Bush may be crazy - but he's got a plan:
The strategic ideas of the Bush Administration -
and their impact on Australia

1. Introduction

Before George W Bush was declared the winner of the November 2000 US Presidential Election by the US Supreme Court, rather than the voters, a global strategy for his administration had already been mapped out by a group of neo-conservatives under the banner of the "Project for the New American Century".
The key military policy orientation was spelt out in September 2000 - one year before the terrorist outrage in New York and Washington - in a 90 page document entitled: Rebuilding America's Defenses - Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.

According to its own website (www.newamericancentury.org), the Project for the New American Century is all about "the resolve to shape a new century favourable to American principles and interests":

Established in the spring of 1997, the Project for the New American Century is a nonprofit, educational organisation whose goal is to promote American global leadership. The Project is an initiative of the "New Citizenship Project". William Kristol is chairman, and Robert Kagan, Devon Gaffney Cross, Bruce P Jackson and John R Bolton serve as directors. Gary Schmitt is Executive Director.

"As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's most preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievement of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

"[What we require is] a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.

"Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of the past century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership."
- From the Project's founding Statement of Principles

This seminal document was authored by Thomas Donnelly, under the co-direction of Donald Kagan and Gary Schmitt. Project participants included Paul Wolfowitz, now Deputy Defence Secretary.

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has certainly 'embraced the cause of American leadership'. This is the deeper motive for the Australian military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the abandonment of Australian citizens David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib to US Military Commissions at Camp X-Ray.
However, this commitment - as spelt out in Rebuilding America's Defences - also means that Australia will host a US air wing, a US aircraft carrier battle group and its associated Marine Expeditionary Force, and will support the US ambition to create a 'national missile defence' strategy, and the equally far-fetched weapons in space program.

These US forces that would be based in Australia will not confirm or deny their possession of nuclear weapons. Pine Gap will continue to be a prime US command and control and spy base, and become integral to the 'national missile defence' and weapons in space.

Either Fremantle or Darwin will be the proposed base for the aircraft carrier battle group. Since the Alice Springs to Darwin railway has a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, as a major investor and manager, Darwin would have to be considered the favoured site for now. Fremantle is already operating as a 'swap base' where the aircraft carrier can have a relief crew fly in, saving it the need to steam all the way to Honolulu or San Diego. Tindal Air Base, south of Darwin, is the likely base for the air wing.

In the short term, it is the 'war on terror' which will justify the return of permanent basing of US forces in the Philippines. This war - against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the National Democratic Front - may well involve Australian military forces, even though these two major rebel forces in the Philippines are classic liberation movements and have no record of international terrorism.

A key concept in Rebuilding America's Defences is that China is an emerging threat to US interests in South East Asia and that Australia, along with the Philippines, will be a forward military base for a US military projection against this challenge. This is a major challenge to Australia's economic and diplomatic orientation toward stronger ties with all of Asia, particularly China, Korea and Japan, over the last 30 years. The Bush strategy will sharply divide Asia between those who are oriented to China and those who are oriented to the USA.

At a deeper level, Howard has committed Australia to a global moral order defined by US power. Rebuilding America's Defences is unapologetic about asserting a view that US interests will dominate the whole world, and that US military forces will be stationed in all parts of the world to assert those interests against any challenge. This is a formula from the age of empire, not from the age of democracy.

In a kind of Dr Strangelove language, the author celebrates the 'peace' brought by US power, and at the same time bemoans the many missions carried out by the US military in the last five years which are allegedly stretching them to exhaustion. Howard is taking us into that land of "war is peace".

While President Bush has already declared a borderless and endless 'war against terrorism', Rebuilding America's Defences is all about an endless series of big wars against big states such as China, Russia and India.

1. The score so far

Since Bush grabbed the presidency in November 2000, many of the objectives of Rebuilding America's Defences have been achieved. The military budget is rapidly expanding, the transformation of the military is underway. The Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty has been abandoned. New nuclear weapons are being developed. Afghanistan and Iraq have been invaded, and US military bases have expanded in size and number, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East. The National Defence Strategy (www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html) unveiled by President Bush in March 2003 is a sanitised version of Rebuilding America's Defences.

