Οι στρατηγικές επιλογές για ισχυρή αμυντική ικανότητα της Ελλάδας

Του Ανδρέα Γερολυμάτου

Στο μέσον της οικονομικής κρίσης και μιας κρίσιμης εκλογικής αναμέτρησης, οι προβληματισμοί για τις στρατηγικές επιλογές της Ελλάδας ίσως να μη συνιστούν προτεραιότητα. Ωστόσο, η εθνική ασφάλεια προέχει και δεν μπορούμε να την παραβλέψουμε. Αλλωστε, κάθε χρόνο το 4,8% του ελληνικού ΑΕΠ, 14 δισ. δολάρια, ξοδεύονται για αμυντικούς σκοπούς.

Στις Ενοπλες Δυνάμεις περιλαμβάνονται 116.000 άνδρες και γυναίκες του Στρατού, υποστηριζόμενοι από 1.723 άρματα μάχης. Στην Πολεμική Αεροπορία υπηρετούν 33.000 άνδρες και γυναίκες, με ενεργό στόλο 295 αεροσκαφών, η ραχοκοκαλιά του οποίου συνίσταται σε 156 μαχητικά-βομβαρδιστικά F-16 συν 44 Mirage 2000. Η ισχύς του Πολεμικού Ναυτικού εστιάζεται σε 14 φρεγάτες ανοικτής θαλάσσης. Χρειάζεται άραγε η Ελλάδα ποντοπόρα σκάφη ενώ αντιμετωπίζει πρωτίστως την τουρκική απειλή στο Αιγαίο; Μάλλον ναι, αν θέλουμε να είμαστε σε θέση να υπερασπισθούμε την Κύπρο. Για τον σκοπό αυτό θα μπορούσαν να χρησιμοποιηθούν μεγαλύτερες και ενδεχομένως λιγότερες ναυτικές μονάδες με ενισχυμένη δυνατότητα «αντιαεροπορικής άμυνας περιοχής».

Είτε μας αρέσει είτε όχι, η Ελλάδα επιβάλλεται να διαθέτει αμυντική ικανότητα και να είναι σε θέση να μετέχει στις αποστολές του ΝΑΤΟ. Οι Ελληνες λίγο ενδιαφέρονται γι' αυτές τις αποστολές, δεν βλέπουν να συντρέχει λόγος για περιπέτειες στο εξωτερικό. Τους διαφεύγει ότι η συλλογική άμυνα συνιστά τον πυρήνα του δόγματος της Ατλαντικής Συμμαχίας και παράλληλα το κλειδί της ελληνικής ασφάλειας.

Τον μείζονα κίνδυνο για την ελληνική ασφάλεια συνιστά η Τουρκία. Για τον λόγο αυτό, κύριο βραχίονα της ελληνικής άμυνας πρέπει να αποτελεί μια πολύ ισχυρή Αεροπορία. Αυτό δεν σημαίνει ότι η ελληνική Πολεμική Αεροπορία οφείλει να διαθέτει αριθμητική ισοπαλία με τα 485 τουρκικά μαχητικά αεροπλάνα. Αλλά η Ελλάδα οφείλει να διαθέτει ικανό αριθμό σύγχρονων μαχητικών, ώστε να μπορεί να καταφέρει ισχυρό πλήγμα στις τουρκικές Ενοπλες Δυνάμεις και στη βιομηχανική υποδομή της Τουρκίας.

Εάν υποθέσουμε ότι ξεσπά ελληνοτουρκική σύρραξη, οι μάχες μάλλον θα περιορισθούν είτε σε κάποια νησιά του Αιγαίου και στη Θράκη είτε στην Κύπρο. Η συντριπτική τουρκική υπεροπλία (η Τουρκία διαθέτει 666.000 στρατό και παρατάσσει 3.759 άρματα μάχης) προδικάζει τουρκική επικράτηση σ' έναν τελειωτικό πόλεμο. Αλλά ακριβώς η ελληνική στρατηγική πρέπει να διασφαλίζει ότι θα πρόκειται για πύρρειο νίκη. Ενα ελληνικό στρατηγικό δόγμα που θα εστιάζει στην αποδιάρθρωση της τουρκικής βιομηχανίας μπορεί να λειτουργήσει ως ισχυρή αποτροπή. Η νεότευκτη τουρκική ευημερία εδράζεται στο βιομηχανικό της δυναμικό. Αν αυτό πληγεί, το οικονομικό θαύμα της Τουρκίας θ' αποτεφρωθεί.

