Does Off-Shore Drilling Matter?: the Long and Short of It

The confluence of $4.00+/gallon gasoline and a political season of intense clashes has ensured that we have seen, and will continue to see, a wide range of proposed fixes. Oftentimes these proposals are economically unsound, but any action that promises to lower prices at the pumps is potentially politically popular (alliteration unintended.) During the bouts of the Democratic primary, Clinton proposed reducing (or eliminating? sorry don’t remember) the gas tax. This is, of course, the kind of short-sighted pandering that does not achieve anything significant. Many economists have actually advocated higher gas taxes because there are costs that are being incurred by society that consumers don’t have to pay. (Don’t worry, politicians aren’t returning the phone calls of economists.) Put more clearly, because we can store our carbon in the air essentially for free, we do a lot more of it than we would if we had to write a check for it. A tax that is designed to reduce some activity whose cost is not fully captured in market prices is called a Pigouvian taxes. Calls for Pigouvian taxes on gasoline have fallen on deaf ears.

The tax elimination/reduction proposal above is but one of the many suggested solutions that confront the same problem. The rub is this, anything one does to allieviate the pain at the pumps ultimately exacerbates the problem. I heard discussion of a mantra of “find more and use less” the other day on the radio. This is, of course, not how markets function. When supply rises, whether it be through reducing or eliminating the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, increasing off-shore drilling, or starting ANWR drilling, there are two corresponding results. Price decreases. Yeah! Quantity demanded increases. Booh! Because people demand more, you just postpone bumping up against global supply limitations because people are not adjusting their behavior to the degree they otherwise would.

I’ve written about “pain at the pumps.” This is a more apropos analogy than one might at first think. Price increases, like pain, are a signal to us to change our behavior. Pain tells you to pull your hand off a hot stove, and high gas prices tell you to … drive a more efficient vehicle, combine errands, carpool, etc. With pain we may think that we can just medicate it away, but this can have dire consequences (i.e. walking around on a broken leg while baked, believe it or not, can have results that are less than good.) With gas price increases, there is a tendency to believe that there is some quick fix to medicate the problem away but such a solution has not been stumbled on by a political candidate do date. If such a solution exists, it has not been discovered by much smarter people than I.

You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play: Diplomacy with Iran

The seating of a high ranking American diplomat, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, at talks with the Iranian Nuclear negotiator in meetings in Geneva - even if only as an observer - is a welcome change in the Bush policy. While it would be nice to have someone actually at the table in a negotiating role, baby-steps are better than no steps. In conjunction with the talks with North Korea, this represents a change from a policy under which the US does not talk to opponents until they have ceded to US demands. One has to wonder if humanity would have survived had the Cold War been run with such an approach to international affairs. That is, if we had refused to talk to, or have diplomatic relations with, the Soviet Union until after they surrendered influence in all Central European countries, implemented human rights reforms, and eliminated unwelcome influence in developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. (I’m certain that there were people arguing for just that, this brand of Neoconservatism isn’t all that new. It’s just that it has only recently had its time in the sun after being considered lunatic fringe - a position to which it may be fortunately returning) Instead, we maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviets throughout, including tense times such at the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The New York Times reported that John Bolton called the move a sign of “the Administration’s complete intellectual collapse.” This is exceptionally ironic as I think that most students of diplomacy, including the vast majority of conservative international relations experts, would consider these moves as signs of intellectual life.

The stance of not being involved in negotiations until after one has won the concessions one seeks is an interesting position to come from people who pride themselves on being bold, because it seems so cowardly. It is as if they don’t believe that the US can hold its own in negotiations, but rather will be run roughshod over by the negotiators of Kim Jong Il or Ahmedinejad if they even enter into negotiations. An admittedly cynical way to view this neocon stance is that it is a way to ensure that progress not made. Some of these individuals may have been mortified when the Reagan Administration began negotiating with Gorbachev, and Gorbachev began giving way the farm. I would hate to think that there are people shaping policy who are influenced by stock positions in defense firms, but I find this fear of negotiations hard to explain. Perhaps we have not been cautious enough in following Eisenhower’s admonition to guard against the influence of the Military-Industrial Complex in politics.

