In a wide-ranging Foreign Affairs op-ed published Tuesday, Trump’s last national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, decried “American weakness” and called for “peace through strength” (read Politico story here).
That’s a meaningless political jab coupled with a trite bumper sticker slogan. As the devil is in the details, let’s look more closely at what he’s saying.
First, O’Brien wants to deploy the entire Marine Corps to the Pacific as a bulwark against China’s military buildup. The USMC’s training, equipment, and mission are designed for amphibious operations, and well-suited for the kind of island-hopping campaign the U.S. conducted in the WW2 Pacific theater. But it should be noted the Marines earned their legendary status in the Belleau Wood Battle in 1918, a conventional European ground battle.
It makes sense to concentrate Marine strength in the Pacific, and rely on the Marines as the first line of ground defense there. But a doctrinaire insistence that Marines be deployed only in the Pacific would deprive the Pentagon of flexibility to respond to crises elsewhere.
Given China’s buildup, the U.S. should stiffen its posture there, but we’re already doing that. Obama began refocusing U.S. military attention on China, and Biden has continued that policy while working to strengthen alliances in the region and sending more arms to Pacific allies. Biden is better at this diplomacy than Trump is, and at least as good at strategic thinking.
O’Brien wants the Pentagon to move an aircraft carrier from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Off the top of my head, I can’t say whether that’s necessary, but it would weaken our posture in Europe and the North Atlantic at a time when Russia is more threatening, so maybe that’s not a good idea.
Defense thinkers debate building more aircraft carriers. The U.S. has 9 carrier strike groups and 2 new-generation carriers under construction. Given budgetary realities, more carriers means fewer ships for the rest of the Navy, and O’Brien wants more ships. Experts also debate the vulnerability of carriers and other surface ships, and the focus of naval strategy is shifting to underwater.
O’Brien wants to refurbish mothballed Navy ships and send them to the Philippines. This costs money, and Filipino crews would have to be trained. These less-than-modern ships would be no match for China’s frontline naval assets, but could be used to counter Chinese coast guard vessels harassing the Philippines’ small navy. So it’s not necessarily a bad idea, but the question is where the money comes from, and whether it’s better spent elsewhere.
Politico says “O’Brien hit the Biden administration on the military’s recruiting woes.” That problem partly arises from the good economy. The Biden administration is moving to boost military pay for lower ranks. Retention often boils down to things like family housing and other quality of life aspects; in his first term, Trump wanted to divert funding for military housing to a border wall.
O’Brien wants to beef up America’s nuclear triad. Some defense thinkers argue China’s rapid expansion of its ICBM forces calls for a larger U.S. nuclear deterrent. But the U.S. already has programs to replace Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines with newer subs, and aging Minuteman missiles with a new land-based missile.
O’Brien says the Air Force needs 276 B-21 stealth bombers, while the Air Force is planning for 175 to 200. This is best thrashed out by defense experts and Pentagon planners; and, of course, depends on how many Congress is willing to pay for. A Republican administration and Congress wouldn’t necessarily spend more on defense, when their top priority is cutting taxes for rich people.
“O’Brien also said if China and Russia continue to ‘refuse to engage in good-faith arms control talks,’ the U.S. needs to ‘resume production of uranium-235 and plutonium-239, the primary fissile isotopes of nuclear weapons,’ Politico says. While Russia and China have walked away from arms negotiations, it’s hardly clear that producing nuclear materials would bring them back.
And say what? The U.S. hasn’t used U-235 in a weapon since the Hiroshima bomb. Where does restarting plutonium production come in? The U.S. already has a large inventory of nuclear “pits” not currently in weapons. If the question is whether the U.S. should deploy more warheads, that doesn’t depend on new plutonium production. Meanwhile, the U.S. is spending $750 billion over the coming decade to keep existing nuclear warheads in working order.
The Politico article closes by saying, “O’Brien did not push for increased defense spending,” but instead called for “spending smarter.” That, too, is a bumper sticker slogan empty of real meaning. Republicans always want to cut budgets, but when you ask them where the cuts will come from, they shrug because they don’t know. Nothing, it seems, has changed in that respect.