Tag Archives: Adm. Mike Mullen

U.S. debt a national security threat?

As of this month, the federal debt stands at more than $13 trillion, or about 90 percent of annual Gross Domestic Product.

Let’s do the math. If you had been alive since Jesus was born and spent a million dollars every day, you wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion dollars, never mind $13 trillion. That’s according to calculation by Kevin Williamson of the National Review.

Why is the burgeoning debt a security threat? In addition to hindering economic growth, a 90 percent threshold of government debt relative to G.D.P. will make it extremely difficult for the U.S. government to make debt-service payments to its creditors, including governments around the world.

If its creditors in Asia and the Middle East doubt Washington’s ability to pay back interest on treasuries, they may stop purchasing US-backed securities, experts warn. They might even demand higher interest rates. Both will impede the federal government from doing its job, including protecting the country’s security.

As of last month, a quarter of the country’s debt is in the hands of foreign governments, nearly double the ratio in 1988 at 13 percent. Of that amount, China holds 23 percent, followed by Japan with a little more than 20 percent.

“I think the biggest threat we have to our national security is our debt,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a “Tribute to the Troops” breakfast in Washington last month.

House Democratic Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said, “It is time to stop talking about fiscal discipline and national security threats as if they’re separate topics.” His comments came during a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in June.

Hoyer phrased the whopping dollar amount as “unsustainable,” and mentioned how financial dependence has toppled other superpowers.

David Walker, the former Comptroller General and current President of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said Washington’s financial dependence on foreign loans affects its policy towards its lenders. “One of the reasons American tax payers now guarantee $5 trillion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt is because the Japanese and the Chinese demanded it,” said Walker during an interview with Politics Daily earlier this year.

Walker added, it’s likely that “China will say, ‘We’re not going to lend you money unless you pay us higher interest rates.’”

While that is a possibility, the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlement reported that that is highly improbable for public sector investors, i.e. governments. The global institution caters only to central banks and international organization, with the aim of fostering cooperation within the world financial system.

Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute agrees. The specialist in foreign policy and civil liberties said that asking for a higher interest rate, and thus putting the U.S. economy in danger, will be a “self-destructive move” by Beijing. “The Chinese government knows the importance of a vibrant American economy, China’s biggest market.”

Similar confidence in financial stability in the future is also reflected in a briefing paper published on July 26 by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank. John Irons and Josh Bivens wrote the fact that interest rates of U.S. treasuries are at historic lows reflects that there is still demand by global investors.”

While there is no immediate threat to national security, the defense chief, Mullen, is urging sharp cuts in expensive programs. His department spends $700 billion a year, the biggest part of the federal budget. That’s as much on defense as the rest of the world’s combined.

The largest program right now is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, funded at a level of $11.5 billion in next year’s budget request.  The aircraft carrier replacement program receives $2.7 billion in annual funding, the DDG-51 Destroyer gets $3.0 billion, and Space-Based Infrared System receives $1.5 billion.

Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow for Defense Budget Studies at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said it is time for an overhaul. “It would be a mistake to simply downsize the military such that in a few years it looks essentially like a smaller version of the force we have today. ” Harrison added, “We should use this as an opportunity to make some strategic decisions about what missions and capabilities our military no longer needs to support.” Harrison concluded that targeted cuts that reshape the force could actually be a benefit in the long run.

Despite worries that the burgeoning debt might put the U.S. government in vulnerable position, many experts claim its influence on world economy is too large for any one of its creditors to want to destabilize. And with the defense department showing unprecedented efforts to downsize, the rate of government spending will likely slow down.

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"Can you repeat that?" Linguistics key to Afghan war effort