Κατά συνέπεια, η Ελλάδα έχει ανάγκη από περισσότερα μαχητικά αεροπλάνα, πιο ολιγάριθμο Πολεμικό Ναυτικό, πολύ μεγαλύτερη ακτοφυλακή και επαγγελματικό στρατό βασισμένο σε 2-3 τεθωρακισμένες ταξιαρχίες και σε συστοιχίες πυραύλων εδάφους-εδάφους, καθώς και ποικίλες ειδικές δυνάμεις και τεχνικές μονάδες. Η υφιστάμενη ταξιαρχία αλεξιπτωτιστών και καταδρομέων που σήμερα αριθμεί περί τις 3.200-3.500 άνδρες, η Διοίκηση Υποβρυχίων Καταστροφών και το 31ο Σμήνος Ειδικών Αποστολών πρέπει να ενισχυθούν και να είναι διαθέσιμα για αποστολές του ΝΑΤΟ εκτός Ελλάδος. Αυτό θα επιτρέψει τη μεταμόρφωση της Ελλάδας σε ενεργό μέλος της Συμμαχίας, αντί της σημερινής παθητικής της συμμετοχής.

Η τρέχουσα συμμαχία με το Ισραήλ αποτελεί άλλο ένα στάδιο ενεργού ελληνικής συμμετοχής σε συλλογικό αμυντικό σχήμα που αυξάνει τη δυνατότητα των ελληνικών Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων ν' αποκρούσουν και να πλήξουν την Τουρκία. Η ισραηλινή Αεροπορία παρατάσσει 400 F-16 και F-15, από τα οποία τα 58 είναι μαχητικά αεροπορικής υπεροχής που μπορούν να εξουδετερώσουν οιοδήποτε οπλικό σύστημα διαθέτει η Τουρκία. Στην πραγματικότητα, αναβαθμισμένη ελληνική Πολεμική Αεροπορία σε συνεργασία με την ισραηλινή θα μπορούσε να διαλύσει την αεροπορική ισχύ της Τουρκίας, να καταστρέψει το Ναυτικό και τον Στρατό της, καθώς και ικανό τμήμα της βιομηχανίας της στις δυο πρώτες μέρες του πολέμου.

Η μόνη δυσχέρεια για αυτές τις προοπτικές έγκειται στα χρήματα. Η Ελλάδα, στο χείλος της χρεοκοπίας, δεν έχει τα απαιτούμενα κεφάλαια για την αναδιοργάνωση των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων - και μάλλον θα υποχρεωθεί να τις ελαττώσει δραστικά. Σε τελευταία ανάλυση, η δημοσιονομική βιωσιμότητα είναι το θεμέλιο της εθνικής ασφάλειας. Για να την κατοχυρώσει η Ελλάδα έχει δύο δύσκολους δρόμους:

Ο ένας είναι να εγκαταλείψει το ΝΑΤΟ και να υποκύψει στον πειρασμό των Σειρήνων, εν προκειμένω στις προσφορές φθηνού δανεισμού από τον κ. Πούτιν, με αντάλλαγμα ναυτικές βάσεις.

Ο άλλος δρόμος έγκειται στην αξιοποίηση του ορυκτού και ενεργειακού της πλούτου και στη δημιουργία πρωτογενούς ανάπτυξης που δεν θα είναι στο έλεος φιλοδωρημάτων ή του τουρισμού. Η Ελλάδα διαθέτει σημαντικά αποθέματα χρυσού, ενδεχομένως πετρελαίου και φυσικού αερίου, που μπορούν να διασώσουν την οικονομία. Αυτά τα εθνικά περιουσιακά στοιχεία πρέπει να ξεφύγουν από τη διαχείριση εγχώριων πολιτικών που τα προσεγγίζουν με γνώμονα το ίδιον όφελος και τη διαπλοκή με σκοτεινούς επιχειρηματικούς κύκλους.

