New Roles for the U.S. Military

The American military stands at a watershed, facing massive, unfamiliar change — with tools designed for an earlier age.

In the past when society experienced turbulence of this magnitude, the resulting shifts affected all areas of life. So it will be again. Our armed forces, one of society’s most conservative institutions, must be transformed. Enormous changes are pushing for dramatic alterations in their composition, the context in which they operate, and their role in our society.

We are living at the beginning of a technology explosion. Extraordinary technological advances are being made in a variety of disciplines, some of which did not even exist ten years ago. Many are affecting our national security.

The most significant advance is in information technology. Not only is this extraordinary technology proliferating, it is also increasing in its capability. Just eight years ago, PCs made available large-scale, cheap, fast repetitive iteration, opening up whole areas of dynamic systems analysis. Now virtual reality and its ultimate derivative, full-color holographic projection, are making it possible to move information rather than people. Warfare, for example, has always involved moving men — and tanks, aircraft, rifles, and so on — to a specific location to fight. Even staff support operations like the targeting and scheduling of aircraft sorties required large numbers of people to be in the vicinity of the conflict. In Desert Shield/Desert Storm, it took 7,000 people located in Riyadh to generate the daily bombing plans.

All that is changing. Years ago, “old” technology such as that in surveillance satellites moved “eyes” miles away from the viewer. But in the not-too-distant future, real-time multidimensional presentations of almost any place on earth will be available to planners who never leave the United States. They will be able to launch and target unmanned precision missiles and other systems hooked into global information networks from locations much more efficient and convenient than where the action is.

The new technology is making information the world’s new capital commodity. Immense increases in communication linkages are diffusing information quickly throughout business, educational, social, and military systems, shortening reaction times and stepping up the tempo of operations. Ideas and images are blanketing the globe in seconds, changing shape and meaning throughout the process as receivers pass them along with their own responses. CNN’s coverage of Desert Storm was just a harbinger of what is to come.

Unlike in the past, this revolution is also feeding itself. Many advances in information technology themselves create other advances — microprocessors design more advanced microprocessors, and so on. Like a nuclear reaction, each significant event breeds another, or two. The growth is both explosive and exponential.

How information is managed and used is becoming the central determinant of economic and political success. The increasing rate of change means that those who own the technology — therefore the information — are accelerating away from those who don’t. Information accessibility is defining the increasing disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” The societies with advanced information technology get data faster, make decisions faster, and react faster, an advantage that translates into increased competitiveness and economic power. Elin Whitney-Smith, for instance, argues that U.S. dominance in information technology assures our continued relative economic success and guarantees the failure of the republics of the former Soviet Union.1

The increasing disparity between the haves and have-nots presents a new problem for “have” countries like the United States: the poor know they are poor. Some information technology, namely television, has become almost ubiquitous. Stories are told about inaccessible jungle villages in the Philippines where each night villagers gather around to watch MTV on a communal television connected to a satellite dish. This situation replicated many millions of times around the world not only exposes developing societies to the economic differences between them and us but also changes expectations and heightens apprehension.

The disparity becomes alarming when seen in terms of the growth in weapons proliferation. Weapons of mass destruction are filtering down from countries that acquired them as a deterrent to poor, alienated groups that desire nukes largely so they can use them. Former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze is reported to have said that he would be “terrorized” at the prospect of what would occur in the disbanded Soviet Union. Representative Les Aspin has suggested — correctly, I believe — that the country’s new military threat is terrorists with nukes.2

This have/have not trend is not just a foreign problem. In our own country, some urban centers have become so disconnected from the larger society that the police will not even enter them. Many of the residents are armed and angry.

Other problems further muddle the traditional concept of national security. Ozone layer degradation threatens all humankind with skin cancer and other food chain problems. Many scientists are beginning to question whether storms like Gilbert, Hugo, and Andrew are only the beginning of a new cycle of natural disasters brought on by major changes in the world’s climate.3 The global effect of AIDS has not yet begun to be appreciated. In many regions, the availability of potable water is becoming an acute problem. In this country, neglect of roads, bridges, sewers, and water systems is resulting in billions of dollars in damage and losses.

All of these issues have security implications. In business terms, it is a shift to a new market riddled with different external and internal threats. The question is: What role will the military play in this new security environment?

As successful businesspeople know, when the market changes, business strategy must change. The military’s new strategy should include at least four elements. It must have a vision for the organization, develop an adaptive organization, expand information technology and information access, and expand the product line.

Developing a Vision

Our military has no clear sense of its role in our country and the world. The Soviet enemy has gone away. Instead of heading off in new, well-thought-out directions, the Pentagon is locked into attempts to defend variations of the status quo: less of more-or-less the same thing. No clear objective has the attention of all leadership or takes into consideration the trends discussed above. The Pentagon must develop a vision. The biblical admonition is severe: where there is no vision, the people will perish.

