Washington Rules_ America's Path to Permanent War - Andrew J. Bacevich [71]
In congressional testimony presented barely three weeks after September 11, Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s influential deputy, explained the connection between the war just begun and the national security practices to which the United States had adhered for decades. Although “terrorist movements and totalitarian regimes of the world have a variety of motives and goals,” Wolfowitz explained, in a broader sense they shared a single unifying purpose: “a desire to see America driven into retreat and isolation.”
Usama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il and other such tyrants all want to see America out of critical regions of the world, constrained from coming to the aid of friends and allies, and unable to project power in the defense of our interests and ideals.
By holding our people hostage to terror and fear, their intention is for America to be intimidated into withdrawal and inaction—leaving them free to impose their will on their peoples and neighbors unmolested by America’s military might.
All of these capabilities serve their common objective of keeping America out of their regions and unable to project force in the defense of freedom. To meet the challenges over the horizon, we must transform our Armed Forces more rapidly, more creatively, and even more radically than we had previously planned. . . .
It is a fact of life that countries frequently prepare to fight the last war. We spent much of the 1990s planning to re-fight the Gulf War. . . . [To wage the wars of the future,] we will need forces and capabilities that give the President an even wider range of military options.
The goal of [military] transformation is to maintain a substantial advantage over any potential adversaries. . . . If we can do this, we can reduce our own chances of being surprised, and increase our ability to create our own surprises, if we choose.11
Wolfowitz’s glib allusion to the historical dyad was standard fare: assertive leadership as prescribed by the American credo versus retreat and isolationism. As always for defenders of the Washington consensus, these defined the sole alternatives. More imaginative was Wolfowitz’s depiction of how a motley collection of B-list foes had banded together to lay siege to the national security triad. Rolling back the U.S. military presence abroad, neutralizing the Pentagon’s capacity for power projection, intimidating Americans into passivity: This defined the common agenda to which such disparate figures as Al Qaeda’s radical jihadist leader, Iraq’s secular authoritarian, and North Korea’s erratic dictator all ostensibly subscribed.
According to Wolfowitz, “transformation” offered the essential means of thwarting this nefarious partnership. Radically reforming the Pentagon consistent with the principles of the RMA promised to provide Washington—that is, people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz—with inviting new opportunities to act. Rather than being surprised as on 9/11, the United States would spring surprises on bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and anyone else said to pose a threat.
Within days after Wolfowitz spoke, the invasion of Afghanistan provided a preliminary demonstration of what he and Rumsfeld had in mind. Small numbers of special operations troops (assisted by CIA paramilitaries) linked to an impressive array of firepower—mostly sophisticated aircraft delivering precision munitions—and local allies on the ground made short work of the Taliban. Operation Enduring Freedom began on October 7, 2001. By November 14, the Afghan capital, Kabul, had fallen.
President Bush wasted no time in explaining what it all meant. Afghanistan had provided “a proving ground” for a new American approach to war, he announced to the assembled cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. Yet this was a work in progress: More remained to be done. “This revolution in our military is only beginning,” Bush continued,