WASHINGTON–Last summer, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed a group of 2,000 people who he located at the critical juncture and “at the heart” of the military’s efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“You are as important as any other undertaking in the US military right now,” Mullen proclaimed.
This wasn’t a talk of weapon systems or traditional war theory, but one centered on what might be the most undervalued tool in the military’s arsenal – language.
Mullen’s newfound indispensible manpower in an interminable and untraditional war are the students and staff at the Monterey, Calif.-based Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.
Ten years ago, the DLIFC was solely in the business of training linguists for traditional roles.
“Now, we’ve had to branch out,” said Stephen Payne, DLIFC command historian. “We’ve been helping train troops since 2003.”
A premier institution since 1941 — when Japanese-American Soldiers were first trained to become translators and interpreters in World War II — DLIFLC teaches 24 languages to linguists from all four branches of the military, the U.S. Coast Guard and other Department of Defense agencies.
Due to rapid expansion, the DLIFLC hired over 1,000 new faculty members since 2001. Their budget has more than tripled, from $77 million in 2001 to $275 million this year. The center started offering predeployment training for Dari and Pashto in 2007. Since then, there has been a 500 percent increase in enrollment, with 15,000 service members trained in just 2009.
Most recently, the center partnered with the army to host “Language Training Detachments” to better prepare troops to meet the demands of an increasingly involved war in Afghanistan. Fort Campbell in Kentucky, Fort Carson in Colorado and Fort Drum in New York are the first installations to start the program. DLI hopes to add 14 permanent Language Training Detachments for the General Purpose Force in the next year.
Last weekend, 73 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell graduated from the first 16-week course in Pashto and Dari, the official languages of the South Asian country.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai capped his four-day US trip last month with a visit to the post. The United States already has sent three brigades to Afghanistan and three more are expected to deploy in the coming months, totaling around 20,000 troops.
Sgt. Audreuna Cleveland, the only female in the Dari class, was deployed to Iraq in November 2007 and served there for a year.
“I didn’t know any Arabic and I realized it was almost essential in winning the hearts and minds of the people,” said Cleveland, who will be deployed to Afghanistan in the next few months.
This time around, with a basic level of conversational language skills in her arsenal, Cleveland hopes the operation in Afghanistan will be different.
“If I at least know the language and culture, I’ll be able to establish relationships with the Afghan people.”
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s call last November for more soldiers on the ground with language capabilities under the  “Campaign Continuity” initiative is expected to enhance the Army’s ability to partner with Afghan National Security Forces and local Afghan communities.
McChrystal, who commands all Afghanistan war operations, says his goal is to have one leader in every platoon who will interact with the Afghan population. We’re talking more than “hello’s” and “thank yous.” The concept calls for building rapport with Afghan nationals by engaging them in meaningful conversations.
“We didn’t take this approach in the first years of the present conflicts,” said Payne. “We went in with the idea we’d overthrow the governments and ‘Gee, it would be great.’ We had no training going in, and when the next phase hit, we weren’t prepared.”
Col. Danial D. Pick, the commandant for DLI, said McChrystal’s directive has ushered in a much-needed sea change.
“This might be the most systematic and intense language training provided to army units,” said Pick, “and it’s necessary in winning the war in Afghanistan.”
But complex is always the keyword in a conversation on Afghanistan.
The country’s terrain is as varied as its ethno-linguistic populations, with more languages and dialects than in Iraq.
Pick notes Dari and Pashto only truly came on the linguistic radar after 9/11 and sustaining access to high quality translators and interpreters has been more tenuous – both in America and in Afghanistan — than in previous wars.
And with a fabled history of invaders stretching back to Alexander the Great, Afghans are traditionally suspect of  foreigners.
“We’re still trying to figure out the best ways to tap human capital in Afghanistan,” said Pick.
The linguistic development of troops isn’t a skill that can be taught overnight.
“Commanders have to give us a valuable resource – time,” said Sgt. 1st Class Brian Lamar, the school’s spokesman. “And sometimes that’s difficult when you only have six months of training before deployment and you have Joe Private who doesn’t really know much about Afghanistan.”
A soldier in a war like Afghanistan that once seemed like a cakewalk, doesn’t just dodge bullets. He or she attends Shuras and talks to village elders about governance, economics, and security.
And when dealing with counterinsurgency doctrine under McChrystal’s direction, no training is more crucial to the military than education in critical languages and cultures.
“Just to be able to watch the Afghan news and know what people are saying means a lot to them,” said Army Captain Victor R. Vera, who’s enrolled in the Dari class at Fort Campbell.
The Department of Defense recently created a program, AFPAK HANDS, through which mid- and senior- level officers attend language training, usually in DC, for four months prior to deployment to Afghanistan.  The focus is on building a base of officers with language skills to work on Afghanistan and Pakistan issues, alternating between assignments overseas and in the US.
“Bottom line is we need to learn lessons from the past and soldiers need to realize they’re going into a completely different cultural situation where they need to be equipped,” said Pick. “They’re not in Iowa anymore.”
Staff Sgt. Genevieve Chase, who served in combat operations in Afghanistan in 2006, said she would have benefitted from more pre-deployment familiarization programs and language training.
“This is a war very much about relationships,” said Chase, who often went outside the wire and worked with tribal elders.
“We’re never going to win if we don’t even know how talk to the people.”

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