As the title of this post states, “you can’t win if you don’t play.” International diplomacy is a game of strategy, and, as such, refusing to move does not create game-winning conditions but rather stagnation.  By ”winning” I am just talking about achieving one’s objective at a cost that is acceptable (at or below ones reservation price.) This is obviously counter to the common definition in which there is no possible overlap of acceptable outcomes, such that one side’s ”win” is inherently the other side’s “loss.” The point is, the opposition has no incentive to consider ones demands if one does not have a seat at the table. They can maintain their existing trajectory. After all, with no one at the table, there is no ability to offer anything for which they might find it worth altering their course. There is no company that would do business with a firm that said: “we won’t negotiate a contract until you conceded to all these things that we want first.” If a business did say such a thing, one might expect they had little to offer.

Can Gas Prices Stay High Forever?

We are now well above the tipping point at which we have been told all sorts of technologies become cost effective that can compete with traditional petroleum sources. There is coal gasification (we have coal out the wazoo), tar sand distillation, oil shale distillation, or bio-fuel production to name a few. There is a notion that gas prices cannot stay above this tipping point forever because, eventually, the plant capacity for these other sources of petrol will be built up, and, once they are, supply can be increased relative to the level of demand with the effect of lowering the market price.

One problem is that investing in these plants is seen as a risky endeavor. There are huge up-front capital costs that may be impossible to pay back if the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decides to flood the market. In other words, I build a tar sand distillation plant from which I can sell my product profitably at $3.00/gallon and then OPEC has a meeting and decides to target $2.50/gallon, I will be bankrupt. It may be getting harder and harder for OPEC to dump oil on the market in order to radically drop prices because many member countries claim that they don’t have much excess capacity. In other words, they can’t increase output by much, and price inelasticity of demand for fuel means that the little extra does not have a major impact on prices. However, it may be hard for investors to develop confidence that the OPEC is out of excess capacity, given its historic ability to produce enough to effect prices.  

I’m interested in what market-based solutions exist to facilitate stable conditions for alternative fuel suppliers that are minimally distorting. Of course, from an environmental point of view, targeting demand reduction is far preferable to increasing supply capacity. Perhaps, demand reduction is the way to go entirely. In some sense, the high prices themselves are a good means to decrease demand.

Would We Know Minimal Deterrence if We Saw It?

The United States faces a dilemma with respect to its nuclear arsenal. On one hand, it, like the other Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), made a commitment toward a “good-faith” effort to disarm at the earliest possible date. Because of this, there is pressure to reduce arsenals and discontinue warhead development. Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS) are becoming increasingly unhappy with the lack of progress on this front (as witnessed by the 2005 NPT Review Conference debate), and the cracks in the foundation of the regime have become apparent.

On the other hand, there is a prevailing notion that the strategic stability of deterrence is lost at low numbers of warheads. Deterrence is premised upon the notion that a nuclear attack will invite a retaliatory strike of massive consequence. At small numbers of weapons, one side may begin to believe that they can destroy their enemy’s capacity to retaliate through a coordinated first strike, a limited missile defense, or a combination of both. This condition is destabilizing because, if one side is motivated to attack (either because they want war or because they think the other side wants war) they will be much more likely to act if they believe the opposition arsenal can be negated.

There are ways to make even a small arsenal highly survivable, but these often have their own destabilizing effects. Putting the warheads on submarines makes them both mobile and hidden in a vast space. Of course, it also makes the opposition anxious that the enemy might pop up off their coastline and fire missiles in a manner that would give them very little response time. Limited time to respond is the enemy of sound judgement. 

Given this opposing conditions, the US would like to reduce its arsenal, but only to a point at which there remains a stable deterrence. However, there are a number of issues straight from the headlines that complicate the situation yet further. Many people in the Departments of Energy and Defense would like to produce a new type of warhead dubbed the Reliable Replacement Warhead. A central argument for such a project is that increasing the reliability of the component warheads would allow the US to go to smaller numbers because it would not require as great a buffer for margin of error. However, a great deal of controversy arises because building a new warhead represents a step back from the good-faith effort to disarm, and, if it requires testing to validate, it will further create tension among the nuclear have-not states that are already seeing progressively less reason to participate in the NPT. Of course, some say that the RRW is not really a new warhead because it does not offer new capabilities, and that it might be able to enter the arsenal without the conduct of a physical test. The Congress as of late has not been willing to continue funding on this project; thus intimating where it falls in the debate.