O Ανδρέας Γερολυμάτος είναι καθηγητής και διευθυντής του Κέντρου Ελληνικών Σπουδών Ιδρυμα Σταύρος Νιάρχος στο Βανκούβερ του Καναδά

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What Has the Army Learned From Iraq and Afghanistan?

Over at Tom Rick’s Best Defense there is an interesting discussion regarding “what the Army has learned from the wars of 9-11?” I have posted a very long comment to his original blog post; I would recommend you read the blog and the comments and then come back and read my comments which are posted here at OP-FOR.

Tom,

Your question “what has the Army learned over the last ten years of war?” is very perceptive.

Since I first read the question yesterday I have been giving it a lot of thought. I read through some of the comments today and found some great insights and others that merely repeated oft heard commentary.

Brian Linn in his book Echo of Battle identified the three cultures within the Army; one of which is the Guardians. This culture guards what they believe are the historic ethos of the nation. Today the Guardians are the dominant culture in the Army; as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, they are determined to ensure they restore the Army they are comfortable with, the Army that focuses on winning the grand wars and to avoid fighting wars of stability. They are the culture that plays up the future threat of China and Iraq, and seek to define the need for the Army within the traditional boundaries understood since the end of World War II. But in order to dominate the culture of the Army they will have to work hand in hand with the Manager culture. The Managers are the ones who adhere to the rigid proprieties of the system—in some ways these two sub-cultures complement each other. The last sub culture with the Army is that of the Heroic. These are the ones who understand how to fight wars, where it be grand wars or insurgencies. They will be losers and will find it hard to deal with the bullshit of the Guardians and Managers.

I mentioned Linn for one reason; because few in the Army understand it roles and responsibilities. One of your commentators stated, “The failure in the use of analytics to make effective core decisions in how the US Army leads, plans, and executes its military operations and its Title X operations (train & equip) ultimately is a failure of basic leadership.[,]” highlighted one of the greatest failure of those in the Army, they Army does not plan or execute Operations. When I speak of the Army—of course I am referring to HQDA and the Institutional Army. Rather they support Joint Operations by providing trained, ready, and equipped forces to the Joint Commander. (Let me also be a little snarky—I am tired of seeing it written as Title X, whenever I do see it written this way it means the individual has never picked up a copy of Title 10.) But the author of that comment highlighted a fundamental problem with the Army over the last ten years—it has not adjusted it processes to support the war. Most of the Army’s uniformed Senior leaders do not understand what Title 10 means or how it effects the Army. Just like the commentator many believe they have a say in Operational matters, unless a Joint Task Force Commander their only role is to support.

Some of the failures of Army processes:

Procurement; why did the Army continue to procure Up-Armored HMMWV when it was evident in 2004 that they were death traps when hit by an IEDs, that they were overweight, top heavy, and underpowered because of all the additional weight. It took Secretary Gates to push the Army and USMC out of their comfort zone in order to procure the MRAP. He literally had to circumvent the overly bureaucratic service procurement processes.

Promotions; the Army has not adjusted it promotion guidelines to fast track those who have demonstrated ability to execute and fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army failed to cull the deadwood. One of the great things George Marshall did at the beginning of World War II was to cull the deadwood within the officer corps.

While the Army instituted Operational Needs Statements (ONS) early in the conflicts, it allowed the system to become “Toys for Boys” where every Battalion Commander, when influenced by contractors, got what he or she considered to be the latest greatest toy. The end result was the Army bought a lot of kit that ultimately turned out to be crap.

The Army Combat Uniform. Enough said.

Rather than flattening command levels, the Army maintained the status quo and allowed the Headquarters to become too large. (Army HQs 1000+; Corps 800+; Division 700+; Brigade 200+). The larger the Headquarters makes harder it becomes to get the important information to the leaders.

Rotating General Officer forward through positions so they can get the coveted right sleeve patch.