Yet the US military is having difficulty maintaining the effort, especially in Iraq. The Iraq invasion deeply divided the US's allies and the USA is now widely regarded as a rogue state. The lies that were used to justify the Iraq invasion are well exposed and have damaged the Blair government in particular, but also the Bush Administration and the Howard government.

The complacent attitude toward economic policy expressed in Rebuilding America's Defences is under enormous pressure. The Clinton era US$100 billion budget surplus has been transformed into a US$450 billion budget deficit in just three years, by a combination of recession, massive military spending and tax cuts to the rich.

Either further economic decline, or more unexpected difficulties in Iraq, or a combination of both, could spell the defeat of Bush at the November 2004 elections. Howard would have great trouble in these circumstances as well. On the other hand, a new war could be just the thing to win the next election, and there are so many options being prepared - Syria, Iran and North Korea, for instance.

2. Assessment of the Clinton era

The study for Rebuilding America's Defences was begun in 1998. The neo-conservatives picked up where the first Bush Administration left off - the last defence strategy developed by the present Vice-President Dick Cheney when he was Defence Secretary back in 1992.

At present the United States faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible. There are, however, potentially powerful states dissatisfied with the current situation and eager to change it, if they can, in directions that endanger the relatively peaceful, prosperous and free condition the world enjoys today. Up to now, they have been deterred from doing so by the capability and global presence of American military power. But, as that power declines, relatively and absolutely, the happy conditions that follow from it will be inevitably undermined. (i)

They blame Clinton for cutting defense spending after the Soviet collapse instead of preparing the US military to meet all foreseeable challenges to its current role as sole superpower.
Clinton achieved a big budget surplus by the year 2000, they argued, mainly through increased tax revenue and cuts to defence spending. So now there is no financial obstacle to a big boost to military spending, they conclude.

And their assessment of Clinton's legacy to the military:
How the US won the Cold War and how Clinton squandered the victory:
American containment strategy did not proceed from the assumption that the Cold War would be a purely military struggle, in which the US Army matched the Red Army tank for tank; rather, the United States would seek to deter the Soviets militarily while defeating them economically and ideologically over time. And, even within the realm of military affairs, the practice of deterrence allowed for what in military terms is called "an economy of force." The principle job of NATO forces, for example, was to deter an invasion of Western Europe, not to invade and occupy the Russian heartland. Moreover, the bipolar nuclear balance of terror made both the United States and the Soviet Union generally cautious. Behind the smallest proxy war in the most remote region lurked the possibility of Armageddon. Thus, despite numerous miscalculations through the five decades of Cold War, the United States reaped an extraordinary measure of global security and stability simply by building a credible and, in relative terms, inexpensive nuclear arsenal.

Over the decade of the post-Cold-War period, however, almost everything has changed. The Cold War world was a bipolar world; the 21st century world is - for the moment, at least - decidedly unipolar, with America as the world's "sole superpower." America's strategic goal used to be containment of the Soviet Union; today the task is to preserve an international security environment conducive to American interests and ideals. The military's job during the Cold War was to deter Soviet expansionism. Today its task is to secure and expand the "zones of democratic peace;" to deter the rise of a new greatpower competitor; defend key regions of Europe, East Asia and the Middle East; and to preserve American preeminence through the coming transformation of war made possible by new technologies. (2)

The author decries the Clinton defence spending cuts - US$160 billion in his first term - and the deferral of US$426 billion in defence investments by 2000. The immediate effect has been a reduction in combat readiness and troops not well-placed to respond to emerging threats:

In Europe, for example, the overwhelming majority of Army and Air Force units remain at their Cold War bases in Germany or England, while the security problems on the continent have moved to Southeast Europe. Temporary rotations of forces to the Balkans and elsewhere in Southeast Europe increase the overall burdens of these operations many times.