Missile defense creates a barrier to arsenal reduction. Presuming a missile shield is developed which is believed to be functionally effective, missile defenses reduce the ability to conduct a retaliatory strike, and states need to maintain larger arsenals to ensure that they can overwhelm these defenses. If the US has a missile shield, other countries become less likely to be willing to reduce their arsenals or may even see fit to increase the size of their arsenal. This, of course, makes it politically difficult for the US to unilaterally draw down its forces. The Bush Administration has been having this argument with Russia, which is concerned about the missile shield under negotiation in Europe that would involve sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Putin has announced a plan to target Central Europe and has discussed other ramifications of such a site. The US has stated that the system would only involve 10 interceptors, and is, therefore, designed only to deal with a rogue proliferator such as Iran (against which it is directed) and has no capacity to negate the Russian arsenal.

Ultimately, the question of concern is how low can a nation go while still maintaining a functional deterrent capability?  This depends upon a number of the factors addressed above including: how reliable the arsenals are, whether there are defensive systems in place, and whether the arsenals are hidden and/or mobile. However, the question also requires assumptions be made about the stability of the current state of affairs. For example, if one anticipates that the relevance of nuclear arsenals will be maintained at the current level, one will likely draw different conclusions about minimal deterrence then if one believes actions will be taken to reduce the relevance of nuclear weapons as suggested by the two Op-Eds by Kissinger, Perry, Shultz, and Nunn. Actions to reduce the relevance of arsenals may allow states to squeeze down to lower numbers sooner.

There are also the assumptions about what national decision makers feel is acceptable loss. I suspect that these losses would be much lower than Cold War planners estimated. Consider the economic and political ramifications of an event such as 9-11, which might be considered minor compared to the loss to be incurred as a result of even a crude nuclear device detonated at ground level in a densely populated area. Of course, because we don’t at the moment have a good way to model “acceptable loss”, we would expect over-the-top estimations to be presented in order to be on the safe side. In other words, we would expect to have to be able to unleash a great deal more retaliation to deter an opponent than it would probably actually take to do so.

The Economic Worldview of Extremists

There is a widespread belief in the Western world that improving the economic situation is the key to reducing tensions in the Middle East. However, various extremists have on occasion stated that the idea that money will sooth everything over is just an indication of how degenerate Westerners have become, and how little they understand what motivates Islamist fighters. The prescription for dealing with extremist elements may vary radically depending upon whether they truly do respond to value and economic conditions fundamentally differently than the rest of the world.

Stepping back, first let us consider whether there is an Islamic Economics that is inherently different from capitalist economics, and that might form the basis of Islamist economics. This is not to equate Islam and Islamism (the belief that Islam is a political system as well as a religion, and that its an inherently superior one at that.)  Many have argued that there is, in fact, an Islamic Economics that is a distinctively different system of economic thought and behavior. Of course, a debate swirls around the degree to which the Islamic system is truly different. For example, Islamic law (Sharia) prohibits the charging of interest, and this as seen as a major point of departure between Islamic and capitalist financial institutions. However, we know that, in reality, a bank can no more operate without charging interest than a farmer can operate without collecting payment for his grain or a doctor can operate without collecting payment for her labor. Because of this, the practice of not paying interest is primarily a semantic game in which fixed charges, price mark-ups, and other payments in excess of the principal are paid in order to get around the prohibition so the letter of the law can be followed while recognizing that businesses must be able to pay their bills and have an incentive to operate.

The point of discussing the example above is to raise questions about the degree to which the Islamic view of economic matters is truly novel. If the Islamic view is fundamentally different, putting resources into increasing the standard of living in the region will not necessarily have affect the level of violence. If, however, there is a common mode of responding to incentives, then increasing standards of living might decrease terrorism. It is certainly believed that increased prosperity has led to decreased crime rates in the US at various times and places. I suspect that better economic conditions would mean less motivation to engage in terrorism, but I recognize arguments to the contrary. One potent argument reflects on the fact that most of the 9-11hijackers were not from impoverished environs, and, it is hard to imagine that improved economic conditions could have reduced the likelihood of that attack because those carrying it out were not suffering from adverse conditions.

