Obama and the Military
Filed under: 2008 elections, Barack Obama, Lead Post, Lead Story, Military — Jason, Managing Editor on February 23, 2008 @ 4:24 pm CET
Obama’s military inexperience is showing.
A furor has erupted over a tale told by Sen. Barack Obama at the Democratic Party’s nomination debate in Texas wherein Obama citing an Army captain complaining about shortages in troops and equipment under “the current commander-in-chief”. Specifically, Obama reported the captain stating that one-third of his platoon had been sent to Iraq instead of Afghanistan and that equipment was so short that they had to used captured Taliban weapons. Many conservative and military bloggers have expressed disbelief with elements of Obama’s tale. Here, I explain how both Obama and his critics likely have a piece of the truth.
The first controversy concerns the report of soldiers from a platoon being sent to Iraq instead of Afghanistan. Long a critic of the Iraq war, Obama certainly meant this element to highlight the drain on U.S. forces and the ad-hoc nature of Army manpower provisions that have persisted since Rumsfeld’s throwing out of standardized planning in favor of politically and ideologically driven temporizing and minimizing. Critics have responded, correctly, that manpower doesn’t ever work in the way Obama describes, however. Soldiers from a platoon are almost never sent as individuals to different theaters. The platoon is the smallest unit of military manpower analysis.
What is likely, however, is that both Obama and his critics are correct and just don’t know it. While it is, as his critics say, highly implausible that one-third of a unit was sent to Iraq and the rest to Afghanistan, it is likely that units being sent to Iraq as part of the manpower-intensive “surge” have high priority for manpower. As a result, they would receive replacements sufficient to fill their ranks before deploying. Many of these replacements would come, though the normal process of personnel transfers, from other military units. Meanwhile, units being sent to the less politically-sensitive Afghanistan conflict may not receive their replacements before deploying. In short, the words that Obama chose to describe the situation may have been ill-chosen, but the story itself is likely accurate.
A similar compatibility exists for the portion of the tale about equipment shortages. Obama’s version implies that equipment is not being provided at all, when the reality is likely that equipment is subject to breakage and that parts are often hard to come by through the Pentagon’s antiquated and inefficient system of acquisition. Thus, the captain’s unit used a capture .50-caliber machine gun as a replacement for a U.S. version while awaiting a replacement part. Since ammunition is often compatible by design between Soviet and U.S. weapons, there is no reason that a unit would avoid using captured weapons when needed nor is there any intrinsic loss of effectiveness when they did. Thus, Obama’s correct to highlight a long-standing problem in the U.S. system of acquisition (I can state from personal experience that inefficiencies in military parts acquisition long predate 2003 or 2001), but his implication of a crippled U.S. military is misleading.
All of this does serve to highlight Obama’s lack of knowledge and experience regarding the U.S. military, however. As he emerges as the clear front-runner and likely Democratic Party nominee, this is a deficiency that the candidate would do well to redress with a self-imposed”back to school” crash course before he moves on to compete against John McCain and the Arizona Senator’s impressive record of personal military experience. The man who aspires to be commander-in-chief does not need to have personally served in the military — the U.S. is not and should not be a praetorian state. But an intelligent man such as Obama must surely see the need to make himself educated in one of the most important tools he might use in the Presidency.
1 Claudia
February 23, 2008 @ 5:03 pm CETHaving no clue about the subject myself I’m going to trust your word for it Jason. It sounds like Obama told what in his mind was a true story, but seen through the lens of a throughly civilian eye. I’m sure it’s not too much of a stretch to think that John McCain would not have made that mistake. In that sense he is stronger, having actual personal knowledge of the inner-workings of the military. Obama, like any non-veteran president before him, will have to study hard and get himself some very good military advisers. Interestingly, I read that Obama ranked second on the most donated to list from military personnel (Ron Paul ranked first, which makes me wonder about the opinion on Iraq from military folks) but that was some months ago, before John McCain became the de facto nominee.
