Rebuilding A Last-Century Military To Fight Last-Century War…

Trump’s Military Nostalgia (or Victory at Sea All Over Again)
Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

If you’re an American male of a sure age ― Donald Trump’s age, to be precise ― you’re prone to have vivid reminiscences of Victory at Sea, the Emmy award-winning NBC documentary collection in regards to the U.S. Navy in World War II that aired from October 1952 to May 1953. One of the primary prolonged documentaries of its kind, Victory at Sea traced the Navy’s triumphal journey from the humiliation of Pearl Harbor to the good victories at Midway and Leyte Gulf within the Pacific and at last to Japan’s give up aboard the USS Missouri. Drawing on archival footage (all in black and white, in fact) and that includes an imposing soundtrack composed by Richard Rogers of Broadway musical fame, the collection loved immense recognition. For many younger individuals of that point, it was essentially the most compelling, graphic imagery out there in regards to the epic conflict our fathers, uncles, and classmates’ dads had fought in.

Why do I point out this? Because I’m satisfied that President Trump’s discuss of rebuilding the U.S. army and “winning wars again” has been deeply influenced by the form of iconography that was commonplace in Victory at Sea and the conflict motion pictures of his youth. Consider his feedback on February 27th, when asserting that he would request an additional $54 billion yearly in further army spending. “We have to start winning wars again,” he declared.  “I have to say, when I was young, in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war. We never lost a war, remember?”

Now, recall that when Trump was rising up, the United States was not profitable wars ― besides on the TV display screen and in Hollywood. In the early 1950s, when Victory at Sea was aired, America was being fought to a standstill in Korea and simply starting the lengthy, sluggish descent into the Vietnam quagmire. But if, like Trump, you ignored what was taking place in these locations and managed to evade service in Vietnam, your picture of conflict was largely formed by the display screen, the place it was primarily true that “we never lost a war, remember?”.

Trump equally echoed themes from Victory at Sea on March 2nd in a speech aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s latest plane provider. There, clearly relishing the chance to don a Navy bomber jacket ― “They said, here, Mr. President, please take this home, he quipped happily. “I said, let me wear it” ― he extolled the provider fleet. “We are standing today,” he commented stirringly, “on 4.5 acres of combat power and sovereign U.S. territory, the likes of which there is nothing to compete.” Then, as a part of a proposed large build-up of the Navy, he referred to as on the nation to fund an enormously costly 12th provider on a planet on which no different nation has greater than two in service (and that nation, Italy, is an ally).

Trump’s attachment to those ‘reminiscences’ of America’s glory days at conflict helps clarify his method to army coverage and protection funding.

The new president went on to debate the position of U.S. plane carriers in World War II ― sure, World War II! ― a key turning level within the naval conflict towards Japan. “You’ve all known about the Battle of Midway, where the sailors of the U.S. Navy fought with the bravery that will be remembered throughout the ages,” he famous. “Many brave Americans died that day, and, through their sacrifice, they turned the tide of the Pacific War. It was a tough tide, it was a big tide, it was a vicious tide, and they turned it.”

Again, Donald Trump (not precisely a well-read army historian) undoubtedly was recalling components of Victory at Sea, or maybe Hollywood’s 1976 model of the identical, Midway (with its all-star solid of Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Robert Mitchum, and Cliff Robertson, amongst others). Both portrayed the well-known battle in precisely this trend: because the “turning of the tide” within the conflict towards Japan. Yes, a speechwriter in all probability penned Trump’s strains, however they have been spoken with such gusto that you would really feel how heartfelt they have been, how a lot they mirrored his imagined “experience” of that conflict.

Trump’s attachment to those “memories” of America’s glory days at conflict helps clarify his method to army coverage and protection funding.  Typically, when proposing main enhance in army spending, American presidents and their secretaries of protection have articulated grand strategic causes for doing so ― to comprise Soviet expansionism, say, or speed up the worldwide conflict on terror.  Trump’s White House doesn’t hassle with such rationales.

Other than rushing up the conflict towards ISIS in Syria and Iraq, a conflict launched two and a half years in the past by President Obama and now apparently nearing its official completion date, President Trump’s solely justification for throwing tens of billions of extra on the Pentagon is to beat a supposed deterioration of U.S. army capabilities and to allow the Armed Forces to begin “winning wars again.”  Otherwise, the rationale appears to boil all the way down to one thing like the next: let’s rebuild the Navy that defeated Japan in World War II in order that we are able to win battles like Midway yet again.

During election 2016, Donald Trump’s solely prolonged assertion on protection coverage got here in a marketing campaign speech delivered in Philadelphia on September seventh.  He started together with his promise that, if elected, “I will ask my generals to present to me a plan within 30 days to defeat and destroy ISIS.”  (Those precise choices, delivered by “his” generals extra like 40 days into his time period, appear to contain a modest strengthening of already current Obama-era plans for crushing the Islamic State’s foremost strongholds in Iraq and Syria.)  He additionally reiterated his marketing campaign tropes that “immigration security is a vital part of our national security” and that NATO members should contribute extra to the frequent protection.  Then he started talking in additional concrete phrases about his plans for repairing the U.S. army and his fixation on naval power rapidly got here to the fore.

