Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb

Oh the apoplectic comments we’ll hear if a pro-nuke Newsweek think-piece should appear.

CJCS’s Searing Critique

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has an article in the most recent Joint Force Quarterly regarding strategic communication called Strategic Communication: Getting Back to Basics. The New York Times called it a “searing critique” while another headline praised Mullen for (finally) elevating the strategic communication debate above the third grade level.

Not to be confused with social media like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, strategic communication is significantly different. It even warrants a spot in the Joint Dictionary, where strategic communication is defined as “Focused United States Government efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of United States Government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products synchronized with the actions of all instruments of national power.”

In short order, Admiral Mullen’s article first says ‘we’re awful’ (my paraphrase) and then advises us to get back to basics, where “we can start by not beating ourselves up.” He then proceeds to beat everyone up. While the article is only about 1300-words, in it Mullen invokes the word “we” around 25 times. In context, he appears to apply “we” to the U.S. military in about 20 of those usages and to the American people in general about three times. However, the tone of “we” as it seems to apply to the military is one of failure. Here are many of the descriptions: we have walked away; we have allowed; we need to; we haven’t invested; we haven’t always delivered; we know better; we could learn; we must know; we hurt ourselves; we must be vigilant; we don’t fully–and don’t always attempt to–understand; we must listen; we should use; we need to worry; we (need to) learn to be more humble, and; we need more…credibility.

Admiral Mullen says our messages lack credibility because we lack credibility and he says the reason we lack credibility is because 1) we haven’t built trust or relationships and 2) because we haven’t always delivered on promises. As the article is written by Admiral Mullen in his role as the U.S. armed forces senior ranking member, and because it appears in JFQ (as well as on the JCS web site) for a largely military audience, it certainly seems the “we” is focused on the military, which after all, owns strategic communication and would be the target for these shortcomings.

Admiral Mullen’s article reflects the universal truth that actions speak louder than words. However, since the article itself is a critique on strategic communication, it warrants being unpacked a little more. For example, there are several photos in the article and in them, what do we see? We see the Admiral addressing the media and we see him interviewing with CNN. However, in the text, he offers the advice “We hurt ourselves and the message we try to send when it appears we are doing something merely for the credit,” the quote appears right above a photo of Mullen (see top of post) handing out notebooks at an Afghan girls’ school. Is it me?

What was missing from the article was the ‘Here is what we’re going to do about it’ part. Other than the vague requirement to ‘build trust and relationships and deliver on promises,’ I didn’t see much about what to do, let alone how to do it. In fact, in that sense, the article was very reminiscent of one he penned a year ago for JFQ called It’s Time for a New Deterrence Model. In that article, again clocking in at 1300-words (I think I see a pattern), the phrase “we must” appeared ten times and the Admiral presented a world-class to-do list. Included in its “we must” listings were: revitalize; hold ourselves accountable; recruit; manage; act proportionally; address our conventional force structure; enhance our capability to rapidly locate and destroy targets; conduct sufficient contingency planning; improve conventional global strike capability; stay engaged globally. All these “we musts” tend to imply “we aren’t.”

Knowing we’re in a swamp is one thing. Remembering what we came to the swamp to do is another. Providing the illuminating vision to do that job is another still.

Happy Birthday Kellogg-Brand Pact!

On this day in 1928, the Kellogg-Brand Pact was signed. The pact initially included France and Germany (and 13 others including the U.S.). It was signed in Paris and was ratified by the U.S. Senate 85 to 1.

The pact’s signatories agreed that all future conflicts would be settled using peaceful means and likewise renounced war as an instrument of policy.

A little less than twelve years later, German troops occupied Paris.

Mail-in the QDR?

The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is a legislatively mandated review of DoD strategy and priorities. Some in Congress feel the QDR has been used to avoid DoD transparency and accountability and that an honest review of fundamental national security issues will not be addressed in the QDR, but rather, that the QDR will rather be used to rationalize budgetary and resource allocation decisions which have already been made.

The President’s lead for defense is Secretary Robert Gates and he has been quite clear where he thinks the DoD needs to go. So, is the QDR supposed to be a reflection of his vision, or is it supposed to be the independent thoughts of a group of disparate national-security thinkers?