Technology Development Shapes Society, Can Society Shape Technology Development?

Had the introduction of nuclear weapons into the world followed a well-considered analysis of what kind of development would optimize strategic stability, what would that introduction have looked like? This is a relevant question as one considers new technologies on the horizon which might share with nuclear technologies a similar tension between the influence of peaceful as opposed to belligerent applications. When one considers emerging technologies, such as nanotechnology, there does not seem to be a consensus about the degree to which the belligerent applications will have a major influence in shaping the nature of society. However, perhaps now is the time to give this a great deal of thought, and to consider whether it is possible for society to influence the adoption of these technologies and their applications in a manner that produces the highest level of strategic stability.

Nuclear weapons certainly shaped the nature of society. They influenced how international relations were conducted, they modified thoughts on the utility of war, they affected how we spent our public funds, and they changed the way we perceived our collective future.  It is hard to say whether the way in which nuclear weapons were adopted was anywhere close to strategically optimal. The unilateral development seems to have made their use much more likely, and nuclear weapons are like life insurance policies - all is better when they are not used. However, there is great debate about the cost of bringing World War II to a close under alternative strategies. Many believe that a Japanese surrender was inevitable, and, while this may have been true, it is often the case in international relations that what is important is what people thought true - not what was actually true. The documents from the time that attempted to grapple with whether an invasion of Japan would result in a million dead US and Allied servicemen (or only maybe half that figure) indicate that the Truman Administration expected a costly closing of the war under other approaches. 

The way nuclear weapons were introduced spurred arms racing and proxy wars, but it is difficult to say if it prevented further great wars. So the question of interest is whether it is possible to engage in strategic engineering of technology development, or whether we will forever be in a situation of watching in the aftermath? Is it possible to not only predict the charactor of belligerent applications of emerging technologies, but also to engineer a path to the adoption of those applications that minimizes the risk?  

In Beijing?: Military Museum a Must-see

It is easy enough to forget that one is in an authoritarian Communist country when visiting Beijing. They have gone to great lengths to avoid that which Communists around the world have most excelled- constructing buildings that display both a complete lack of creativity and not the slightest hint of visual appeal. On the contrary, the Chinese are putting up some very cutting-edge architecture such as the trouser-leg building, the bird’s nest stadium, and they have even been known to bolt visually interesting facades onto buildings constructed in an era during which they were practicing a more traditional form of Communism. Also, there are few places in the world where market economics thrive more apparently. When I first visited Hungary in the early 1990’s, I was surprised to go into shops and be totally ignored by the sales staff - in some cases while vigorously trying to get their attention. They were simply lagging behind in getting a hang of capitalism. In China, on the other hand, no one would complain that one is being ignored by the sales staff. On the contrary, one is more likely to feel smothered by them. One sales girl of about 1/5th my size actually tried to physically restrain me from leaving by grabbing my wrist.

Oh, there are the hints of the the nature of the regime. When one is in Tienanmen Square, there are lists of rules played squakingly over loudspeakers in the manner reminiscent of a concentration camp. However, this is the rare exception. In many cases the Chinese have gone to great lengths to put rules in an positive form. You won’t see “Don’t Walk on the Grass”, but rather signs that say things like “Please Protect the Greenery.” I was told second-hand that someone saw a van pull up and whisk away a local wearing a Tibetan Independence T-shirt while I was visiting, but I cannot corroborate that was true. In general, what I saw was reflective of a market economy in a country that mixed prosperity and poverty in a way not unlike other developing nations that are transitioning upward.

I suggest a visit to the Military Museum for two reasons. First, it houses a sizable and impressive collection of weapons, sculptures, and displays, and it is covers a lot of history (mostly 20thcentury, but not exclusively so.) It also seems to be a secret of sorts. It is not a secret in terms of being hard to find. It is located right above a Line 1 subway station that bears its name. That is, where most stations have a name showing in both Chinese characters and the romanized alphabet spelling of the Chinese word, this stop is labeled “Military Museum” in English. However, we had two Beijing guidebooks from large and well-known travel book publishers, and neither had coverage of the museum. This seemed odd because military history is not exactly a rare interest among tourists, and, once inside, it became apparent that this was an extensive museum. My wife and I were two of five non-Chinese tourists that we saw at the Museum, and there were probably a couple hundred visitors throughout the museum at the time.