While touring the Ford, Trump insisted but once more that the aim of his multibillion-dollar protection buildup is to make sure the army’s success in future wars.

He first chastised the Obama administration for permitting the Navy to shrink to “the smallest it has been since 1915.”  When Ronald Reagan left workplace, he continued, “our Navy had 592 ships.  When Barack Obama took office, it had 285 ships.  Today, the Navy has just 276 ships.”

Now, it’s doable to quibble in regards to the significance of numbers versus high quality, although most naval professionals would say that as we speak’s fleet of superior carriers, cruisers, and submarines (a lot of them nuclear-powered) packs a far higher punch than the bigger however much less succesful Navy of the Reagan period.  Still, the important thing level right here is Trump’s obsession with measurement.  Admittedly, he additionally spoke in regards to the deterioration of the Army and the Air Force, however in that speech in Philadelphia he nearly obsessively saved returning to the scale of the Navy.  Once elected, he promised, he would ask Congress to remove the protection sequester, an automated cap on army spending, and pony up large further funds to rebuild the army, with the Navy getting desire within the allocation of these funds.  “We will build a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines,” he insisted.  No strategic rationale was supplied for that enhance of 74 ships, save the intimidating impact they could have on potential adversaries.  “We want to deter, avoid, and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength,” he asserted.

Trump returned to those themes in his remarks aboard the Gerald R. Ford.  “Our Navy is now the smallest it’s been since, believe it or not, World War I,” he declared, once more ignoring the truth that no naval officer of their proper thoughts would commerce as we speak’s fleet for the 1918 one.  “Don’t worry,” he continued, “it’s going to soon be the largest it’s been.  Don’t worry.  Think of that.  Think of that.”

He then went on to extol the virtues of plane carriers specifically earlier than plugging for quantity 12.  “Our carriers are the centerpiece of American military might overseas,” he exclaimed.  “This carrier and the new ships in the Ford class will expand the ability of our nation to carry out vital missions on the oceans to project American power in distant lands.  Hopefully, it’s power we don’t have to use, but if we do, they’re in big, big trouble.”

Trump didn’t hassle to say who “they” are as a result of that’s not the purpose. Once America’s expanded provider fleet is roaming the excessive seas, no overseas energy can be foolhardy sufficient to problem the United States in a traditional army duel, or so the Trumpian logic evidently goes. “There is no competition to this ship,” he stated of the Gerald R. Ford, which, as soon as launched, will likely be America’s 11th provider. “It is a monument to American might that will provide the strength necessary to ensure peace.”

A Strategy for Victory ― In Last-Century Wars

While touring the Ford, Trump insisted but once more that the aim of his multibillion-dollar protection buildup is to make sure the army’s success in future wars.  “We will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and, if required, to fight war and only do one thing ― you know what that is?  Win!  Win!  We’re going to start winning again.”

But what sort of wars does he bear in mind?  Trump usually speaks of his dedication to defeat ISIS and different “radical Islamic terrorists” as his major strategic goal.  But it’s arduous to see how a rise within the Navy’s fleet from 276 to 350 ships might presumably contribute to that endeavor.  True, plane carriers are already getting used to mount airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria, however they’re hardly important for that function because the U.S. can use air bases in neighboring international locations to conduct such strikes.  Most different U.S. warships ― cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and the like ― have had little or no position to play within the counterterror operations of the final 15 years (besides on uncommon events as short-term prisons for terror suspects). 

Trump additionally goals to accumulate extra fight planes and to type further Army fight brigades, however once more such property are unlikely to be essential to the defeat of ISIS or different terrorist teams, although the brand new administration is now sending small numbers of typical troops into Syria along with Special Operations forces.  Given America’s painful experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade and a half, there’s visibly little urge for food among the many American public for the deployment of great U.S. floor contingents in prolonged conflicts throughout the Greater Middle East or North Africa, and President Trump has made it clear that he’ll respect that desire.  Accordingly, regardless of how a lot he might decry President Obama’s strategies, he seems inclined in the mean time to merely bolster and speed up his predecessor’s reliance on drone strikes, particular ops forces, and proxy forces like Kurdish and Syrian insurgent teams to fight ISIS and different terrorist organizations.  No 12th plane provider is required to pursue such objectives.

Nor is the weaponry on Trump’s want record, together with superior bombers and submarines, wanted to make sure success, as an example, in that distinctive post-modern type of fight, the form of hybrid warfare that’s been perfected by the Russians in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and now Syria.  Combining typical and unconventional modes of fight together with cyberwar, propaganda, and psychological warfare, hybrid operations have confirmed profitable certainly in conditions the place the Russians have sought to realize localized victories with out precipitating intervention by the most important powers. To counter such operations, the U.S. and its allies must turn out to be way more adept at detecting these unconventional modes of assault and rendering them innocent. No doubt some specialised new capabilities can be wanted for this function, however it’s unlikely that plane carriers and far of the remainder of Trump’s want record could have any important position to play.

