Worried that U.S. troops could stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, Iran is mounting an aggressive campaign to fuel anti-American sentiment here and convince Afghan leaders that a robust, long-term security partnership with the U.S. would be counterproductive, Afghan officials and analysts say.
The Iranian initiative involves cultivating closer ties with the Taliban, funding politicians and media outlets, and expanding cultural ties with its eastern neighbor. Although the effort has been under way for years, Iran has been moving with increased vigor in recent months because the United States and Afghanistan are negotiating a security agreement that could set the parameters for a U.S. troop presence here after 2014.
Iran's overtures to the Taliban coincide with a renewed push by the U.S. to hold peace talks with the insurgent group in Qatar, as well as growing tension between Iran and the United States in the Persian Gulf.
Iran's strategy in Afghanistan is reminiscent of its maneuvering in Iraq, where it helped fuel the insurgency and persuaded Iraqi politicians not to yield on allowing the Americans a small military presence beyond 2011.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
In New Strategy, Panetta Plans Even Smaller Army
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has concluded that the Army has to shrink even below current targets, dropping to 490,000 soldiers over the next decade, but that the United States should not cut any of its 11 aircraft carriers, according to Pentagon officials and military analysts briefed on the secretary’s budget proposals.
Mr. Panetta is to disclose the strategy guiding hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon budget cuts during an unusual Defense Department news conference on Thursday, when President Obama is to appear in the Pentagon briefing room and make remarks ahead of those by Mr. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Obama has never before briefed reporters at the Pentagon, and administration officials said they did not know of any president who had.
Mr. Obama’s presence is an election-year effort to place the president squarely behind a new military strategy that will downsize the Pentagon, pivot from expensive ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and refocus on threats from China while not ignoring the threat of Iran.
Mr. Panetta is to disclose the strategy guiding hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon budget cuts during an unusual Defense Department news conference on Thursday, when President Obama is to appear in the Pentagon briefing room and make remarks ahead of those by Mr. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Obama has never before briefed reporters at the Pentagon, and administration officials said they did not know of any president who had.
Mr. Obama’s presence is an election-year effort to place the president squarely behind a new military strategy that will downsize the Pentagon, pivot from expensive ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and refocus on threats from China while not ignoring the threat of Iran.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
As budget cuts loom, questions arise about U.S. forces in Europe
When a task force of Marines deployed to eastern Europe on a five-month mission to train partner militaries, it did not come from U.S. bases in nearby Germany. The 185 reservists flew over from a base in the States.
Parterships with nations from the Baltics to the Balkans have been a cornerstone of the mission of U.S. forces in Europe since the end of the Cold War, but such training increasingly is conducted by troops who fly in from the U.S. for short, targeted missions. As questions arise about the need to maintain a large U.S. presence in Europe, some in the military are suggesting this U.S.-based model could be a more cost-effective way to maintain ties with allies who rely on U.S. leadership.
The U.S. has been restructuring its Europe-based force since the end of the Cold War, when there were about 300,000 U.S. troops in Europe. There are about 80,000 today, and the drawdown continues with at least one brigade scheduled to return to the States by 2015, though military leaders hint it could leave much sooner.
With massive budget cuts looming, the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Iraq and a drawdown of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan slated to be completed by 2014, military leaders are re-evaluating the scope and focus of the military, and that is raising questions about how large a force is needed in Europe and where it should be located
EUCOM costs
While there might be strategic advantages to a large forward-deployed presence, doing business in Europe isn’t cheap. High costs of living, housing allowances and schools for dependents add up.
The exact costs are hard to measure. A GAO analysis in February showed that of the $17.2 billion obligated by the services to support installations in Europe between 2006 and 2009, about $13 billion was for operation and maintenance costs.
Because a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis is not included in EUCOM’s theater posture plan, the Pentagon lacks critical information that could be used by decision-makers deliberating future force structure requirements, the GAO reported.
Though the GAO did not include a cost comparison of operating in Europe versus the U.S., the Congressional Research Service estimated that 15 years ago, the total annual cost of basing 100,000 U.S. forces from all services in Europe was $1 billion to $2 billion extra.
A report by the Congressional Budget Office in 2004 estimated that forward-deploying 56,000 Army forces in Europe costs taxpayers about $1 billion extra each year. Since then, the Army has reduced its size to 42,000, though the overall force level in Europe remains about 80,000.
The exact costs are hard to measure. A GAO analysis in February showed that of the $17.2 billion obligated by the services to support installations in Europe between 2006 and 2009, about $13 billion was for operation and maintenance costs.
Because a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis is not included in EUCOM’s theater posture plan, the Pentagon lacks critical information that could be used by decision-makers deliberating future force structure requirements, the GAO reported.
Though the GAO did not include a cost comparison of operating in Europe versus the U.S., the Congressional Research Service estimated that 15 years ago, the total annual cost of basing 100,000 U.S. forces from all services in Europe was $1 billion to $2 billion extra.