The whole matter makes me think about the qualifications for President. It’s obvious that no normal mortal could ever be perfectly qualified. You’d have to go through virtually every profession to a high level; economist, military, social worker, engineer, lawyer, judge, scientist, diplomat, businessperson etc. An extraordinary human being can possibly have two or maybe three of the needed qualifications. Usually presidential contenders are lawyer+something else.
BTW Jason, I’ve been meaning to ask you your opinion on Obama’s advocacy for "National Service". In case you haven’t heard of it it’s basically a very large college scholarship program that helps pay for college in exchange for Natl Service, to be fulfilled in the military, Peace Corp, volunteering at homeless shelters etc. I think it’s a great idea, though personally I’ve always thought that a Natl Service should be obligatory for all high school graduates, not necessarily with the prize of a scholarship, but as a necessary part of character building and citizen education (no political agenda, just instilling helping others in the young). What do you think?
2 Jason
February 23, 2008 @ 5:16 pm CETUniversal national service proposals have been around since at least the beginnings of the Cold War. I’ve read a lot about them as part of my research on the end of the draft.
The fundamental problem with them is that they suffer from the same problems as the draft — there simply is no way to find meaningful work for the millions of people each year who would be entering the program, largely without any useful skills. The result is then either make-work programs (which are expensive, produce little of any value, and which do not build anything but cynicism) or selection mechanisms which always reward some and punish some others, usually on the basis of economics (the rich can always evade more easily than the poor, no matter how you design the system to try to prevent it).
As such, I am not a fan of mandatory national service programs. I think they simply fail to generate what they seek to generate. I understand the theory of building patriotism and character, but I haven’t found any evidence that such programs actually succeed in doing it in anything like a cost-effective manner. Also, workers who are impressed into a mandatory program are prone to much higher rates of criminality and/or discipline problems.
A voluntary system could be very useful, with benefits similar to or lesser than those for military service. I think the benefits should be lesser since the sacrifice is lesser. But a voluntary system would be able to be more cost-effective since it could be sized by the work required rather than by the size of the entire population cohort at the time.
3 Ron Beasley
February 23, 2008 @ 5:29 pm CETAs someone who was in the military during the Vietnam debacle, 1968-1971, I can tell you that everything Obama reported is probably true. After the M16 was introduced to Vietnam captured AK47s became the weapon of choice because they always worked and you could always get ammuntion.
4 Jason
February 23, 2008 @ 5:36 pm CETRon, that refers to a much earlier version of the M-16. The current model is much more reliable.
Obama’s story referred to the use of a machine gun, not AK-47s. It is highly unlikely that U.S. troops would prefer the AK-47s in Afghanistan, as the ones in use there tend to be among the lowest quality knock-off models out there. (Not all AK-47s are the same quality or even the same manufacturer or country of origin.)
It is, however, true that Russian weapons and American weapons often use the same ammunition. This is by design, as it allowed military planners on both sides of the Cold War to plan on making use of captured ammunition stocks.
5 Ann Low
February 23, 2008 @ 6:09 pm CETI personally don’t fault Obama for his statements that are colored by his inexperience. He had enough of it right that it shows a real problem for our Military that should be the topic of National debate. When you have to condense training to three days in a foreign hostile country because the vehicle was not available for them to train on here in the US is a problem. Exactly what is the real difference between not having the guns and not having parts to repair them. Either way it does not protect our soldiers.
We have normal every day citizens and celebrities that saw the true need for retro fits to helmets to save lives and raised money for them.
It seems to me that there is a lot of hair splitting and shooting the messenger for putting the spotlight on a real problem.
I have great respect for McCain and his true heroic sacrifices for the country. At the same time, with his experiences and knowledge of the needs of the military, I have to question why he is not yelling at the top of his lungs that our soldiers don’t have what they need to win this war instead of his support of it continuing into an untold number of years. Exactly what are his lessons learned from VietNam.