Likewise, the Clinton Administration has continued the fiction that the operations of American forces in the Persian Gulf are merely temporary duties. Nearly a decade after the Gulf War, US air, ground and naval forces continue to protect enduring American interests in the region. In addition to rotational naval forces, the Army maintains what amounts to an armored brigade in Kuwait for nine months of every year; the Air Force has two composite air wings in constant "no-fly zone" operations over northern and southern Iraq. And despite increasing worries about the rise of China and instability in Southeast Asia, Us forces are found almost exclusively in Northeast Asian bases. (4)

And on Clinton's lack of preparation for future challenges, the "axis of evil" already emerges in the sights of the neo-conservatives, who seem distressed at the dangers faced by the US military in the 1990s:

Yet for all its problems in carrying out today's missions, the Pentagon has done almost nothing to prepare for a future that promises to be very different and potentially much more dangerous. It is now commonly understood that information and other new technologies - as well as widespread technological and weapons proliferation - are creating a dynamic that may threaten America's ability to exercise its dominant military power. Potential rivals such as China are anxious to exploit these transformational technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate. (4)

3. Four major missions

The author asserts that the US defence strategy has four major missions, three of which involve non-defence military action in other countries:

HOMELAND DEFENSE. America must defend its homeland. During the Cold War, nuclear deterrence was the key element in homeland defense; it remains essential. But the new century has brought with it new challenges. While reconfiguring its nuclear force, the United States also must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter US military action by threatening US allies and the American homeland itself. Of all the new and current missions for US armed forces, this must have priority.

LARGE WARS. Second, the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars and also to be able to respond to unanticipated contingencies in regions where it does not maintain forward-based forces. This resembles the "two-war" standard that has been the basis of US force planning over the past decade. Yet this standard needs to be updated to account for new realities and potential new conflicts.

CONSTABULARY DUTIES. Third, the Pentagon must retain forces to preserve the current peace in ways that fall short of conduction major theater campaigns. A decade's experience and the policies of two administrations have shown that such forces must be expanded to meet the needs of the new, long-term NATO mission in the Balkans, the continuing no-fly-zone and other missions in Southwest Asia, and other presence missions in vital regions of East Asia. These duties are today's most frequent missions, requiring forces configured for combat but capable of long-term, independent constabulary operations.

TRANSFORM US ARMED FORCES. Finally, the Pentagon must begin now to exploit the so-called "revolution in military affairs," sparked by the introduction of advanced technologies into military systems; this must be regarded as a separate and critical mission worthy of a share of force structure and defense budgets. (6)

Nuclear weapons capacity

The author condemns the Clinton Administration for reliance on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its own voluntary end to nuclear testing and development of new weapons.

In short, until the Department of Defense can better define its future nuclear requirements, significant reductions in US nuclear forces might well have unforeseen consequences that lessen rather than enhance the security of the United States and its allies. Reductions, upon review, might be called for. But what should finally drive the size and character of our nuclear forces is not numerical parity with Russian capabilities but maintaining American strategic superiority - and, with that superiority, a capability to deter possible hostile coalitions of nuclear powers. US nuclear superiority is nothing to be ashamed of; rather, it will be an essential element in preserving American leadership in a more complex and chaotic world. (8)

Winning two major wars at the same time
The author affirms the basic premise of US military planning - the need to win two major wars in different parts of the world at the same time, in order to ensure that US allies continue to rely on it for their security. Their thinking includes possible simultaneous wars in several theatres, such as the Korean Peninsula and in the Gulf, as well as major operations such as that in Kosovo. In short they call for a US military capable of defeating attacks in more than two regions, and of overthrowing the offending governments and occupying their countries. It is a two-plus wars capacity. The Iraq invasion demonstrates that the language of 'defence' is still routinely used by the Bush Administration to initiative wars.

Forces for "Constabulary Duties"
While the Pentagon has claimed it is also ready for small scale contingencies such as Kosovo, its planning assumes that these forces can be withdrawn if needed for a major theatre of war. While spelling out the call for a larger military, the author reveals that his side never intended for the US to withdraw military forces from Kuwait or the 'No fly' zones from Iraq.

