While the attention of the people’s movements is focused on debates around a short term “surge” of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, another development in U.S. military policy of far greater magnitude and long term significance is quietly taking shape in addition to that surge.

 

In an interview reported in The Washington Post of Dec. 20th, President Bush said “he plans to increase the overall size of the … U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists.” Bush stated that he has ordered Defense Secretary Robert Gates to develop a specific plan to increase the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps. The story mentioned that “Democrats have been calling for additional troops for years.” Among Democrats cited as welcoming the increase were Sen. John Kerry along with the House Democratic Caucus chairman and the incoming chair of the House Armed Services Committee.

 

A few days later (Dec. 24), the lead editorial in The New York Times ardently welcomed Bush’s initiative. Wrote the Times: “Larger ground forces are an absolute necessity for the sort of battles America is likely to fight in the coming decades: extended clashes with ground-based insurgents rather than high-tech shootouts with rival superpowers.”

 

Obviously reflecting a high-level briefing, the Times editorial continued that “Increasing [the] ground forces will cost roughly $1.5 billion a year for every 10,000 troops added, as well as tens of billions in one-time recruitment and equipment expenses. But America can afford it and it can be done without any significant increase in the annual military budget. For example, the estimated $15 billion a year (plus start- up costs) needed to add 100,000 more ground troops could easily be found by slashing military pork and spending on unneeded stealth fighters, stealth destroyers and attack submarines, and by trimming the active duty Air Force and Navy to better reflect current battlefield requirements.”

 

On Dec. 8th the Associated Press quoted Nancy Pelosi to the effect that the Democratic Party supports “boosting the overall size of the military ‘to protect the American people against any threats to our interests, wherever they may occur’” (dispatch written by Hope Yen).

 

Thus, within the past month, in addition to the surge for Iraq, a major effort has developed to enlarge U.S. ground forces in order to effectively fight insurgencies beyond Iraq, over the whole world. While in plain view and supported by President Bush, the Democratic Party and The New York Times, this effort has not yet attracted the attention of people’s movements in our country.

 

The new military reorientation would be profoundly immoral. From preparations to fight an equal superpower during the cold war, which were not all that moral, we are now to enter an era where we fight the weaker countries in the third world.

 

The new orientation has not been thought out. The New York Times writes that the funds to carry out the new program “could easily be found” by slashing military pork and spending on unneeded weapons of the cold war era. Not so. Congressional pork is of the essence of military spending. Apart from cancellation of the Crusader artillery system in 2002 and the Comanche helicopter in 2004, efforts to cancel or reduce military pork have uniformly been unsuccessful. The forces behind military pork in the present Congress are much too powerful to be curbed by any short term campaign. The actual effect of the new program would necessarily be a sharp rise in military spending.

 

There is no reason to suppose that an enlarged counterinsurgency program would produce any results desired by its authors. All it could accomplish would be increased pain and suffering around the world, and increased hatred for the United States. The evidence from Vietnam and Iraq is enough to show this. There is also powerful substantiation to be found in the writings of a group of dissidents in and around the Department of Defense. Their writings, which are detailed and sophisticated, may be accessed at http://www.d-n-i.net, the netsite for “Defense and the National Interest.” The writings of this group focus on military history, Pentagon economics, Congressional pork, and military strategy, especially counterinsurgency. Their criticisms of existing U.S. counterinsurgency programs are thorough and severe. They make it abundantly clear that insurgencies rooted in the people, however wrongheaded they may be at times, can never be defeated, let alone by efforts as amateurish and ignorant as those carried out by American forces.

 

If we wait until Secretary Gates presents his plan to the president, it will be too late. People’s organizations need to develop serious agitation against this NOW.

 

Mort Frank is a long-time peace and justice activist, living in Philadelphia, PA

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