Adapting

In times of rapid change, successful organizations quickly sense the direction of change and adapt. Agility and flexibility are not enough. For bureaucratic institutions like the government, this is particularly hard. But if the military of the future hopes to be at the right place at the right time with the right capability, it must deal with the major internal components that restrict its adaptability. The new military must:

• Shorten its acquisition process. Presently it takes ten to fifteen years to design, test, manufacture, and field a weapons system that then stays in use for another twenty to fifty years. In an era where commercial information technology — the major technological driving force — has a generational life of one-and-a-half to three years, the military must overhaul its process for acquiring systems. Off-the-shelf capabilities must be merged with modular platforms that can be changed and upgraded quickly. The many layers in the acquisition process that lead to onerous specification and oversight functions must be streamlined.

• Push decision making to the lowest possible level. The military will be adaptable only when people at all levels can respond quickly to change. Waiting for a decision from a higher-up may well mean missing the opportunity to respond. As military funding decreases, superfluous layers in the decision-making process must be systematically eliminated.
• Relax its fixation on past successes. As the U.S. railroad and automobile industries have demonstrated, emphasizing those things that have been done well in the past may not ensure success in the future. In fact, in times of rapid change a high likelihood exists that present capabilities will inhibit adaptation for tomorrow’s needs.

Expanding Information Technology

Information technology allows information to move faster: analysis time is shorter, decisions can be made more quickly. To adapt to this new reality, the military should move expeditiously to connect all commands with state-of-the-art broadband fiber optic information networks.

But it is not enough to be able to move information fast. There must also be the desire — indeed, a commitment — to do so. The liberating force of information is always naturally constrained by the conservative inclination of leadership to control its flow — an attempt to allow the “most important” data to be seen by only a few top executives because control of the information means control of the institution. This works in the short run but rarely in the long run. The government’s fixation on tightly controlled classified information, for example, contributed significantly to its completely missing the collapse of the Soviet Union, indications of which were freely available in open, unclassified literature. And the Soviet attempt to control information was at the heart of its own undoing.

The solution is to distribute the maximum amount of information to as many people as possible. Military intelligence could play an important role here. If our leaders understand that the most successful response to the information technology revolution is to unleash information, then they could reorient our intelligence community to collecting mainly open source, unclassified information and analyzing and distributing it broadly within the society. Robert Steele, a forward-thinking intelligence executive at the Marine Corps headquarters, has written that “After seventeen years’ experience in government, I am convinced that secrets inherently undermine reasoned judgment and open discussion. Most of what we want to know is readily and cheaply available.”

Expanding the Product Line

Changes in the security market will require new “products.” In the past, our military essentially has had a reactive role responding to failed political, economic, and diplomatic pressures. New external and internal environments require our armed forces to play a proactive, preventive role as well.

External Threats.

For the foreseeable future, we must continue to be prepared for major situations such as regional wars, as well as for lesser but more likely events such as showing force, armed interventions, punitive strikes, and evacuations.

At the same time, new threats are continually manifesting themselves. Our military must begin to understand how to deal with terrorists who have nuclear and biological weapons. National laboratories should launch crash programs to develop effective remote sensing equipment that can spot radioactive devices from afar. Research money should be spent on artificial intelligence and systems analysis programs that could begin to identify specific vehicles with a high probability of transporting such weapons.

A recent Worldwatch Institute report suggests that we have only a decade left to abandon our negative influence on the global environment. If we do not halt this degradation, WI director Lester Brown has warned, the result will be unmanageable economic distress.4 The U.S. military could help monitor the global environment and enforce pollution regulations on behalf of both our country and international organizations like the United Nations.

During the last two years, Cuban and Haitian immigration problems have consumed a substantial amount of the Navy and Coast Guard resources. Exponential increases in the number of poor youth suggest that these kinds of problems may grow throughout the world. The military is the only tool we have that has the size and capacity to deal with problems of this magnitude.

Nation Building.

Global poverty, population, and proliferation trends are combining to produce an extraordinarily volatile world. If we wait to see what happens, problems too large and complicated to solve could result. We need to become proactive — try to defuse some of these trends by dealing with the underlying causes. We must help struggling nations with their economic development before they become so disenfranchised that they become threats.

The military has a broad portfolio of capabilities that could be brought to bear on these problems. Both its active and reserve forces have the organic ability to establish the basic infrastructure required to support large numbers of people in primitive areas efficiently. They can build roads, buildings, food and sanitation systems, communications systems (telephones, radio and TV stations), railroads, seaports, airports, and aviation control systems. They can drill wells and irrigate. They can establish police and fire departments and supply and distribution systems. Because in peacetime they don’t usually get the opportunity to exercise their equipment and evaluate its effectiveness, these nation-building efforts would present them with an excellent opportunity for training.

This is not an argument for doing nice things just to fill time when there is no war. It is an argument for a comprehensive national security effort. Working closely with the State Department, the Pentagon should target particular countries and regions where the need is greatest and our people would be welcomed. They could start with simple things like road building and telephone systems. Instead of just training for conflict and standing by, our troops could be making positive contributions that would decrease the likelihood that they would have to fight.

Disaster Relief.

As Hurricane Andrew demonstrated, this country has no institution that can deal with natural disasters as effectively as the military can. The military is organized to support large numbers of people, and it has the ships and trucks to supply disaster areas. It can feed and house storm victims and provide security and temporary communications systems. If we are in for an increase in natural disasters, our military is our best and most disciplined and professional resource.