The shortcomings of this approach were underscored by the experience of Operation Allied Force in the Balkans. Precisely because the forces engaged there would not have been able to withdraw, reconstitute and redeploy to another operation - and because the operation consumed such a large part of overall Air Force aircraft - the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that the United States was running "unacceptable" risk in the event of war elsewhere. Thus, facing up to the realities of multiple constabulary missions will require a permanent allocation of US armed forces.

Nor can the problem be solved by simply withdrawing from current constabulary missions or by vowing to avoid them in the future. Indeed, withdrawing from today's ongoing missions would be problematic. Although the no-fly-zone air operations over northern and southern Iraq have continued without pause for almost a decade, they remain an essential element in US strategy and force posture in the Persian Gulf region. Ending these operations would hand Saddam Hussein an important victory, something any American leader would be loath to do. Likewise, withdrawing from the Balkans would place American leadership in Europe - indeed, the viability of NATO - in question. While none of these operations involves a mortal threat, they do engage US national security interests directly, as well as engaging American moral interests. (10-11)

Technological transformation of US forces
The author argues persistently that the US has changed modern warfare by using new technology, and so it must continue to develop unassailable strength to counter the spread of missile precision technologies.

Today's US conventional forces are masters of a mature paradigm of warfare, marked by the dominance of armored vehicles, aircraft carriers and, especially, manned tactical aircraft, that is beginning to be overtaken by a new paradigm, marked by long-range precision strikes and the proliferation of missile technologies. Ironically, it has been the United States that has pioneered this new form of high-technology conventional warfare: it was suggested by the 1991 Gulf War and has been revealed more fully by the operations of the past decade. Even the "Allied Force" air war for Kosovo showed a distorted version of the emerging paradigm of warfare. (12)

But the new kind of warfare which the US demonstrated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on Reagan era investments. Without the competition from the Soviet Union, the author argues, the US has stalled on the kind of technological advances its new status requires - and China may well be developing a technological edge of its own.

First of all on the list of new requirements is the National Missile Defence shield.

... effective ballistic missile defenses will be the central element in the exercise of American power and the projection of US military forces abroad. Without it, weak states operating small arsenals of crude ballistic missiles, armed with basic nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction, will be a in a strong position to deter the United States from using conventional force, no matter the technological or other advantages we may enjoy. Even if such enemies are merely able to threaten American allies rather than the United States homeland itself, America's ability to project power will be deeply compromised. (12)

But relying on National Missile Defence would not be enough ...
In addition, the process of transformation must proceed from an appreciation of American strategy and political goals. For example, as the leader of a global network of alliances and strategic partnerships, US armed forces cannot retreat into a "Fortress America." Thus, while long-range precision strikes will certainly play an increasingly large role in US military operations, American forces must remain deployed abroad, in large numbers. To remain as the leader of a variety of coalitions, the United States must partake in the risks its allies face; security guarantees that depend solely upon power projected from the continental United States will inevitably become discounted... (12-13)

So US forces deployed abroad must have a capability to overcome any opposition, including space-based weapons, and spending must be aimed at these new systems ...

... it seems likely that the process of transformation will take several decades and that US forces will continue to operate many, if not most, of today's weapons systems for a decade or more. Thus, it can be foreseen that the process of transformation will in fact be a two-stage process: first of transition, then of more thoroughgoing transformation. The breakpoint will come when a preponderance of new weapons systems begins to enter service, perhaps when, for example, unmanned aerial vehicles begin to be as numerous as manned aircraft. In this regard, the Pentagon should be very wary of making large investments in new programs - tanks, planes, aircraft carriers, for example - that would commit US forces to current paradigms of warfare for many decades to come. (13)

4. Repositioning US forces for the new era

While George W Bush was projected in the 2000 presidential election campaign as an isolationist and a 'compassionate conservative', his think tank had been working for two years on a full-blooded global 'force projection' presidency for George.
Despite the centrality of major theater wars in conventional-force planning, it has become painfully obvious that US Forces have other vital roles to play in building an enduring American peace.

