The DEW Line

Blame Rumsfeld (Part 1 ...)

Donald Rumsfeld is the ultimate punching bag.

Not only did he screw up the Iraq War, he also left the Bush Administration. That makes him the perfect target both within Republican circles and without. So forget about the careerist generals who let themselves get rolled by the Donalator, nevermind the Congressional overseers who looked the other way and -- oh yes -- forget about that other guy who is supposed to have a sign on his desk saying: "The buck stops here."

It is all Rumsfeld's fault.

That certainly seems the thrust of the first book we've seen that solely examines the total legacy of this man. The book, by "national security insider" Andrew Cockburn is called "Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy".

And Cockburn really means it when he says "catastrophic".

Fun fact: Rumsfeld didn't just foul things up in the Middle East. Cockburn also blames Rusmfeld for unleashing aspartame on an unsuspecting public and playing a major role in the electoral downfall of Gerald R. Ford in 1976. (Aspartame? Yes.)

Cockburn does better when he sticks to his knitting with the national security gossip circuit. His accounts of Rumsfeld's impact on weapons technology bear the mark of an amateur. For example, Texas and South Dakota will be surprised to learn that the entire B-1 fleet is based in Kansas. And The DEW Line was bemused to read that the military has nothing to replace the Milstar satellite constellation if Rumsfeld's beloved Transformational Satellite Communications (TSAT) system isn't ready before 2014 (er, what about Wideband Gapfiller? What about the Advanced Extremely High Frequency constellation? For that matter, what about cheap commercial transponders?).

Someday, history will give us a fair account of the Rumsfeld legacy, which to be sure will make for some gruesome reading. Until then, we'll have to make do with hatchet jobs like this.

Zakheim: The Anti-Merc

Mercenaries, beware: Dov Zakheim (remember him?) doesn't like you.

Zakheim is a bona fide fat cat of the defense industry, a privileged member of the ultimate Old Boys Club. He used to sign checks for the DOD; now he collects them as a vice president for a big defense consulting firm.

(Ah, the cycle of life.)

This means a lot of things about Zakheim, but mainly it means that The DEW Line listens when Mr. Zakheim decides to make a point.

And he has decided to make a point about private military contractors, which in a former age were simply called either mercenaries or camp followers.

In a published review of three recent books on the topic, Zakheim makes it clear that he thinks the Blackwaters and DynCorps of the world are doing more harm than good. Put another way, he's saying DOD and other national security agencies are wasting their money. We recommend you read the full article (warning: registration required, but it's free). Here's an excerpt with his conclusions:

No matter how capable military contractors might be when deployed in combat-related areas, they will not achieve the aims of the governments that hired them. To be sure, they will remain an important supplement to military forces, providing critical noncombat service support that would otherwise have to be performed by highly trained servicemen and servicewomen who are best employed in combat roles. But military contractors cannot act effectively as soldiers in the long run. Worse still, they may well undermine their clients’ military aims, because they will add to the resentments of those already embittered populations that view the United States as an alien occupier.

Despite the glory that Colonel Schumacher ascribes to such contractors, and the wealth that Professor Kinsey and Mr. Pelton claim they have earned, undermining military aims is exactly what they appear to be doing in Iraq, and perhaps in Afghanistan. When all is said and done, the political and strategic consequences of their activities in both countries are still unknown — and as has often been the case with mercenaries in the past, we will not be in a position to judge the results until it is too late to do anything about them.

Iran Has the Bomb (well, maybe)

Accusing countries of harboring secret weapons programs is SOOOO 2003, but, as tweed is to fashion, some global security fads never truly go out of style.

The hardest working man in political-military affairs, Anthony Cordesman has a new report out that helps us understand the Bush Administration's current obsession with Iran's nuclear ambitions.

He concludes that, yes, Iran very, very likely has a nuclear weapons program. For him, the "smoking gun" ("smoking mushroom cloud" anyone? -- or did Bush ruin that metaphor?) are Iran's on-going medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missile programs. Since Iran doesn't have the guidance technology to make such weapons useful in a conventional strike, the existence of these programs only makes sense if they are the REAL THING.