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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial 03/30/01 note: for links to information resources on the new Bush era, go to NewsBoom FUTUREWAR The young Army engineer spit the talcum-fine sand from between his lips and shook his head as he watched a parade of 70-ton M1A1 Abrams tanks waddle off the transport ship and onto the Saudi dock. "I don't know why the hell Saddam's letting us do this," he said. "We've been building up for weeks and not a peep out of him." That was a decade ago, as the U.S. military spent four months ferrying troops, tanks, helicopters, jets, toilet paper, MRE's, and ammo into Saudi Arabia. A few well-placed missiles could have wrecked the deployment, killed hundreds, and destroyed several billion dollars worth of heavyweight hardware. But Saddam just watched as the muscle to ensure his defeat kept growing. It won't happen again. The next war(s) won't give the United States the opportunity to spend months marshalling people and equipment. The next war(s) won't feature hundreds of tanks going at each other across flat trackless desert. We've seen the future. It moves fast. Future war will probably be either: * Somalia, Bosnia, or some other close-in brushfire war fought by militias, commando units, and/or terrorists, or-- * China or North Korea, suddenly striking fixed bases and aircraft carriers with waves of planes, people, and relatively cheap missiles. That's why the Pentagon is preparing to change the look of the U.S. military in the biggest overhaul since the build-up preceding World War II. Huge concentrations of manpower, either at bases in Turkey, Japan, or South Korea, or on aircraft carrier task forces, will be out. They'll be replaced with fast-moving, dispersed, de-centralized units, offering speed, striking power, and less of a fat target. Take the Navy. For decades, its job was to slug it out with opposing navies in several thousand feet of water, launching air strikes and 18-inch shells toward enemy ships. Now, its becoming a shallow water navy, based on what it calls the Forward From the Sea doctrine. Seventy per-cent of the world's people live within 50 miles of a coastline. The Navy's new job is to use nimble shallow-draft ships to clear coastal defenses and mines and drop several thousand Marines ashore, providing air and missile support so the jarheads can quickly secure a 50-mile zone in from the coast and hold it. The Air Force is breaking up the old structure left over from the air wars in Europe and Japan, and is re-organizing itself into Expeditionary Forces, able to project firepower quickly almost anywhere. Its planners want more of the sub-sonic but stealthy B-1 bombers, and fewer of the batwing super-expensive superfast B-2's. The Army's being forced to become lighter and faster. And that means changing training and equipment. It also means putting more G.I.'s in danger, since faster means lighter, and lighter means less protection. Take the 70-ton Abrams tank. It was awhiz in the desert. In Bosnia, itcan't be used, since most of the roads and bridges can't handle 140,000 pounds of armor repeatedly. Enter the MAV--Medium Armored vehicle, a combo light tank and personnel carrier that rips along the roads on giant tires rather than treads. It's a lot faster. It also offers a lot less protection for the troopers inside. The Nimitz-class carriers which have ruled the sea since Hirohito surrendered provide astonishing firepower. With hundreds of planes and 5,000 crew, they also provide astonishingly huge targets. Imagine the effect on readiness and morale if a barrage of Silkworm missiles sent one of America's 12 flattops to the bottom, along with hundreds of planes and thousands of sailors. It's been 56 years since the U.S. lost a carrier. The next generation of floating airfields for Navy planes will look a lot like the proposed Corsair class of ships. These will be light and fast, amazingly fast, with a top speed around 70 knots, more than twice as fast as the speediest Navy ships can currently travel. The Aegis-class cruisers that protect every carrier battle group will be replaced with the proposed DD21 class of destroyer, fast and stealthy missile and gun playforms made for working close to the coasts. The prototype designs make them look a lot like the Civil War's Monitor--no outside deck and very little of the ship above the waterline, sort of like a submarine that stays on the surface. All of this, like everything else, is a political problem. Congressional subcommittees and deputy assistant secretarys of Defense will haggle over whose district loses lucrative contracts, or big bases, as the armed forces shift to a more mobile posture. Meanwhile, China, North Korea, Osama bin Ladin, Iran, and warlords from Somalia to the Balkans already have their strategy in place--hit hard, hit fast, hit first, and disappear. |
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