The presence of American forces in critical regions around the world is the visible expression of the extent of America's status as a superpower and as the guarantor of liberty, peace and stability. Our role in shaping the peacetime security environment is an essential one, not to be renounced without great cost: it will be difficult, if not impossible, to sustain the role of global guarantor without a substantial overseas presence. Our allies, for whom regional problems are vital security interests, will come to doubt our willingness to defend their interests if US forces withdraw into a Fortress America. Equally important, our worldwide web of alliances provides the most effective and efficient means for exercising American global leadership; the benefits far outweigh the burdens. Whether established in permanent bases or on rotational deployments, the operations of US and allied forces abroad provide the first line of defense of what may be described as the "American security perimeter." (14)

The author approvingly notes that this US security perimeter has been expanding - into central and eastern Europe, into the Balkans, into the Middle East and even into East Timor. Notably, the report indicates no intention to remove forces from Kuwait and Iraq and shows the imperial attitude to Saddam Hussein which underpinned the 2003 Iraq invasion.

In the Persian Gulf region, the presence of American forces, along with British and French units, has become a semi permanent fact of life. Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. (14)

In this view, forward deployed US forces are the first line of defence of the "US security perimeter", and their combat readiness is what will give US allies confidence ...

... they also need to be highly versatile and mobile with a broad range of capabilities; they are the cavalry on the new American frontier. In the event of a large-scale war, they must be able to shape the battlefield while reinforcing forces based primarily in the United States arrive to apply decisive blows to the enemy. Not only must they be repositioned to reflect the shifting strategic landscape, they also must be reorganized and restructured to reflect their new missions and to integrate new technologies. (15)

The author argues for the major US military forces based in Germany and arrayed against a non-existent Warsaw Bloc to be repositioned toward the south east where the Balkans is a long term theatre for the US military. Their preferred base areas are in Hungary and also an expansion of the US base at Incirlik in Turkey. The US Navy should seek a base in the Black Sea. Air and Army bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia should be retained for the long term, because of the challenge from Iran, and even if Iran were to become more friendly to the US, permanent military forces should stay to protect "the longstanding American interests in the region". Naval forces in this region should be "surface action groups' capable of massive cruise missile attacks, rather than the traditional aircraft carrier battle group, he argues.
In Asia, the author argues for US military forces to remain based in Korea, even after Korean unification, and in Japan, including on Okinawa.

If the United States is to remain the guarantor of security in Northeast Asia, and to hold together a de facto alliance whose other main pillars are Korea and Japan maintaining forward-based US forces is essential. (18)

In South East Asia, the report decries the absence of permanent UN bases since the Philippines Senate voted down the US Bases Agreement in 1991. The author sees this region as in tumult, as very important to US interests and as an area where China is seeking to strengthen its influence.

In Southeast Asia, only the United States can reach out to regional powers like Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia and others. This will be a difficult task requiring sensitivity to diverse national sentiments, but it is made all the more compelling by the emergence of new democratic governments in the region. By guaranteeing the security of our current allies and newly democratic nations in East Asia, the United States can help ensure that the rise of China is a peaceful one. Indeed, in time, American and allied power in the region may provide a spur to the process of democratization inside China itself. ...
For operational as well as political reasons, stationing rapidly mobile US ground and air forces in the region will be required. (19)

The author sees the arrival of US military forces permanently based in South East Asia as a spur to a de facto regional military alliance parallel to NATO.

Initially the US should seek forward deployment bases and pre-positioning of equipment for exercises or missions. In fact, this is the current arrangement in the Philippines with its Visiting Forces Agreement and Mutual Logistics Support Agreement and the semi-permanent basing of about 2,000 US troops, including Special Forces for a permanent cycle of exercises.
In Latin America, the US lost the Howard Air Base in Panama, but is shifting forward to air bases in Costa Rica and Ecuador.
Naval deployments should shift from the Mediterranean and Middle East to the Pacific, the report argues, with Australia or the Philippines providing a carrier battle group base.