In short, as much as possible the Army has maintained the “Status Quo Ante Bellum.”

Now we see the Guardians and Managers throwing around the buzzwords of a bureaucracy seeking to recreate the Army they grew up in:

Realigning Division to Corps, and Brigades to Divisions; we have suddenly determine that a Brigade Commander must be on the same post as a two star division commander in order to be properly supervised.

Realigning Combat Aviation Brigades with Corps and Divisions—remember the whole point of modularity was to make Brigade self-contained elements that could deploy with any type of Headquarters.

Realigning Fires Brigades with Division Headquarters.

While it has been articulated yet look for us to align Expeditionary Sustainment Commands with Corps, and Sustainment Brigades with Divisions.

There is concern within the Senior Leadership we have a whole generation who doesn’t know how to operate in garrison. True they do have to learn something about how to maintain and account for their kit, how to conduct their own training. But I have a startling thought for the Senior leaders, most of our junior leaders are pretty smart and will figure it out. An ass chewing from the Brigade Commander for shoddy maintenance or a Report of Survey or whatever we are calling it today will get a leaders attention on accounting for property. Sure they will need some mentoring. What I am afraid is the code word for how to operate in garrison means unnecessary meeting and formations; CSM deciding the rocks need painting white etc. All the bullshit the Army is famous.

The Sergeant Major of the Army talking about overweight soldiers, standards, getting rid of the bad apples I can see it now the soldier who has served four, five, or six tours in either Iraq or Afghanistan is going to be thrown out because he is overweight but can pass his PT test! There is no question there are bad apples we need to get rid of, but the Army being the Army we will mange to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Can starching uniforms be far behind—walking around the Pentagon I am amazed at the number who have their ACUs starched!

The Army as a Profession—while a needed discussion I worry is about getting rid of those who don’t fit our Senior leader mold of what a “professional is or should be.”

The Army says it needs to keep mid-grade leaders for expansibility—but based on the latest O6 board results, not so much. There was a 34% selection rate—including a number of former battalion commanders who had 2 or more 1 block OERs. This is a direct result of a number of factors—grade plate review, MTO&E changes, etc which when institute the second and third order effect were not considered or were ignored by the Colonels who developed the plans. (Remember a hog don’t slaughter itself!) Of course if the Army choose to get cull the herd of Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels who have no promotion potential and who are essentially robbing oxygen until they hit their mandatory retirement date.

The Guardian-Managers are going to make the rules and will make life hard for those who rightly belong to the Heroic sub-culture.

One of the points you touched on was why the Army can’t seem to develop Strategic leaders. Very simply it does not tolerate intellectuals. Yes there have been a few in recent years; I will name the ones I think fit that mold during my time in the Army (1976-2009): Bernard Rogers, Shy Meyer, John Galvin, Colin Powell, Max Thurman, Donn Starry, Eric Shinseki, David Petraeus, Gary Luck, Martin Dempsey and Dan Bolger. Rogers, Meyer, Galvin, Thurman, and Starry were a product of an era where being smart was not necessarily a sin. Powell because of his assignments developed into a Strategic thinker. The others developed their ability because of education, assignments, and mentorship. Because of their mentors they able to overcome the prejudice against smart people.

In recent years the Army created a functional area “Strategic Plans and Policy.” Many of those in this functional area have come be believe they are “Strategists.” While smart few of them are Strategists. (In fact the career field is misnamed it should be Operations, Plans, and Policy; with some being selected based on their performance to be a select core of Strategists.) The Army seems to believe that if you recreate the education experience of David Petraeus you will create the next generation of strategists. Unfortunately before someone can be a Strategist they must first be a creative thinker.

Most officers entering the Army are not creative thinkers. Either they are graduates of academically deficient institutions or they major in a discipline that was the path of least resistance. In short by and large the Officer Corps is intellectually deficient. Someone who has the potential to be a strategist must first be intellectually curious, a creative thinker, and willing to take on the status quo. Lastly the Army’s educational system does not encourage either creative thinking or intellectually curiosity. As they use to say at Command and General Staff College, “it is only reading if you read it.”

