When you “double down” in blackjack you double your bet because
it looks like the dealer is going to end up with a busted hand.
We’re in the process of doubling down on special operations,
something we should have done long ago. Like back in the bad old
days when Mr. Clinton’s social experimentation and other baloney
turned too many of our best guys into civilians.
The guys at Special Operations Command — SOCOM — are at full
throttle, and we need to keep them there. In the lead-up to the
Iraq campaign, some of us were
advocating that the Spec Ops guys be tasked to take out
Saddam’s Scud missile batteries in the first minutes of the war,
robbing him of the ability to fire them into Israel as he did in
1991, trying to try to widen the war. When the balloon went up in
Iraq (or, as sources say, a day or two before the operation went to
prime time) that’s just what they did. They performed many other
strategic and tactical missions, from reconnaissance and sniper
work in downtown Baghdad to rescuing PFC Jessica Lynch. Congress
has just approved a Defense Department budget that raises Special
Operations Command’s budget by about $1 billion a year over the
next five years, basically doubling it. When you double down on
SOCOM, you can get a lot of bang for the buck.
First, SOCOM needs more operators. They’ll get 4,000 more, which
is probably about right. All of those billets are being taken from
other services, but so what? There are way too many people in
non-military jobs anyhow, and moving slots from tail to tooth
sounds good to me. What to do with them? One of my Brit pals — a
very smart guy who spent many years serving in one of those units
the Brits never speak of — told me this. “I would be inclined to
look at spending money on selection, training, motivation and
reward. And in that order. You are not trying to hire
mercenaries. And remember that in this game, more is not always
better.”
He said, “Select ‘em well, give ‘em as much training as you
possibly can” — he stresses language skills for the Middle East —
“trust ‘em. And take care of those at home if it goes wrong…
and them when they retire.” I think we’re doing most of that,
except for the last part. It’s a continuing scandal that a
Republican Congress won’t raise the pay and allowances of our
people, especially in the enlisted ranks. (It’s a redundant proof
that the Dems don’t give a damn about the troops. If they did,
they’d be yelling about pay raises every day.)
In addition to people, our Spec Ops guys need new and upgraded
weapon systems. They will get at least some of them. SOCOM says
that their most urgent need is for more and better air mobility
assets. There aren’t enough helos, transports and delivery vehicles
to get the guys in and out of the tight places they need to go. In
the ‘04 budget, they’re getting at least some of what they need:
$428 million of the $1 billion increase is going to upgrade and
lengthen the service life of the heavy helos they rely on.
Sea mobility is also a problem. To be concealed is to be safe,
but launching from submarines at periscope depth puts severe limits
on how and where SEALs can be inserted and recovered. Further,
being towed behind a sea sled or swimming through cold water for an
hour or two has, in the words of one of my ex-SEAL pals, a “suck
factor nine” on a scale of ten. Which means they need ASDS.
ASDS — the advanced SEAL delivery system — is a small
submarine that can ride on the back of the boomers or attack boats
being fitted for it. It delivers a full SEAL squad warm, dry, and
with real-time communications. ASDS ain’t cheap. The first one will
come in at about $300 million. Because it operates off the deck of
a nuclear sub, it has to be able to withstand the same operational
environment as the deep-diving and fast moving nuke boat. Which
makes it expensive. If Congress gets smart — as soon as pigs fly
— they could halve that cost by making a multi-boat buy.
The SOCOM guys have three “flagship” programs — the big-dollar
stuff they need most urgently. They are ASDS, the AC-130U gunship,
and the V-22 Osprey. ASDS is doable, and would be quite affordable
if Congress (meaning Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed) got out of the
way and let the SOCOM guys buy the boats efficiently. Reed wants a
Rhode Island shipbuilder to compete for all of the boats beyond #1,
which means more delays and much higher cost. (Won’t someone tell
this guy that he should go sit in Pork Corner with Byrd Brain and
Larry Craig, and shut up while there’s a war on?) The AC-130U
“Spooky” is the easy part. Awesomely deadly, we should buy ‘em by
the bunch.
About the V-22, the less said the better. It’s something the
Marines and the Spec Ops guys need badly. And that’s how they’re
likely to get it: badly. Vice President Cheney tried to cancel it
more than a decade ago when he was SECDEF. I’m not convinced the
V-22 will ever be safe to fly. But the warriors need the
vertical/short takeoff capability for larger numbers of troops and
heavier cargoes that V-22 supposedly will provide. Now, the
requirement is immediate, and the solution is still years away.
We need to keep giving the SOCOM guys what they need to do the
job. But that’s only one part of the problem. During the Clinton
years, we went on what the Pentagon all-too-politely calls a
“procurement holiday.” It was, to be more accurate, a vacation from
responsibility. We didn’t spend enough on R &D or weapon system
procurement. We’re beginning to make up for that, but only
beginning. We need Big Dog to accelerate transformation, increasing
tooth and reducing tail.
And he’s doing just that. After years of fighting future Hawaii
senator, and temporary Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki, Big Dog
is rid of both Shinseki and Army Secretary Tom White, who was also
a problem. That Spec Ops is the future is undeniably in Mr.
Rumsfeld’s mind. He chose retired General Peter Schoomaker as the
next Army Chief, a decision to be confirmed publicly this week.
Schoomaker — according to one of his War College classmates — is
as steady as they come. He should be. In his younger days, he was a
Delta Force operator, and then commander of Delta and then of SOCOM
itself.
There’s an old saying around the Lower Latitudes that goes
something like, “If you can’t run with the big dogs, you’d better
go sit on the porch.” Shinseki was a decoration, a poodle in
Rotweiler’s clothing. Now when Big Dog looks at the Army, he’s got
someone who is big enough to run with him and won’t try to bite his
tail on Capitol Hill. Welcome back to the big leagues, General
Schoomaker.