Given the ability to station landbased forces in Europe and the Gulf, and the size and nature of the East Asia theater, it would be wise to reduce the frequency of carrier presence in the Mediterranean and the Gulf while increasing US Navy presence in the Pacific. Further, it is preferable, for strategic and operational reasons, to create a second major home port for a carrier battle group in the southern Pacific, perhaps in Australia or the Philippines. Generally speaking, the emphasis of Navy operations, and carrier operations in particular, should be increasingly weighted toward the western Pacific. Marine deployments would follow suit. (21)

The US Army remains the central force in the strategic concept advanced by the report. Its enlargement, re-equipment and transformation is seen as a major project, requiring a massive increase in annual spending, from about US$70 billion in 2000 to US$95 billion in the first year of the Bush presidency. The report reads like a Donald Rumsfeld speech, eulogising the smaller unit, high speed warfare, backed by real-time intelligence, that took place in the few weeks of the invasion of Iraq. The plan is to enlarge the full-time Army, pay, house and train it better, transform it into self-contained fighting units of about 5,000, and return the National Guard and the Reserve to their reserve roles, making fewer demands on them than happened in the 1990s. These new, smaller combat units will be first developed on 'the frontier', most likely in South East Asia, and they will be equipped with high level intelligence capacity because their local actions may well have a global impact and errors must be avoided.
The author calmly asserts that the US needs to invade to change regimes, clearly a routine necessity for the new empire. And what good is diplomacy if you can't threaten to invade?

American landpower remains the essential link in the chain that translates US military supremacy into American geopolitical preeminence. Even as the means for delivering firepower on the battlefield shift - strike aircraft have realized all but the wildest dreams of air power enthusiasts, unmanned aerial vehicles promise to extend strike power in the near future, and the ability to conduct strikes from space appears on the not-too-distant horizon - the need for ground maneuvers to achieve decisive political results endures. Regimes are difficult to change based upon punishment alone. If land forces are to survive and retain their unique strategic purpose in a world where it is increasingly easy to deliver firepower precisely at long ranges, they must change as well, becoming more stealthy, mobile, deployable and able to operate in a dispersed fashion. The US Army, and American land forces more generally, must increasingly complement the strike capabilities of the other services.
Conversely, an American military force that lacks the ability to employ ground forces that can survive and maneuver rapidly on future battlefields will deprive US political leaders of a decisive tool of diplomacy. (30)

Air Force
The report praises to the skies the astonishing achievements of the US Air Force in the Gulf War, in the Balkans and in Iraq - "global reach, global power". It calls for a "global first strike force".
As with the US Army, the author abhors the decline in spending on the US Air Force in the 1990s and demands much increased spending, with an emphasis on using existing systems, especially long range bombers and stealth bombers capable of dropping precision guided bombs, as well as acquiring a lot of unmanned surveillance and fighting aircraft. Claiming that the Air Force could not sustain its actions in the Middle East and in the Balkans, the report demands an increase in the number of airbases in Europe, especially in eastern Europe, as well as the expansion of the air bases in Britain, Italy and Turkey. It calls on the US government to recognise that its air bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are permanent, even if it can say so publicly because of Saudi and Kuwaiti sensibilities.

But it is in south East Asia, once again, that the report calls for the biggest expansion, again involving Australia and the Philippines.

The Air Force needs roughly to double its forces stationed in East Asia, preferably dispersing its bases in the south as it has in the north, perhaps by stationing a wing in the Philippines and Australia. As in Europe, Air Force operations in East Asia would be greatly enhanced by the ability to sustain long-range bomber operations out of Australia, perhaps also by including the special maintenance facilities needed to operate the B-2 and other stealth aircraft. Further, the Air Force would be wise to invest in upgrades to regional airfields to permit surge deployments and, incidentally, help build ties with regional air forces. (35)

The US Navy
As with the discussion of the Army and the Air Force, the report castigates the run-down of the Navy under the Clinton presidency and calls for it to be re-built, with less emphasis on aircraft carrier battle groups and more emphasis on surface and submarine attack ships. Cruise missiles are the weapon of choice, rather than bombers. Again, the report argues for more of the Navy to be deployed to South East Asia, using Australia as a base. The basic reason given is that South East Asia is so vast and there are no US permanent bases there, and yet this is the region where the US will face a strategic contest with China.