As for me, I think it is the former and not the later. Secretary Gates has presented a consistent path to first win the war we’re in and to concurrently prepare for an uncertain future. The fact he was asked to stay on as SecDef almost certainly means he has the total confidence of the President and has been provided an exceedingly long-leash in taking action to shape both current and future activities as they affect the defense community.

For the Air Force, these judgments and decisions have included capping the F-22 program at 187 airframes, procuring more UAV capability, cancelling TSAT, and revitalizing the nuclear enterprise. There is little subtly here–it is all quite plain and clearly announced in speeches and writings.

When we were in the Cold War, we used Cold War strategy, policies, and resourcing decisions. We are now in an era of irregular warfare. While the consequences of war with a near-peer are potentially far more dangerous than IW, the likelihood of that occurrence is less and is a risk the Secretary has assumed. The DoD strategies and priorities he has established will in effect be the QDR and rule the day until other challenges take their places.

Is this QDR being mailed-in? Perhaps, but does it matter?

Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz Visits Air War College

Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz, the Director of the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law from the University of Mississippi, School of Law came in to brief the Air War College Space Elective today. Fantastic!

South Korean Space Failure

The link reports half the two-piece payload fairing did not separate from the second stage as it should have. The extra weight turned the effort into another sea-sat (maybe a land sat). The fairing issue sounds analogous to the Orbiting Carbon Observatory failure, which rode on an OSC provided Taurus XL.

South Korea Launches Satellite

UPDATE: The first report from the field is always wrong. Spaceflight Now (via the Korea Aerospace Research Institute) reports the orbital parameters were supposed to be perigee at 186 miles and apogee at 932 miles. CNN relayed perigee may have been missed by almost 35 miles. There may be some data mangling regarding miles and kilometers.

ORIGINAL FOLLOWS:

South Korea’s Space Launch Vehicle-1, AKA Naro-1 (what, even rockets have street names?) has launched. The two-stage booster was jointly built with the Russians (at a reported cost of $400million) and the satellite was domestically produced in South Korean.

It was announced the launch failed to put its satellite into its desired orbit. The Times report says the satellite was an extra 36 kilometers farther from the earth than it should have been.

Since the announced mission of the satellite was to observe the atmosphere and ocean, and those sorts of missions are often polar orbits, it would seem likely the satellite may not be optimally positioned, but a plus 20-mile miss distance should be able to provide plenty of functionality.

However, if it is supposed to be a low-flier, and maybe even a spy satellite, this sort of miss distance may well prevent mission objectives being fulfilled.

Bring Your Questions for Buzz Aldrin

Certainly an interesting man who has lived an interesting life. He’s an Air Force guy, so you gotta dig him.

Commanding Officer of Navy Nuclear Weapons Facility Fired

The dreaded but ambiguous “loss of confidence.” For more, check the Global Security Newswire.

Start-Ups Are Poised For Latest Space Race

Andy Pasztor of the WSJ reports the administration is “leaning towards outsourcing major components of its space program.” This would mean some competition (or even cancellation!) for the planned NASA-sponsored Ares programs which (in six to eight years) will be used to resupply the International Space Station with materials and astronauts. To paraphrase Emil Faber, “Competition is good.”

The Air Force would like the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle to get man-rated. That would allow them to have some of the cost-burden of that program, which was supposed to provide cost savings of at least 25 percent on USAF launches (cue Bob Euker sound-bite: “Just a bit outside”) to other users. Likewise, commercial providers like Orbital Sciences, and SpaceX will be in the mix, too. However, don’t expect the Ares programs to go down without a fight.

Also, while the President “has confirmed his commitment to human space exploration,” the next part of the challenge will be to understand exactly what the President means by ‘human space exploration.’

We are already at the point where human space exploration–currently defined by orbiting the earth in the ISS–fails to satisfy. One manned trip to the Moon may satisfy for a short while, but after that…

“Manned space” needs to provide a vision of space travel that is not completely disconnected with reality. Space tourism may be the start. Perhaps the lessons learned in space tourism and the technologies developed in that aspect of the space economy will be applied to the space domain in general. I think it is space’s best hope.