The Battle for Resiliency in Asia: it’s the hardeners versus the dispersers

It’s not yet clear the Obama administration is going to put its money where its mouth is on the pivot to Asia. One example of that fear may be found in the outcome of the debate on basing in Asia that is now being waged inside the Pentagon. As the military rebalances its personnel, assets and resources to the East, it’s focused on "resilience" and what it will cost to achieve it. But for all the talk of the pivot, it’s not clear the resources are there to back it up.

"It just seems as though it’s a big change but doesn’t amount to a big bill," Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute told Situation Report. "It’s mostly words." Read more below.

Dempsey is returning from Tel Aviv. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Marty Dempsey, visited Israel and saw the "Austere Challenge 12" exercise in which the U.S. played a prominent role. Dempsey toured different exercise sites, visited an Israeli air base, and met with both American and Israeli personnel participating in the exercise. He also visited an Iron Dome air defense system with Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz of the IDF. Dempsey didn’t take reporters with him, and no one is under the illusion that Dempsey would want to make news on Israel days before the presidential election at home. Dempsey’s spokesman, Col. Dave Lapan, told Situation Report this morning that Dempsey and Gantz "shared thoughts on regional security issues and missile defense capabilities" and discussed the threats facing Israel from rockets and missiles, Iran, and instability in neighboring Syria.

Lapan: "The visits gave General Dempsey a first-hand look at some of the missile defense capabilities. Iron Dome is a successful program in which the U.S. has assisted with Israel’s defense and Austere Challenge is a large-scale, combined exercise designed to test the abilities of the two countries’ armed forces to defend Israel against rocket and missile attacks from anywhere in the region."

Yeshiva World News report: http://bit.ly/Se11ic

Meanwhile, there are more than 11,500 National Guard forces on active duty or in the process of activating across 13 states, as first responders and FEMA work in the aftermath of Sandy. This includes forces from DC, Maine, and West Virginia. One of the hardest hit areas was in Hoboken, NJ, where flooding has trapped some city residents who are in need of evacuation and supplies. The Guard arrived there late last night, according to the Hoboken Patch. http://bitly.com/UfMceI

Welcome to Wednesday’s Halloween edition of Situation Report, where the only scary thing in our world today is deadline. Follow me @glubold. Or hit me anytime at gordon.lubold@foreignpolicy.com. And sign up for Situation Report here: http://bit.ly/NCN9uN or just send me an e-mail and I’ll put you on the list.

CNA’s Henry Gaffney, Jr. doesn’t like all the warmongering and didn’t like John Arquilla’s piece on FP. Arquilla used Obama’s comment in the last debate about how military strategy isn’t like the board game "Battleship" as a peg to explain how military strategy actually does resemble the game. Gaffney worries about the "war-mongers in our midst" who fear their professions will be threatened without the prospect of war. Gaffney, who spent 28 years at the Pentagon and is now at the CNA, responds: "So John Arquilla says, ‘Sea wars have become far more cat-and-mouse matters, whose outcomes have become critically dependent on the need to see the enemy first.’ I wonder what sea wars of the past he has in mind? And aren’t we now decades past from Jutland and Leyte Gulf? And what sea wars of the present does he have in mind? It looks like Arquilla and the rest of the benighted U.S. defense community is all anxious about the great sea war with China, having nothing else to dream up war for.  Self-fulfilling prophecy? I hope not. Poor China! They go to war, they would be committing economic suicide given their dependence on sea traffic to get their oil and distribute their goods, all for the sake of grabbing a few rocks in their adjacent seas. Luckily, it is now said in the U.S. that Air-Sea Battle has nothing to do with China. I’m relieved." Read Arquilla’s piece here: http://bitly.com/S8UKEt

Today the Center for American Progress releases a report on the need to create a "unified budget" for national security and foreign policy. "The members of our Task Force agree with the near-universal consensus that sequestration is more about political maneuvering than sound budgeting practice," members of the task force wrote. "But we argue that the amount of cuts to the Pentagon budget mandated by both parts of the debt deal is readily achievable with no sacrifice to our security if the cuts are done in a thoughtful manner over the next decade." The task force also thinks the savings in the American defense budget should be "redeployed" to other parts of the government — largely to non-military programs — that help the country and its homeland "prevent global crises from escalating into military confrontations." Unifying the security budget, the task force says, creates a better balance among all "security tools."

Quick trade-offs, per by the task force: Instead of using $75 billion to absorb cost overruns of weapons in development, spend the money to protect the international affairs budget and have $23 billion left over; instead of spending $5 billion to maintain spending on military R&D commit funds to deficit reduction; instead of spending $90 million to buy one V-22 Osprey, implement programs to train foreign service officers and diplomats for better cooperation with international organizations; and instead of spending $15 billion to finance "systemic inefficiencies" in the military’s healthcare system (excluding cost of caring for injured or disabled vets, which is separate), fund 95 percent of the Department of Transportation’s investment in clean fuels R&D, green emissions technologies and sustainable transportation projects. One more: Instead of $2.6 billion for one Virginia Class sub, fully fund the White House’s commitment to fund international peacekeeping forces – and have $500 million left over.