As stressed several times above, the United States should seek to establish - or reestablish - a more robust naval presence in Southeast Asia, marked by a long-term, semi-permanent home port in the region, perhaps in the Philippines, Australia, or both. Over the next decade, this presence should become roughly equivalent to the naval forces stationed in Japan (17 ships based around the Kitty Hawk carrier battle group and Belleau Wood Marine amphibious ready group). Optimally, these forward deployed forces, both in Japan and ultimately in Southeast Asia, should be increased with additional surface combatants. In effect, one of the carrier battle groups now based on the West Coast of the United States should be shifted into the East Asian theater...
The one recent operation where naval forces, and carrier forces in particular, did play the leading role is also suggestive of the Navy's future: the dispatching of two carrier battle groups to the waters off Taiwan during the 1996 Chinese "missile blockade." Several factors are worth noting. First, the crisis occurred in East Asia, in the western Pacific Ocean. Thus, the Navy was uniquely positioned and postured to respond. Not only did the Seventh Fleet make it first on the scene, but deploying and sustaining ground forces or land-based aircraft to the region would have been difficult. Second, the potential enemy was China. Although Pentagon thinking about major theater war in East Asia has centered on Korea - where again land and land-based air forces would likely play the leading role - the Taiwan crisis was perhaps more indicative of the longer-range future.

A third question has no easy answer: what, indeed, would these carrier battle groups have been able to do in the event of escalation or the outbreak of hostilities? Had the Chinese actually targeted missiles at Taiwan, it is doubtful that the Aegis air-defense systems aboard the cruisers and destroyers in the battle groups could have provided an effective defense. Punitive strikes against Chinese forces by carrier aircraft, or cruise missile strikes, might have been a second option, but a problematic option. And, as in recent strike operations elsewhere, initial attacks certainly would have employed cruise missiles exclusively, or perhaps cruise missiles and stealthy, land-based aircraft. (44-45)

The US Marine Corps
It is the same story with the Marines - run down under Clinton, stretched by all the operations of the late 1990s, and urgently in need of expansion and restructuring. The report calls a second Marine Expeditionary Unit to be created and based in South East Asia along with the aircraft carrier battle group. Marine units should have more light infantry and be more mobile, with less tanks and artillery, and rely more on the other services for fire support.

5. Transforming military force for future global dominance

The strategic perspective of Rebuilding America's Defences sees anything less than total military domination of the globe as a strategic vulnerability, and so the author sets out a blueprint for a US military capacity transformed by technology to ensure global dominance into the foreseeable future.

Since missile technology, combined with nuclear weapons, gives an enemy real deterrent power, the report calls for the dumping of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the USA and Russia. With no hint of irony, the report complains that since the end of the Cold War the ABM Treaty is mainly a deterrent against the USA.

In the post-Cold War era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities. Projecting conventional military forces or simply asserting political influence abroad, particularly in times of crisis, will be far more complex and constrained when the American homeland or the territory of our allies is subject to attack by otherwise weak rogue regimes capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force. Building an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence. (54)

The three objectives set out to ensure future domination are: global missile defences, control of space and cyberspace, and the transformation of conventional military forces.

The report projects the future creation of a new military force - Space Force. - not only for space-based missile defences and protection of satellite systems, but able to attack earth targets from space and to attack other orbiting vehicles. Similarly, the US military want to be able to deny an enemy the use of cyber-weapons to disable its computer-based systems and if possible to destroy any enemy computer-based systems - cyber warfare.
While the talk of Space Force is arresting, it is the discussion of transformation of the conventional forces which reveals the more realisable ambitions and deeper thinking of the author.