I think the reason for the lack of visitation by non-Chinese is related to the second reason I recommend a visit here. That is, it gives one a reminder that one is in a Communist country and insight into the nature of what a Communist regime is, and what it does. It is not for those who take umbrage in the face of propaganda, and it is not nearly as friendly as other tourist destinations. There are many statements, such as reference to the Korean War as something like the “Proud War to Overthrow US Aggression in Korea”, that would probably be offensive to many. However, if you are one who can find amusement in an Orwellian framing of events, this museum is for you. Sign-after-sign gives the impression that Mao’s forces were able to crush the Kuomintang, who were armed with the latest and best American arms, while relying on pitchforks, spears, and halberds because they always employed superior strategy and had the support of all of the people. 

To be fair it doesn’t take an authoritarian regime to put out propaganda, all manner of nationalist forces do this. (In some ways, China reminds me more of a heavily nationalist country than a Communist one. I am told that China has a lesser proportion of its economy owned by the government than some Western democracies, and so the definition of a communist country as one in which the government controls the means of production may not be entirely reflective of China.) While I visited Tokyo on this same visit, I did not get a chance to go to Yasukuni Shrine, which has a museum apparently as full of propaganda as this Chinese Military Museum. Obviously, the two museums mentioned have polar opposite perspectives. The Yasukuni Museum portraying Japan as the victim, rather than perpetrator, of aggression during the Second World War.

However, I am still curious why this is not a destination for the tourists? It is not the case, by any means, that the propaganda is all over the top. In fact, it is, in some cases, subtle. It is also not the case that the museum is altogether hostile to the US and other Western countries. (It should be mentioned that that there are some well-deserved anti-Western statements such as those relating to the Opium War.) 

There are a few distinct displays of positive relations. For example, among the small arms exhibitions there are cases that pay respect to American gunsmiths such as Samuel Colt.  

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then there are quite a number of examples of such flattery in the museum. As I was walking around on the first floor, which holds tanks, missiles, artillery pieces, and other sizable weapons, I came upon what I thought for a moment was an American Humvee. I briefly wondered where they would have gotten one. They have a large number of US World War II era weapons that were either left during that war or shipped to the Kuomintang during the Chinese Civil War, and even a few Viet Nam-era US weapons that probably made their way from the Communist Vietnamese. However, I was soon disabused of the notion that it was a US Humvee by the placard that said that it was, in fact, a Chinese made “Mengshi” FAV. I have since read that a company in China is actually licensed to make them, and buys a number of the parts from US firms. They also had the spitting image of a Claymore Mine. I have no idea if it was legally licensed or not (but I suspect not.)

  

There is also a Hall of Friendship that houses a wide range of gifts given to the Defense Minister and other Ministry personnel over the years from various countries. The largest block of these seem to be from Warsaw Pact era countries during the Cold War. However, there are a wide range of countries represented including the US.

 

Last but not least, in the gift shop you could actually buy “US Ranger” T-shirts and other American military logoed goods (not authentically logoed, mind you, but rather the type of over-the-top stuff that I imagine is sold in “Soldier of Fortune” magazine), but the fact that it is sold in a Museum run by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is interesting. As an aside, we came across the PLA surplus store while we were there, and they also sold such US military related wears.

I highly recommend a trip to Beijing. You may need an oxygen supply occasionally, but the food is good, the people friendly, the goods inexpensive, and the history amazing. For anyone interested in history, and particularly military history, the museum has a lot to offer as well- just suspend your disbelief at the audacity of the propaganda at the door.

Those interested in the museum can see more on my other blog at:

 http://shoshinbudo.blogspot.com/2008/07/chinese-martial-arts-in-20th-century.html

Nuclear Energy in the Developing World

By some counts, as many as 43 countries are considering building a new capability to produce electricity by means of nuclear power plants (NPPs). A few of these would enter the arena as members of a consortium of states. That is, they would jointly build a nuclear power plant, and thus might not have a reactor on their territory per se, but would none-the-less have people involved in the nuclear utility and would be beneficiary of nuclear generated electricity. Some of these countries seem to be on the fast track to making this talk a reality (e.g. Indonesia and Turkey), and, for others, it is a distant possibility at best. The question at hand is how feasible is it that there will be a vast increase in the number of nuclear generating states.