What a few conflict with a “rogue state” like North Korea and even Iran? These international locations might, in fact, pose a big risk to their neighbors and even, to a lesser extent, to any American forces stationed of their neighborhood. But in each instances, their typical forces are primarily outfitted with tanks and planes a number of generations older and fewer subtle than these within the U.S. arsenal and wouldn’t survive any encounter with the American army.  The United States may depend on allies with superior weapons of their very own to help in any battle with these international locations.

What good, then, is our new president’s huge program to pump up the U.S. army… paid for, partially, by cuts to home packages that truly do present Americans with real ‘safety’?

There is, in fact, the peril of nuclear proliferation. Fortunately, the 2015 nuclear accord that the Obama administration helped dealer with Iran (plus Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the European Union) eliminates any such risk from that nation in the intervening time. Were President Trump to scrap the deal, as he recommended throughout the election marketing campaign, this could solely put U.S. allies and forces at higher danger.  North Korea, in fact, already possesses nuclear weapons and Trump will someway must discover a technique for mitigating that hazard, however constructing extra large ships and the like gained’t be it.

What good, then, is our new president’s huge program to pump up the U.S. army with but extra ships, planes, and troops paid for, partially, by cuts to home packages that truly do present Americans with real “security”? What wars will they “win”?   

Their solely actual utility can be in a basic twentieth century typical contest with a serious energy alongside the strains of the anti-German and anti-Japanese campaigns of World War II.  In different phrases, as with a lot else in his program to “make America great again,” the necessary phrase is once more and the important thing body of reference is the America of the 1950s. President Trump, like candidate Trump, clearly needs to plunge the nation as soon as once more right into a model of Victory at Sea, maybe with the D-Day touchdown at Normandy thrown in.

If you occur to consider that both China or Russia, with its considerably extra modest forces (every has a single plane provider in operation), can be ready to launch a brand new Pearl Harbor towards the U.S. or its allies after which convey to bear what ships and planes are at its disposal (ignoring, in fact, the world-ending nuclear arsenals all three international locations possess), then rely on the U.S. army, with an additional $54 billion in its pocket (and even with out it), to have a particular fight benefit.

However, the leaderships of China and Russia must be stark raving mad to take such a plan of action.  Their militaries are as a substitute creating “asymmetrical” modes of warfare meant to remove some U.S. benefits in typical firepower in any future regional conflict, together with a heavy reliance on assault submarines, anti-ship missiles, and (in Russia’s case) tactical nuclear weapons.  They know ― who wouldn’t? ― that they may by no means win one other World War II-like encounter with the U.S. army and so aren’t even enthusiastic about getting ready for one.  They know that victory in tomorrow’s wars, no matter that will imply, would require a complete new toolkit and playbook.

The one key determine who doesn’t appear to know that is, not surprisingly, Donald J. Trump. For him, Victory at Sea nonetheless appears to outline the worldwide battlespace, and the aim of any main energy continues to be to own enough air and sea energy to conquer a rival in a World War II-like conflict of heavy metallic. He jogs my memory of somebody caught within the age of the dreadnoughts, these big battleships of the pre-World War I period, heading into World War II. More than the rest, although, I think about him as an avid fan of the board sport “Battleship,” a favourite pastime for youngsters in his schoolboy years. Sink sufficient enemy ships, the sport taught you, and victory is yours. (“Win! Win! We’re going to start winning again.”)

The downside with all this, in fact, is that it’s exceedingly harmful to impose fantasies of World War II on the realities of tomorrow’s battlefields.  The pursuit of victory in fantasy wars through the constructing of elaborate weapons techniques gained’t simply depart the U.S. unprepared for actual threats like hybrid warfare and pressure the nation’s funds; it may also assist set off a heavy metallic response, each extreme and inappropriate, in addition to deeply harmful in a nuclear age, to a minor problem and even perceived problem by a rival energy ― say, China within the South China Sea.

Victory at Sea stays a cinematic expression of our war-making previous. If you actually need to perceive President Trump’s strategic mindset (reminiscent of it’s), get your fingers on a DVD of the collection and watch it. But let’s pray it doesn’t prove to supply a blueprint for a deeply militarized journey down reminiscence lane to the 1950s and a world of future fight operations nobody ought to need to think about, no much less plan for.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch common, is a professor of peace and world safety research at Hampshire College and the creator, most not too long ago, of The Race for What’s Left. A documentary film model of his guide Blood and Oil is obtainable from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and be part of us on Facebook. Check out the latest Dispatch Book, John Feffer’s dystopian novel Splinterlands, in addition to Nick Turse’s Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt’s newest guide, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

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