6 Rudi666
February 23, 2008 @ 6:42 pm CETBJ posted on this yesterday and both verified the Obama story and provided further collaborates( sp) in regards to equipment replacement and repair.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9751
Jack Tapper verifies the Captains story - here.
Philip Carter verifies similar stories from readers and from personal experience. PC isn’t a bleeding heart liberal.
http://www.intel-dump.com/posts/1203696668.shtml
7 Jason
February 23, 2008 @ 7:20 pm CETRudi, your account is 100% consistent with what I posted.
8 Rudi666
February 23, 2008 @ 9:29 pm CETJason - I just pointed out a couple more post that discussed the situation. The MSNBC article smells a little fishy, it lacks details found in the ABC post and said this:
The ABC Tapper post said the Captain claims only three days of training in Afghanistan.
I make no claims against your post, I,m just cynical of the Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman quoted in the MSNBC post. It seems that when ever the Pentagon needs to "spin" out comes Whitman. Whitman spun the Jessica Lynch story for all it was worth.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/19/sprj.irq.bbc.lynch.dod/index.html
I doubt if Whitman would even be called a "Perfumed Prince".http://www.hackworth.com/9aug99.html
9 Cannoneer No. 4
February 23, 2008 @ 9:57 pm CETIt is, however, true that Russian weapons and American weapons often use the same ammunition. Which weapons would these be? I can’t think of any.
10 Jason
February 23, 2008 @ 10:07 pm CETI am merely repeating something I heard from some military sources. It is not an argument that is important to my main point and I’m happy to hear any correcting information.
Aren’t .50-cal machine guns pretty standardized?
UPDATE: I found that there appear to be some Soviet weapons that fired 7.62mm NATO-standard ammunition but none that fire the updated 5.56mm NATO standard. There are also some Soviet tank guns in their export market that were designed to fire NATO ammunition.
As for the only point pertinent to this article, the troopers reported using a captured (presumably Soviet-made) Taliban .50 machine gun. I’m just guessing that they had ammo for it.
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12 Cannoneer No. 4
February 24, 2008 @ 7:25 am CETSo it is not true that Russian weapons and American weapons often use the same ammunition.
You merely repeated something you heard from some military sources.
That’s what Obama did.
7.62mm x 54R will not fit in a 7.62mm x 51 chamber. Neither will 7.62mm x 39.12.7mm x 108 will not fit in a 12.7mm x 99 chamber.
There is no standardization between the DShK and the M2HB.
But these are just meaningless details and have no bearing on your main point.
Actually, that is the point.
13 Donklephant » Blog Archive » That Obama Military Story
February 24, 2008 @ 5:55 pm CET[…] The right wing bloggers continue to accuse him of being wrong and even moderate bloggers suggest some level of naivete. […]
14 What the Army Captain Told Obama « Liberty Street
February 25, 2008 @ 1:03 am CET[…] The right wing bloggers continue to accuse him of being wrong and even moderate bloggers suggest some level of naivete. […]
15 kranky kritter
February 25, 2008 @ 3:32 am CETI agree with the poster above who pointed out how very much of the story Obama had right. Outside of a detail or two, the story has been substantively verified and further, supports the thrust of the point Obama was making when he brought the story up. That most milbloggers won’t give an inch, or even .62 millimeters, when a non-soldier criticizes the military is predictable. Obama was accused of lying and/or repeating a story that, well, it couldn’t be true. THAT was the substance of the milblogger critique. When that was shown to be speculative bluster based on visceral dislike, some folks choked up an honorable mea culpa. And others decided to move the goal line instead of saying "Ok, it appears to be a true story. I wuz wrong."
16 Nick Benjamin
February 25, 2008 @ 9:53 am CETWhat really struck me about this post was a single line:"his implication of a crippled U.S. military is misleading"Obama didn’t imply the US Military was crippled. He implied that the troops Afghanistan have a much harder job because Iraq gets priority for spares, manpower replacements, etc. That’s just true.
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