A report by the Congressional Budget Office in 2004 estimated that forward-deploying 56,000 Army forces in Europe costs taxpayers about $1 billion extra each year. Since then, the Army has reduced its size to 42,000, though the overall force level in Europe remains about 80,000.
Spec-Ops troops learn to be gumshoes
Fort Bragg's Special Warfare Center shows how the U.S. has turned hunting terror networks into half-science, half-art-form since the al-Qaida attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Forging lessons painfully learned in the decade since into a formal curriculum, the training is intended to help elite military units track militants across international boundaries and work alongside sometimes competing U.S. agencies.
The coursework is similar to the CIA's legendary spycraft training center called The Farm, and is at the brainchild of Green Beret Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick, a veteran of elite special operations units, and a long stint on loan to the CIA.
Among the students at the CIA-approved Fort Bragg course are U.S. Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Marine Corps special operators. As in the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, everything from computers to fingerprints can be retrieved from a raid site and quickly analyzed. In some cases the analysis is so fast it can lead to several new targets in a single night.
The school is also an illustration of how special operations and intelligence forces have reached an easier coexistence, after early clashes where CIA officers accused the military operators of ineptly trying to run their own spy rings overseas without State Department or CIA knowledge.
While many in the public may not be aware that the military is allowed to gather information, and even run its own spy networks, special operations forces have been authorized to do just that since the disastrous Desert One raid meant to rescue the U.S. hostages held in Iran in 1979. The raid went awry because of a helicopter crash, not an intelligence foul-up. But before the raid, military planners had been frustrated that CIA employees working inside the country were unable to provide them the tactical intelligence needed to insert a covert force — even basic information like which way the streets ran outside the embassy.
That's why almost a third of every class at the CIA's Farm has been military, said a former senior intelligence official.
US military's non-lethal weapon plans revealed
Details of the US military’s wish-list for non-lethal devices have been published online and show some interesting new technologies, as well as some more familiar ones that are to be beefed up.
The non-lethal weapons (NLW) book was posted online by researchers at Public Intelligence, and covers both existing weapons currently in use by the US military such as tasers and pepper spray, with new tools that the Pentagon would like to add to their arsenal. Such weaponry is described in the materials as vital for conflict resolution without force, and for winning the "hearts and minds" of the local populace by not leaving chunks of their hearts and minds strewn everywhere.
“In past operations, the effective employment of NLW resolved escalation of force situations,” the document states. “Specifically, the NLW created the right 'direct effect' on the personnel/materiel targeted. The use of NLW has also generated positive 'psychological effects' on others in the area and helped to contribute to mission accomplishment.”
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Panetta to Offer Strategy for Cutting Military Budget
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is set this week to reveal his strategy that will guide the Pentagon in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from its budget, and with it the Obama administration’s vision of the military that the United States needs to meet 21st-century threats, according to senior officials.
In a shift of doctrine driven by fiscal reality and a deal last summer that kept the United States from defaulting on its debts, Mr. Panetta is expected to outline plans for carefully shrinking the military — and in so doing make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once.
Instead, he will say that the military will be large enough to fight and win one major conflict, while also being able to “spoil” a second adversary’s ambitions in another part of the world while conducting a number of other smaller operations, like providing disaster relief or enforcing a no-flight zone.
Pentagon officials, in the meantime, are in final deliberations about potential cuts to virtually every important area of military spending: the nuclear arsenal, warships, combat aircraft, salaries, and retirement and health benefits. With the war in Iraq over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, Mr. Panetta is weighing how significantly to shrink America’s ground forces.
There is broad agreement on the left, right and center that $450 billion in cuts over a decade — the amount that the White House and Pentagon agreed to last summer — is acceptable. That is about 8 percent of the Pentagon’s base budget. But there is intense debate about an additional $500 billion in cuts that may have to be made if Congress follows through with deeper reductions.
In a shift of doctrine driven by fiscal reality and a deal last summer that kept the United States from defaulting on its debts, Mr. Panetta is expected to outline plans for carefully shrinking the military — and in so doing make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once.
Instead, he will say that the military will be large enough to fight and win one major conflict, while also being able to “spoil” a second adversary’s ambitions in another part of the world while conducting a number of other smaller operations, like providing disaster relief or enforcing a no-flight zone.
Pentagon officials, in the meantime, are in final deliberations about potential cuts to virtually every important area of military spending: the nuclear arsenal, warships, combat aircraft, salaries, and retirement and health benefits. With the war in Iraq over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, Mr. Panetta is weighing how significantly to shrink America’s ground forces.
There is broad agreement on the left, right and center that $450 billion in cuts over a decade — the amount that the White House and Pentagon agreed to last summer — is acceptable. That is about 8 percent of the Pentagon’s base budget. But there is intense debate about an additional $500 billion in cuts that may have to be made if Congress follows through with deeper reductions.
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