Text 266, 201 rader
Skriven 2005-03-22 00:01:32 av Steve Asher (3:800/432.0)
    Kommentar till text 265 av George Pope (1:153/307.11)
Ärende: New Undeclared Arms Race
================================
Mulling over George Pope to Steve Asher 19 Mar 2005

Hi George!

 GP> On (20 Mar 05) Steve Asher wrote to All...
 SA> Classified Pentagon Document

 SA> New Undeclared Arms Race:
 SA> America's Agenda for Global Military Domination
 SA> by Michel Chossudovsky
 GP> [...]
 SA>     The Pentagon has released the summary of a top secret Pentagon
 SA> document, which sketches America's agenda for global military
 SA> domination.

 GP> Got the actual text of this summary and/or document?

No, I have been unable to locate the summary, or even its title, but
not for lack of trying. The original article referring to the classified
planning document appeared in the Wall Street Journal, and was part of
what I posted before & snipped because it was too big. Here it is, as
cached by Google on the US Airforce "AIM Points" site. It is no longer
on the USAF site, for some reason. :)

========================================================================

Rumsfeld details big military shift in new document
BY: Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal
03/11/2005

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld outlines in a new, classified
planning document a vision for remaking the military to be far more
engaged in heading off threats prior to hostilities and serve a larger
purpose of enhancing U.S. influence around the world.

The document sets out Mr. Rumsfeld's agenda for a recently begun
massive review of defense spending and strategy. Because the process
is conducted only once every four years, the review represents the
Bush administration's best chance to refashion the military into a
force capable of delivering on the ambitious security and foreign-
policy goals that President Bush has put forth since the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It is being conducted by senior members of
Mr. Rumsfeld's staff along with senior officers from each of the armed
services.

Mr. Rumsfeld's goals, laid out in the document, mark a significant
departure from recent reviews. Deeply informed by both the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and by the military's bloody struggle in
Iraq, the document emphasizes newer problems, such as battling
terrorists and insurgents, over conventional military challenges.

Mr. Rumsfeld's approach likely will trigger major shifts in the
weapons systems that the Pentagon buys, and even more fundamental
changes in the training and deployment of U.S. troops throughout the
world, said defense officials who have played a role in crafting the
document or are involved in the review.

In the document, Mr. Rumsfeld tells the military to focus on four
"core problems," none of them involving traditional military
confrontations. The services are told to develop forces that can:
build partnerships with failing states to defeat internal terrorist
threats; defend the homeland, including offensive strikes against
terrorist groups planning attacks; influence the choices of countries
at a strategic crossroads, such as China and Russia; and prevent the
acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by hostile states and
terrorist groups.

"The question we are asking is: How do you prevent problems from
becoming crises and crises from becoming all-out conflicts?" said one
senior defense official involved in writing the guidance.

At its heart, the document is driven by the belief that the U.S. is
engaged in a continuous global struggle that extends far beyond
specific battlegrounds, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The vision is
for a military that is far more proactive, focused on changing the
world instead of just responding to conflicts such as a North Korean
attack on South Korea, and assuming greater prominence in countries in
which the U.S. isn't at war.

The document comes early in the review process, which is conducted at
the behest of Congress. Each of the military services already has
assembled a large staff to craft plans for attacking the key problem
areas identified by Mr. Rumsfeld.

When complete, the review will be sent to Congress, likely early next
year. Congress doesn't have a vote on the secretary's review, which
will be used by the administration to guide its decisions on strategy
and spending over the next several budget cycles. The review is
unlikely to require any major changes in overall defense spending,
which is projected to grow through at least 2009.

But it is likely to trigger some nasty political battles, and
potentially pose challenges to defense contractors. The core problems
outlined in Mr. Rumsfeld's review, for example, don't seem to favor
the F/A-22 jet, made by Lockheed Martin Corp., which is the Air
Force's top priority. "I think you are likely to see the Air Force
push back hard to preserve the F-22," said Loren Thompson, chief
operating officer at the Lexington Institute and a consultant to
several of the military services. "Unfortunately, you can't find a lot
of justification for more F/A-22s in the problem sets the services are
being asked to address."