Back to your original question will the Army learn anything from the last ten years. Probably not. . .certainly the Center for Military History is not interested in what has happened in the last years. The Combat Studies Institute at Leavenworth is studying some areas of what has happened in the last ten years. But if we really want to know what the Army has learned or how it has changed it is going to be the work of someone outside the Army.

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Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States

Two of 2011’s most extraordinary developments point in a single direction.

First, the death of Osama bin Laden was accomplished by means that resembled a police action. A painstaking investigation preceded the operation by a group of special forces roughly the size of a SWAT team. Then came the extensive diplomatic work to improve the critical, complex, and challenging relationship between the United States and Pakistan. The 150,000 U.S. troops amassed in neighboring countries at the time had remarkably little to do with it. The decade of war the United States launched in response to the 9/11 attacks, at the cost of a trillion-plus dollars and many thousands of lives, has failed to accomplish a goal that was finally achieved at a tiny fraction of these costs, through a coordinated action of investigative work, diplomacy, and minimal military force.

And second, the various ongoing, transformational struggles known as the Arab Spring point to the possibilities of peaceful change in which the United States has sought to play a supporting role and to deemphasize the role of its military forces.

Since 2004, the Unified Security Task Force has made the case for a rebalancing of United States security resources among the accounts funding offense (military forces), defense (homeland security), and prevention (non-military international engagement). The goal is to strengthen our capacity to prevent and resolve conflict by non-military means, and to constrain terrorist threats not by waging a “war on terror” but by finding and isolating terrorists and bringing them to justice, protecting ourselves from future attacks, and strengthening the capacity of the United States and other nations to resist terrorism.

Our top military and civilian national security leaders have all expressed support for repairing the extreme imbalance in our security spending to strengthen our non-military security tools. Their actions to get it done, however, have mostly lagged behind these fine words.

The historic changes of 2011 have provided fresh evidence of why this repair is needed.

But achieving it will not be easy.

The single-minded focus of national debate on deficit reduction during the past year has held the most promise of ending the unbroken string of expanded military accounts that has dominated U.S. discretionary spending in this century.1 Calls for deficit reduction plans that put “everything on the table — including defense” have crossed an otherwise gaping political divide.

The Unified Security Budget project has contributed to this debate by outlining a set of cuts in unneeded military programs that formed the core of a proposal by the Sustainable Defense Task Force for $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years.2 A majority, though not a supermajority, of the members of the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform adopted the annualized figure of $100 billion, and many of the recommendations from this proposal.

Unfortunately, this administration did not follow its own commission's recommendations. Its flurry of claims this year about past and future military savings, closely inspected, leave us with plans for a military budget that continues to more than keep pace with inflation. It will not contribute significantly to deficit reduction.

Yet the Obama administration did improve the security balance modestly with its FY 2012 request.

It did this not by actually reducing military spending — again, Pentagon smoke and mirrors to the contrary, military growth remains on track, only at a slower rate. The rebalancing came from a boost in the allocation for international affairs. Homeland security spending stayed relatively constant.

Two problems burden this rebalancing. First, the increase in the international affairs budget is mostly attributable to increased State Department responsibilities for operations in Iraq, rather than in strengthening State Department capacity to prevent conflict. The nominal increase to the administration’s prevention budget request comes almost entirely from its budget for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCOs). Indeed the improvement in the security balance itself is almost entirely attributable to the drop in OCO funding for the military and the increase in its funding slated for the State Department.

In addition to pulling together the security budget as it appears in President Barack Obama’s request, we present a reallocation of those budgets that more clearly distinguishes military from non-military security spending. When OCO spending is excluded, the security balance has remained unchanged between the 2010 and 2012 requests: the ratio of military to non-military spending remains at 5:1; the ratio of offense to prevention remains at 12:1; and the ratio of offense to defense remains at 11:1.

The second and more serious problem is that the rebalancing outlined in the administration’s request will not actually occur. Congressional action in 2011 on this budget is quite clearly headed in the direction of reversing the gains embodied in President Obama’s request.>

This unbalancing trend would have been worse but for the presence of funding for OCOs in the State Department’s budget. Congressional action this year has consistently slashed the regular budget for international affairs while fully funding the OCO account.