At one end of the spectrum is the possibility that no new states will succeed in developing nuclear power, and, at the other, that all of them will. It is my belief that neither of the extremes is likely to describe reality over the next couple decades. There are many reasons why a majority of the states that have mentioned building a nuclear power plant are not likely to achieve it in the foreseeable future. These reasons range from political opposition (internal and external) to the hard economic realities of attempting to finance such high, front-loaded, capital costs on less-than-stellar credit.

At the same time, there are drivers that will influence the success of some of these states. These factors include cordial relations with nuclear supplier states, a pressing need to expand electricity generation capacity, and a desire not to be caught by surprise by carbon penalties that may be around the corner. In the early stages of research on the subject, I have not yet seen much in the way of disqualifying characteristics among the states that have put forth the suggestion of becoming nuclear generators. In other words, none of them seem to be too poor to manage it -if it is a national priority for the government, and for none of them does it appear to be geographically impossible. There are many varying and contradictory definitions of “developing nation”, but states that have per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of less than $20,000 per year are building 25 of the 34 NPP units that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) currently list as being under construction.

Will Emerging Technologies have a Predictable Effect on War?

We are children of the nuclear age, and, having had the marrow of our society altered by knowledge of how to split an atom, we cannot help but wonder whether the technologies coming down the pike will have an equally profound effect on humanity. A student of international security is prone to ask two questions: a.) “Will this technology make war more likely?” b.) “Will this technology make war more devastating?” The problem is that, for the most part, the descriptors used to label these technologies do not define a neat unitary package but a disparate set of conceptually related technologies. Because of this, it is difficult to determine whether such technologies make wars more winnable, which is at the heart of the answer to question “a” above.

If one asked, “I have something about the size of a breadbox, will it favor the side of the offense or the defense in a war?”, it is likely one would, at best, be asked for clarification. “What does it do?” However, when we speak of nanotechnology, we are talking about a broad range of technologies and a broader range of applications that are related by their size. A scientifically savvy reader may point out that what is important is the behavior and experience of things at that scale (i.e. the lack of effect of gravity, wave-like nature dominates over particle-like qualities, etc) that make it different from world we know. I don’t disagree, but my premise is unaltered. The fact is, the vast array of applications of these technologies means that, as a class, they will have a range of effects on both sides of a given ledger.

Of course, it is also true that the nuclear sciences had a wide range of effects, but one (the bomb) was so dominant as to fundamentally change the calculus of war. In essence, war between two nuclear-armed adversaries became unwinnable. This had a broad range of effects from stimulus of proxy wars to tendency toward stability under crisis. If we can expect such a dominant application of nanotechnology, it seems that no consensus has formed about its nature. Well before the nuclear bomb was perfected, there were individuals that could foresee its effects.

Nanotechnology has had, and continues to have, a significant impact on the nature of warfare, as it does on civilian endeavors. However, these impacts are largely seen what might be considered modest areas, such as water filtration, medical technologies (e.g. the ability to staunch bleeding), wearable power sources, sunscreen, armor, and solar power. These technologies are producing benefits to be sure, but are these benefits substantial to make wars seem more affordable and winnable, and, therefore, a more attractive option? This is not clear. While these technologies lend an asymmetric advantage to technologically advanced nations over nations that are less so, it is not clear that such an advantage overwhelms the advantages available to weak side actors in asymmetric wars such as higher levels of [political] will and ability to use anonymity to their advantage.

 

The Wishful Arsenal: US Defense Spending

Defense Secretary Gates made comments at a speech in Colorado Springs yesterday that caught the attention of the media and likely raised the hackles of many in the defense industry. The Secretary coined the phrase “Next-War-itis” to describe an ailment afflicting some in the defense establishment that causes them to try to advance procurement for what they perceive will be the best tools for the next war- to the detriment of those fighting the current wars. Gates’ comments do not represent new or cutting-edge thinking, but they have value given the source. It has been apparent for some time that next-generation fighter aircraft and state-of-the-art networked systems of armored vehicle systems are not so essential to the successful conduct of the wars the US is fighting as are gizmos that can remote detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), vehicles that are agile enough to get around in the tight confines of cities and yet survive a mine blast, or wearable tourniquets.  

