land and sea, and in the air and space above. This in turn requires fundamental changes in military organization, structures and procedures . . . in peacetime, on a limited budget, and without strong popular support.

The Rumsfeld initiatives point toward transformation based on need. The Pentagon, although not always wrong, responds to the two fundamental imperatives of any bureaucracy: protect your budget and your bureaucrats. The confrontation between statesmanship and bureaucracy is already ugly and intense. It’s going to get worse.

The American people need to listen. The issues may be complex, but it should be clear, soon enough, who’s talking horseshoes and who’s talking needs.

Philip Gold is director of defense and aerospace studies at Seattle’s Discovery Institute.