Indeed, the narrowing of the focus of budget negotiations onto deficit reduction had a clear effect on the administration’s own planning for the security balance in future years. As shown in Figures 1 and 2, pages 12 and 13, the administration’s FY 2011 budget request laid out five- and 10-year plans that envisioned substantial rebalancing. By the time of the FY 2012 request, these plans had been drastically revised, and the rebalancing had vanished.

In one year, the budget planners had cut an additional $230 billion from the five-year projected increase for the Defense Department. But they had cut a cumulative $129 billion from International Affairs. (The Homeland Security budget took a much smaller $57 billion hit.) The budget for offense declined, in nominal terms, over that five-year period, by a total of 1.8 percent; the prevention budget declines by 18.2 percent.These facts of life in the world of deficit reduction had an impact on our own recommendations for rebalancing. We have argued that a unified security budget would allow the overall balance to be clear, facilitating the process of reallocation. In the meantime, we have provided an annual proposal for such a budget and of the reallocations that would substantially alter the balance.In previous years, we have recommended more ambitious resource shifts toward non-military security tools. This year’s budget politics have led us to scale back these ambitions. Our budget, page 18, would cut $77.1 billion from the FY 2012 request for unneeded military programs, while adding $28.1 billion to investments in defense and prevention. While we have slightly increased our recommendations for military cuts over previous years, we have viewed fully funding, or slightly increasing, the Obama administration's request as more realistic goals for the defense and prevention accounts.

The exception to this rule is spending on alternative energy. The Defense Department is focusing increasing attention on climate change as a security threat. The concentration of extreme weather events this year underscores their concerns. And a faltering economic recovery affirms the need for job-creating investment. For all these reasons, we recommend investing the lion’s share of the increases to the prevention budget to the portion of this budget that will address this threat while spurring domestic economic activity.

Our Unified Security Budget would improve the security balance, as illustrated in the chart below.

The difference between our recommended cuts and additions would leave a remainder of nearly $50 billion. We recommend that half of that be allocated to deficit reduction. But our country suffers from an investment deficit as well as a budget deficit. We therefore recommend reallocating the rest to job-creating public investment, which would itself create new taxpayers and new revenue, thereby contributing to deficit reduction.

It is thus possible to improve the balance of our security spending portfolio while also cutting the deficit. But that is impossible if the budget for offense is protected at the expense of the prevention budget and investment in the nation's infrastructure.

Congress so far continues to pursue this course. It is, however, resisting the tide that has shifted the debate this year strongly in the direction of giving military spending a significant role in deficit reduction. So far, however, the Obama administration has gone no further than slowing the growth of a military budget that is larger than at any time since World War II. It has grown since 2001 from one-third of the world’s total to nearly one-half, and will, under this plan, continue to grow in real terms. Deficit reduction requires actually cutting military spending. Three sections of this report outline the three measures necessary to do so.

Getting serious about waste: There is general agreement that military accounts are loaded with fat. The Government Accountability Office found that military cost overruns in the last two years — the difference between what procurement was contracted to cost and what it actually did cost — exceeded the State Department’s annual budget. This section reviews the measures actually taken this year, assesses their results, and outlines what really needs to be done to cut waste.

Roles and missions review: The administration is currently conducting what it claims is an examination of which core missions are necessary to our security and what we can do without. This is a critical task. The growth in the military budget in recent years has coincided with an expanded set of missions that the Pentagon has embraced in its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) without regard to cost. This new section gives our recommendations for the kind of review that will be necessary to drive a serious effort to cut costs.

Budget process reform: There is a disconnect between the current discourse on the need for deficit reduction and security budget rebalancing and the bloated, unbalanced budgets that we continue to fund. This disconnect has much to do with a balkanized budget process that favors parochial interests and inhibits consideration of what overall security spending levels and priorities will best serve our national goals. In this section we provide a menu of reforms, from the modest to the visionary, which would move us from one to the other.

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