Pentagon Needs Fly Swatters, Not Aircraft Carriers

By JACK SHANAHAN

The images of giant aircraft carriers and B-52s heading off to the Persian Gulf evoke a welcome reassurance that America is still strong, but unfortunately these images have more PR value for our country than military significance. The deployment of America's big, high tech weapons should not reassure Americans at all.

Yes, our nation has a big, all-powerful military. No country comes close to matching our firepower. But there's one problem: Our military is mostly incapable of dealing with modern threats.

Nonetheless, when a crisis occurs, our military responds as if its weapons and training are in fact what's needed. Sending carriers to the Gulf and, potentially, paratroopers into Afghanistan is what our military is prepared to do. So that's what our leaders order it to do.

A military mobilization like the one happening now would be justified if we were targeting hostile nations with complicit citizens in the Persian Gulf, and we wanted to kill them with our heavy weaponry. But we aren't, and we should not indiscriminately bomb any Persian Gulf country. Killing civilians would simply arm our enemy with a new generation of terrorists.

We don't need clubs. The American military needs fly swatters to respond to terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

An example of the kind of serious fly swatters America needs more of are the Army's Delta forces. These small, highly agile teams of soldiers are trained in special operations, such as tracking down and eliminating terrorist targets and disrupting or intercepting their communications. Like their kindred Navy Seals, the Delta forces rely on advanced communications, reconnaissance, and navigational technology. Our military must put this on developmental front burner along with new mobile forces.

Despite the reality, which has been apparent for many years, that special forces and supporting mobile weaponry are what's needed for future conflicts, our military continues to build new weapons that would be perfect if the Soviet Union were still with us. F-22 fighter jets, currently approaching the production line, would be just the right tool for our soldiers to do battle in Eastern Europe. The New Attack Submarine would have prevailed over Soviet subs that were on the drawing board but were never built. Even the crash-prone V-22 Osprey, which lands like a helicopter and cruises like a plane, would have been excellent for long-range missions in communist territory.

These Cold War weapons systems are earmarked to receive $116 billion in future years, and roughly $12 billion next year alone. Add to this the $8 billion just approved by Congress for national missile defense and the total approaches the amount of America's international affairs budget, $23 billion.

Unless our leaders demand reform at the Pentagon, obsolete weapons will anchor the future of our military. Weapons that would have provided security a decade ago only produce the illusion of security today.

Why does America waste money on weapons to fight the Warsaw Pact, when the Cold War ended over a decade ago? The answer to this question is the same today as it was before terrorists bombed the world trade center: Greed.

Defense contractors, with their $50 million annual lobbying campaign, are a big part of the problem. Another source of life for unneeded Cold War weapons are powerful members of Congress, who use the Pentagon budget as a jobs program for their districts. And finally, military planners themselves and bureaucratic momentum at the Pentagon can be blamed for the continued pursuit of expensive, muscle-bound weapons that are not needed to defend America in the post-Cold War era.

Now is a time for our leaders to stand up to this cycle of unconscionable waste. Our military and diplomatic efforts to counter terrorism are in vital need of funds.

As President Bush told America last week, "We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them." One of our principles, surely, is to insist that our government spend money on our military wisely rather than continue to throw money at a problem that demands a response with more intelligence, literally.

Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan (USN, ret) is a former commander of the U.S. Second Fleet and heads the Military Advisory Committee of the Priorities Campaign.