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The
American people are getting tired of perpetual deployments for their
young men and women fighting overseas. Is there a better way to do it?
And does Donald Trump know this way?
 Dear Wall Street Daily Reader,
It
is perhaps the most Reaganesque of Donald Trump's many campaign-trail
promises: to strengthen the military so that it's "so big and so strong
and so great" that "nobody's going to mess with us."
Peace through strength, indeed.
The president-elect drew, in vivid terms, many contrasts with his vanquished foe, Hillary Clinton.
One
that appealed to millions of forever-war-weary Americans — many of his
voters, of course, but also many of hers — is his avowed distaste for
overseas intervention versus the Establishment's incessant adventurism.
As Peter Baker of The New York Times
put it, "Donald J. Trump's stunning election victory on Tuesday night
rippled way beyond the nation's boundaries, upending an international
order that prevailed for decades and raising profound questions about
America's place in the world."
It may mark the end of nearly a century of bipartisan internationalism.
Well, we'll see.
Trump
brilliantly tapped into long-simmering anxieties about the changing
complexion of America - geostrategically and economically at least as
much as socially.
But
it is an increasingly complicated world out there. And political
rhetoric often does not — cannot — translate directly to policy
prescriptions.
Here's the crux of that old campaigning-versus-governing dichotomy.
Trump certainly mastered the "well, to govern you have to win" part of the deal.
Trump
brilliantly tapped into long-simmering anxieties about the changing
complexion of America - geostrategically and economically at least as
much as socially.
The
art will come with understanding the interplay of his multitude of
visceral appeals to voters and translating that to an effective plan to
execute the office and preserve, protect, and defend the country.
For
example, Trump's approach to energy policy — in short, more
domestically sourced fossil fuels — is sure to mark the end of any U.S.
participation in a global effort to combat climate change.
And
climate change, according to "a bipartisan group of defense experts and
former military leaders," poses "a grave threat to national security."
As
Erika Bolstad noted for ClimateWire on September 14, 2016, "Stresses
from climate change can increase the likelihood of international or
civil conflict, state failure, mass migration and instability in
strategically significant areas around the world."
One of those "stresses" is drought:
A
change in wintertime Mediterranean precipitation toward drier
conditions has likely occurred over 1902–2010 whose magnitude cannot be
reconciled with internal variability alone. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas
and aerosol forcing are key attributable factors for this increased
drying, though the external signal explains only half of the drying
magnitude.
Lack of water is driving people to desperate acts.
According
to the World Economic Forum, the water crisis is the No. 1 risk
confronting the globe, based on impact to society. Indeed, water stress
has been a major factor contributing to recent turmoil in the Middle
East.
Of course, the direct causes of Syria's civil war were political – primarily, opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
But
a 2006 drought – likely the worst in at least the past 900 years and
almost definitely the worst in 500 years – drove Syrian farmers to
migrate to urban centers, setting the stage for massive uprisings.
According
to a 2015 paper published by the National Academy of Sciences, "The
rapidly growing urban peripheries of Syria marked by illegal
settlements, overcrowding, poor infrastructure, unemployment and crime
were neglected by the Assad government and became the heart of the
developing unrest."
Would a President Trump have involved the United States in the Syrian conflict? Who's to say?
Candidate
Trump did, however, promise to "bomb the sh*t out of ISIS" and also
bomb oil fields controlled by the Islamic State and then seize the
assets and distribute profits to military veterans wounded while
fighting the battle.
And
climate change, according to "a bipartisan group of defense experts and
former military leaders," poses "a grave threat to national security."
Panning
out a bit, Trump has promised to leave troops in Afghanistan to address
what he describes as "a mess." And he's renewed America's commitment to
Israel, our long-term ally in the Middle East.
What
marks a significant and perhaps destabilizing change is Trump's promise
to increase U.S. military presence in the East and South China Seas.
That's a direct challenge to China, and it shifts our relationship with
the Middle Kingdom to a more aggressive gear.
According
to Mike Wynne, a former secretary of the Air Force and current adviser
to the president-elect, Trump plans "a fundamental rethinking of what it
takes to keep the United States safe and to advance our national
interests, in short, to make America great again in the eyes of the
world. In all of the military domains — ground, marine, air, space, and
cyberspace — we need to restore U.S. leadership."
For Trump, that seems to imply "bigger."
He
wants a 350-ship Navy. He also wants to increase the active Air Force
fighter inventory to 1,200, grow the Marine Corps from 27 to 36
battalions, and boost the Army from 490,000 to 540,000 troops.
And
he's likely to continue a push led by the Army to modernize military
tactical deployment via integration of those military domains, "ground,
marine, air, space, and cyberspace."
"We
are starting to put together these multi-domain exercises in the real
domain — boots in the dirt, sailors on the ocean, etc.," said Gen. David
Perkins, the leader of the Army's Training & Doctrine Command
(TRADOC) and the author of the MDB concept, to Breaking Defense this
week.
United
States Pacific Command (PACOM) will hold its war games in early 2017,
while European Command (EUCOM) will hold its joint exercise in 2018.
TRADOC observers will observe smaller-scale war games around the world,
too.
Military
modernization also includes the buildout of an increasingly
sophisticated Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), whose main task is to defend the
Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN).
CYBERCOM's
mission would include any response to Russia or other overseas cyber
adversary beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
Meanwhile,
Task Force Ares is an all-service effort to hack the Islamic State and
interdict its use of the internet for propaganda, recruitment, and
command-and-control purposes.
As
Breaking Defense reports, "The Army is also experimenting with tactical
cyber teams, which would protect units' wireless networks on the
battlefield and attack their enemies." These teams are participating in
the PACOM and EUCOM wargames.
Perhaps we should christen this the era of peace through smarter strength.
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