Already we have used this resource in many locations. During the last two years, Operations Provide Comfort, Sea Angel, and Fiery Vigil, among others, have put our emergency capabilities to use around the world. Typhoon, volcano, hurricane, and earthquake victims have received our aid in locations as disparate as Guam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Iraq.

If our armed forces were to take on disaster relief as a major role, they would have to change the way they acquire certain kinds of equipment. Fighting ships might be designed differently if they were also expected to provide berthing for disaster victims or refugees. High altitude, long endurance surveillance aircraft now being considered as radar platforms could be designed to carry modular cellular telephone systems as well, thus providing a quick, temporary disaster-communications capability.

The aftermath of a disaster requires discipline and order. Someone equal to the situation — who has the authority to make things happen — must be in charge. The military is organized and designed for just such situations. But a domestic disaster needs an operational commander experienced in dealing effectively with civilian authorities. No organization in the country is better suited for that job than the Coast Guard. It is a military service that interfaces effectively with its sister services, and it is the only service that deals regularly with local civilian emergency organizations.

If the Coast Guard were given responsibility for disaster relief and planning, it could build a series of contingency emergency plans that would draw on the capabilities of both civilian and military organizations. It would then be ideally positioned to step in quickly to take charge of relief operations. FEMA, currently the federal government’s agency designated to manage emergencies, would probably become part of the Coast Guard. Press reports suggest that FEMA would benefit from the discipline and leadership that would come with working within a military structure.

The military can’t do much about big domestic problems such as the inadequacies of our educational system or the weakness of the economy. But it could help clean up toxic waste. In his forthcoming book, retired Army general Frederic Brown suggests training special “Chernobyl battalions” that would stand ready to clean up future nuclear and other toxic disasters. They could train by helping to clean up some of our current nuclear weapons plants.

Internal Threats.

The collapse of the social structure of many of our inner cities offers perhaps the greatest opportunity for the military’s skills. Who in our society does a better job at training, educating, and developing leadership and character in young people than the military? Highly qualified and motivated young people willing to work long hours in situations fraught with personal risk are the great resource that the military gives this country. Those very skills are at the core of the problems that our inner-city communities face. They can make profound change.

In some places, they already have. For example, during the last decade more than 100 programs around the country have succeeded by using the military infrastructure to help urban young people. These are not shock boot camps of the kind now run by most states as an alternative to prison, but rigorous, multifaceted programs that focus on establishing self-discipline and team building, self-confidence, skill training, work experience in new settings, and, finally, community reintegration and career development.

Programs in Memphis, Tennessee, take youngsters step-by-step from the courtroom to the factory floor. Offenders can enter a three-month Project 1990s program that Insight magazine described as “basic training without combat as the goal.” Participants join ten- to twelve-person teams directed by former Marine drill instructors who oversee physical training and other “troop handling” and team-building responsibilities, moving the groups between classes taught by instructors who are likely to be retired or volunteer military members. Schoolroom training may emphasize literacy, remedial academics, substance abuse education and treatment, and family counseling. Intensive medical, psychiatric, psychological, substance abuse, academic, and vocational assessment is central to the program.

Youth Service USA takes over from Project 1990s to provide job skills training and employment placement for 18- to 24-year-old inner-city youths. In this program, held on a military base and in government offices, military trainers teach a wide variety of vocational skills, as well as employability skills such as developing good work habits, understanding employer expectations, and interviewing for jobs. Eighty percent of Youth Service USA graduates get jobs.

William Holmberg, a retired marine, has approached the Marine Corps with a proposal to use marines and the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia, to work with youthful offenders from Washington, DC. Holmberg’s Green Team would teach youngsters the basic skills they need to compete in the larger world while they work at Quantico on environmental projects.

From 1968 to 1972, the Department of Defense had a Domestic Action Council whose mission was to determine actions the DOD could take to help resolve pressing domestic problems without degrading military preparedness. The DDAC should be reestablished to provide direction for the military’s efforts in this new security area. A companion Joint Domestic Support Command, staffed primarily by military personnel, could support local and state governments in their efforts to resolve certain pressing urban problems. An additional mission could be to coordinate the activities of federal departments and agencies and marshal resources to support local governments addressing these problems.

A Dual-Use Military

This article describes how a new, dual-use military could help alleviate threats to our country’s security that come from both within and without. This is not an attempt to “Peace Corps” the military or to decrease its fighting competence at the expense of other initiatives. It is not altruism, although it would do good. Rather, it is in our own best interest. The problems we face are problems of security. The skills needed to deal with them are the same ones that the armed forces already bring to the table.

President Clinton has voiced his support for a voluntary national service in which young persons would give time in service to their country in return for government loans or grants to attend college. This program would allow prospective students to serve either in the military or in civilian situations. A dual-use military would be an effective vehicle for launching this new idea.

But more than that, a reoriented military would use some of our national resources in new ways that look to big problems on the horizon. It would position our armed forces in the best possible way for the coming era of great change and uncertainty. Our country and the world are changing dramatically. So must our military.