He calls first for a strategy of transformation rather than a strategy for transformation, because the technological imagination of the 'transformers' is not linked to the strategic requirements of maintaining US preeminence. For instance, the technical ability to launch strikes from the US mainland to a target anywhere in the world is an awesome capacity, but may undermine the confidence of US allies that the US military will actually send forces, rather than just fire missiles from afar, if they are under threat.

The author reasserts the need for forward deployed land forces and the political logic of wars:

As long as wars and other military operations derive their logic from political purposes, land power will remain the truly decisive form of military power. Indeed, it is ironic that, as post-Cold-War military operations have become more sophisticated and more reliant on air power and longrange strikes, they have become less politically decisive. American military preeminence will continue to rest in significant part on the ability to maintain sufficient land forces to achieve political goals such as removing a dangerous and hostile regime when necessary. (61)

The report first of all calls for competition between service secretaries and service chiefs of staff in developing the revolution in warfare - it should initially be a process of experimentation. But for the Army, the first steps should be in higher mobility and the ability to project forces long-range - and the expectation is that this will be learnt fastest in South East Asia.

For the Air Force the initial steps are to increase the volume of precision bombs, and increase the number of long range stealth aircraft to deliver them, and to cut back on programs like the F22 Fighter project and the even more expensive Joint Strike Fighter. The long range aircraft will be needed in South East Asia. The Air Force should also push ahead with space-based weapons systems.

For the Navy, the recommendation is to increase its missile capacity and to develop the use of stealth design and more submarine forces to counter the growing threat of missiles to its surface ships. It should take a greater role in missile defence systems. It is also encouraged to experiment with unmanned aircraft and unmanned submarines, as well as laying 'missile pods' offshore an enemy country, to be fired by remote command.

6. Paying for the larger military

The author weighs the arguments about how much damage Clinton did to the military, and how dire the consequences will be by 2010 if nothing is done to boost spending. He comes down on the side of larger rather than smaller spending increases.

... we believe that, over time, the program we advocate would require budgets roughly equal to those necessary to fully fund the QDR [Quadrennial Defence Review] force - a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product. A sensible plan would add $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually through the Future Years Defense Program; this would result in a defense "topline" increase of $75 billion to $100 billion over that period, a small percentage of the $700 billion on budget surplus now projected for that same period. We believe that the new president should commit his administration to a plan to achieve that level of spending within four years. (75)

The last word of the report goes to the political idea behind the whole project of expanding US military power:

Keeping the American peace requires the US military to undertake a broad array of missions today and rise to very different challenges tomorrow, but there can be no retreat from these missions without compromising American leadership and the benevolent order it secures. This is the choice we face. It is not a choice between preeminence today and preeminence tomorrow. Global leadership is not something exercised at our leisure, when the mood strikes us or when our core national security interests are directly threatened; then it is already too late. Rather, it is a choice whether or not to maintain American military preeminence, to secure American geopolitical leadership, and to preserve the American peace. (75-76)

While the Bush Administration and its neo-conservative supporters have clearly chosen to use military power to determine global relationships between peoples and countries, the American people and the world's peoples have other options. With good information, and organisation, the option for peaceful, cooperative and non-exploitative international can be asserted and win the struggle for our human future in a sustainable environment.

7. For discussion

Is the Bush view that international affairs today must be based on US domination viable?

What is the significance of Rebuilding America's Defences for the continuing role of the United Nations Charter?

What does the history of the age of empires of the 17th-20th century teach us about the impact of empires?

What does the history of the anti-colonial struggles of the 20th century teach us about the impact of empires?

Did World War I and World War II discredit or affirm the benefits of the great power system for humanity?

To what extent does the US dominance, as envisaged by the Project for the New American Century, depend on the Bush Administration starting wars, rather than just defending against attack?

What alternatives are available today to the world order asserted by the Bush Administration?

What can Australia do to help create a peaceful world order?

Which political groups in Australia have an interest in helping to create a peaceful world order?

How can these groups work better together to advance this objective?