The report went live at 7a.m.: http://bitly.com/Tt3ZT0

Since we missed it, maybe you did too: the powerful image of soldiers guarding the Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington, apparently taken as Sandy bore down, went viral. But it was actually taken in September, Poynter reported Monday afternoon. That said, soldiers do guard the tomb under extreme conditions unless it gets unsafe and, Tribune reported, appeared to stay on post through most if not all of the storm — as they’ve done since 1948. http://bit.ly/SVdk3F

The pivot, and the hardeners versus the dispersers, con’t.

There are two camps in the Pentagon debate over how to pivot to Asia: the hardeners and the dispersers. Dispersers believe the best way to foil China is to locate assets and personnel across many bases or temporary platforms around the region; hardeners thinks existing bases should be strengthened to make them sturdy enough to weather an attack — and recover quickly to sustain fighting.

As talk of the end of the Afghanistan war grows louder, there is little enthusiasm among Americans for building up bases and deploying assets to another part of the world. Indeed, the lack of political motivation to take the pivot seriously may well jeopardize Pentagon plans to establish strategic footholds in the region to counter a rising China. Yet it is, apparently, the focus of effort for planners in the Pentagon who have been charged to pivot east.

Some believe there are few good options, even between hardening bases versus dispersing them, as there are few places to which to disperse and little hardening capability that could make a difference if China were to attack.

Hardening, say, bases on Guam means spending billions of dollars to build or expand runways and create the ability to quickly repair facilities once they are hit, as well as building bunkers or other hard facilities in which to store bombers like the B-1 and -2 and fighters like F-15s, -16s and -22s and -35s.

That means real money, and so far there isn’t a sign of that coming. While the Navy largely appears to be well budgeted for the pivot, and, under a President Romney, would get funding for more ships and facilities — the Air Force isn’t likely to see funding levels increase dramatically even with the pivot.

Dispersing forces — and relying on partnerships with countries like Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia with which the U.S. could co-locate with much smaller footprints — could place American assets further from harm’s way. It could also be far cheaper and create a more effective strategic effect against China if it were to become a real adversary. By creating a presence across a region in many, smaller places, American assets could be more effective in countering China if it were to become a real adversary.

Those arguments sound appealing at a time of a budgetary squeeze and leave little enthusiasm to harden U.S. bases.

"When you talk about basing, that money will be hard to find," one military officer in the Pentagon familiar with the debate said. Spurring Congress to "put money overseas" doesn’t have the constituency it needs, the officer said. "There are no champions for it."

Even among those who do advocate for hardening bases, there is recognition that hardening will help only so much.

"The fact of the matter is, against an enemy with good, long-range capabilities, we can’t harden our bases enough," says Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. "We just can’t do it, and it would cost a lot of money."

Dispersing and diversifying, has the added benefit of expanding American partnerships and creating a stronger alliance across the region, he says.

In the end, Pentagon planners — and budgeters — will have to achieve a balanced approach between basing and dispersal, he says. "Precision targeting relies on precision intelligence," he told Situation Report. "If you can blind your adversary so they can’t form an accurate picture of the battle space, then you have a significant advantage."

A "diversified base posture" allows the U.S. to play a "shell game" with its forces, creating confusion among the Chinese about whether those forces are in hard targets or dispersed among many softer ones.

Noted: Loren Thompson will vote for Obama, but not because of his positions on foreign policy or national security. Romney is better from those standpoints, he says.

Celebrating Guns

• Al-Jazeera: Wedding gunfire brings down power lines, starts fire, electrocutes 22 in Saudi Arabia. http://aje.me/XYeKOV

Burning

• Sydney Morning Herald: Syrian warplanes bomb the capital. http://bitly.com/Tu3wjr
• The Jerusalem Post: Rebels say they’re arming Palestinians to fight pro-Assad faction; 180 killed since yesterday. http://bit.ly/TTAOom
• CNN: Myanmar fighting displaces 22,500 and kills 84. http://bitly.com/S4SVsH
• AP: Syrian activists report 23 dead in Damascus suburb. http://bitly.com/Rvo7Sr
• Xinhua: China announces new proposals for political resolution in Syria. http://bitly.com/T5BIQ6

On Simmer

• AFP: Saboteurs blow up Yemeni gas line. http://bitly.com/Se8LAM
• National Post: Iran backing Yemen militants to exert regional influence. http://natpo.st/V5R9vW
• Times of Oman: Protesters stormed National Assembly in Libya, derailing vote on cabinet. http://bitly.com/PlwjGu
• Channel News Asia: A sign of optimism as North Korea reforms. http://bitly.com/TmszAG

Presidential Accord

• AP: Afghanistan to hold presidential election in 2014. http://bitly.com/QU1Jlu
• Global Post: Karzai to be replaced in 2014. http://bit.ly/PGEIWz
• Hindu (opinion): For a clean vote in Afghanistan. http://bitly.com/RnDDOj