Already, the review is prodding the services to question the need for
expensive weapons systems, like short-range fighter jets and naval
destroyers and tanks that are used primarily in conventional
conflicts. "A big question is exactly how much is enough to win the
conventional fights of the future, and where can we shift some
resources to some of these less traditional problems," said one person
involved in drafting the guidance.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed a summary of the document and spoke
with several officials who contributed to it.

Mr. Rumsfeld has made transforming the military a priority since the
Bush administration took power. But in recent years that push took a
back seat to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Inside the Pentagon,
the review is widely seen as Mr. Rumsfeld's last big push to instill
his views. Many insiders speculate that he will leave early next year
when the review is completed; he has repeatedly dismissed all such
speculation and refused to comment on his plans.

Mr. Rumsfeld's guidance pushes the services to rethink the way they
fight guerrilla wars and insurgencies. Instead of trying to stamp out
an insurgency with large conventional ground formations, the
classified guidance urges the military to come up with less
doctrinaire solutions that include sending in smaller teams of
culturally savvy soldiers to train and mentor indigenous forces.

The U.S. would seek to deploy these troops far earlier in a looming
conflict than they traditionally have been to help a tottering
government's armed forces confront guerrillas before an insurgency is
able to take root and build popular support. Officials said the plan
envisions many such teams operating around the world.

That represents a challenge for a military already stretched thin by
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There aren't currently enough of these
specially trained soldiers and Marines to make the strategy work.

In the past decade, the U.S. military has shied away from helping
allies battle internal threats out of concern that U.S. forces would
get mired in endless internal conflicts. Instead, the military has
focused on helping allies ward off cross-border aggression by selling
them higher-end weapon systems.

But the new plan envisions more active U.S. involvement, resembling
recent military aid missions to places like Niger and Chad, where the
U.S. is dispatching teams of ground troops to train local militaries
in basic counterinsurgency tactics. Future training missions, however,
would likely be conducted on a much broader scale, one defense
official said.

Of the military's services, the Marines Corps right now is moving
fastest to fill this gap and is looking at shifting some resources
away from traditional amphibious-assault missions to new units
designed specifically to work with foreign forces. To support these
troops, military officials are looking at everything from acquiring
cheap aerial surveillance systems to flying gunships that can be used
in messy urban fights to come to the aid of ground troops. One "dream
capability" might be an unmanned AC-130 gunship that could circle an
area at relatively low altitude until it is needed, then swoop in to
lay down a withering line of fire, said a defense official.

The shift is reminiscent of the situation in the early 1900s, when
Marines fought a series of small wars in Central America and were
frequently referred to as the "State Department's soldiers."

At the same time the U.S. military re-equips itself to deal with low-
tech insurgent threats, it also is seeking to dissuade rising powers,
such as China, from challenging U.S. military dominance. Although
weapons systems designed to fight guerrillas tend to be fairly cheap
and low-tech, the review makes clear that to dissuade those countries
from trying to compete, the U.S. military must retain its dominance in
key high-tech areas, such as stealth technology, precision weaponry
and manned and unmanned surveillance systems.

Source: Google cache of http://aimpoints.hq.af.mil/display.cfm?id=1801

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:O17cgD2KAGwJ:aimpoints.hq.af.mil/
display.cfm%3Fid%3D1801+%22the+classified+guidance+urges+the+military
+to+come%22&hl=en   (needs to be placed on one line)

==========================================================================

 GP> And, anyway, why would the Pentagon release such information which
 GP> can not in any way be viewed as GOOD??

A leak to the Wall Street Journal? If it is a leak, it would need to
come from someone in possession of the unnamed document.

 GP> Unless they're trying to play the media game of inuring the public
 GP> to nastiness, so when they act on this, nobody will notice or care?

It may be some of the "news" stories that the US Administration fictions
up to deceive, or it may be true, but many would doubt its credibility,
based on other "solid intelligence" that has flowed from the US Admin,
and ignore it. 

Cheers, Steve..

--- 
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