The title, “The Wishful Arsenal”, is meant to convey a belief that it is falacious reasoning to think that the next war will be fought on terms that will allow the US to take advantage of its vastly superior weapons that can accurately destroy targets before they even get into the opponent’s range. The good news is that the US has clearly established dominance in employing technology to increase both mobility and the precision and devastation of firepower. The bad news is that all potential foes realize this, and none of them will fight the US on terms that will allow us to exploit those advantages to their utmost. If you knew that the person with whom you had irreconcilable differences was the world’s foremost swordsman, would you engage him or her in a fencing dual or would you, say… drop a brick on him from the 42nd floor, poison him, suffocate him in his sleep, shoot him with a rifle, or clock him with a tire iron while his sword was nowhere in sight?

One formula for negating the awesome advantages in weapon system technology is apparent enough to all potential enemies of America. It involves maintaining an asymmetric advantage in the flow of information, staying interspersed within a community of innocents, being willing to suffer casualties for an indefinite period, and understanding that a 1,000 small cuts can have the same affect as a stab to the heart. A favorable flow of information can be achieved by using tactics which allow for the maintenance of anonymity such as IEDs or snipers, and by infiltrating local partners. When the Soviets were fighting the Afghan Mujaheddin in the 1970’s, they found that anything they told the Afghani military or security forces might well end up in the hands of the Mujaheddin. This caused them to keep those forces in the dark until the last minute, and this, of course, was not an effective way to fight a war - particularly one which you would like to pass off to local allies. We seem to be facing the same fate in Iraq and Afghanistan. This puts us in a catch-22 in that the more discriminate American forces are in separating combatants from non-combatants, the less able we are to use our vast advantage in weapon systems. On the other hand, being less discriminate produces more individuals who are willing to supply information to the insurgents or to conduct acts of sabotage. Insurgents live by a motto of ”slow and steady wins the race”, and know that steadily increasing the casualty count over a long period is likely to yield a more favorable result than if they tried to achieve a coup de grace given there limited resources. 

I am sure many readers will point to China as the potential “next adversary”, and will suggest that war with them would be more likely to be of a conventional nature. It is true that war with China would not be likely to fit the mold of insurgency warfare. However, it is also apparent that China is well acquainted with the advantages and vulnerabilities of the US, and intends to negate the advantages and capitalize on the vulnerabilities. China has been putting considerable resources into developing an ability to wound America’s surveillance and communications capacities. They have conducted an anti-satellite weapon test, and have put resources into hacking the US communications infrastructure into inoperability. America’s other soft-spot is a highly casualty-averse nature. The Chinese have good reason to believe that, while the US may be able to gain a favorable kill ratio due to its technological advantages, that the Chinese ability to continue suffering higher loss rates than the US for an extended period is extremely feasible.

I don’t mean to convey a dire picture of US security, by pointing out that we are buying are way to oblivion while suffering death by 1000 cuts. It should be noted that the US advantage in warfare does not lie entirely with technology-intensive weapons platforms such as the F-22 Raptor, the Joint Strike Fighter, the Future Combat Systems, or the DDG-1000 destroyer. The US also has a combatant human capital advantage that is achieved by means of an all-volunteer force and considerable investment in training. This advantage is adaptable to whatever the nature of warfare being faced. The US technological advantage can also be put to good use in the types of systems used to fight our current wars (which I believe are likely to be the template for future war into the foreseeable future).

It is easy to see why defense contractors want to sell replacements for the DDG-51 destroyer, the M1 Abrams tank, the F-18 fighter, rather than smaller-scale and more combatant-centric technologies. It is the same reason why car manufactures would rather make Hummers and Expeditions, because that is where the money is. It is also not hard to see why such systems have proponents in the upper echelons of the military establishment, because getting bigger budgets is a means to advancement andexpensive systems are the route to bigger budgets. Our spending decisions need to be driven by consideration of the opportunity costs and a need for agility to respond to the threats we are likely to encounter.