Negotiating Our Battles On The Cheap is A Bad Deal For Everyone
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Whether you are for or abhor the war in Iraq, you and I are getting exactly what money will and won’t buy.
Following a plan designed by former Defense Department Secretary Rumsfeld, we’re waging war on the cheap.
Arguably, the United States and its allies didn’t commit enough troops to begin with, to create an effective occupation and nation-building effort. Some estimate we needed double the commitment, about 350,000 to 400,000 troops in the theater.
Our vehicles, lacking armor, were woefully inadequate to withstand the piercing roadside bombs that insurgents exploded. Our troops, lacking proper support, took to welding scrap metal to their vehicles as a get-by, a mere band-aid for a gushing wound.
Short on ideology and propaganda skills, until recently we’ve been losing most of the hearts-and-minds battles, and short on material, money and the manpower it buys, we’re seeing at best a Purgatory of results, with no clear victory or defeat in sight.
According to The Economist, a British publication, “At 4% of GDP America’s defense spending is low by historical standards.”
It was 9% during Vietnam and 14% during Korea.
Here’s why battling on the cheap is especially problematic:
(1) Obviously, if we need more resources than we have allocated in order to prevail, we’re consigning ourselves to defeat or to a netherworld of ambiguous results.
(2) The pain of war needs to be felt by the population at large; otherwise civilian oversight of war policies breaks down. Like losing sensation in your fingers, you never know before damage is irretrievably done that the match is flaming perilously close to flesh. War budgets, publicity regarding spending and costs, and the taxation or inflation that result, are all feedback mechanisms that inform citizens about how well defense institutions are performing. Waging war on the cheap sends the distorted signal that there is gain without pain, and that is a dangerous delusion.
(3) By spreading our defense resources, and especially our manpower too thinly, we’re courting disaster when simultaneous commitments need to be addressed. Is there any question that we would have been even more proactive in reducing Iran’s reactors to rubble, but-for our stretched-to-the-limit situation next door in Iraq? Sun Tzu, the often-quoted sage who wrote the treatise, The Art of War, said “Victory with exhaustion means defeat in the battle to come.” Equivocal results, or negative results because of an under-commitment, coupled with exhaustion, augers even more disastrous and permanent results.
(4) Without a sufficient commitment of resources, we lose credibility in the eyes of our citizenry and military. Our people in uniform need to be ready, willing, and able to fight for us, and should take it for granted that they have our support in every way.
(5) An insufficient commitment emboldens our enemies, who then come to think we’re a paper tiger.
Whether you are pro-war or anti-war there is a clear need to openly debate the true costs of financing a robust and unparalleled defense capability.
Negotiating our battles on the cheap is a bad bargain for everyone.
Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top trainer, conference and convention speaker, and sales, customer service, and negotiation consultant. A frequent expert commentator on radio and TV, he is also the best-selling author of 12 books, more than 1,000 articles and several popular audio and video programs. His seminars are sponsored internationally and he is a faculty member at more than 40 universities, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. Gary brings over two decades of sales, management and consulting experience to the table, with impressive academic credentials: A Ph.D. from USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a J.D. degree from Loyola Law School, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies…
His web site is: http://www.customersatisfaction.com and he can be seen on CNBC at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=417455932# and reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. His blogs include: YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS! and ALWAYS COLD CALL! at: http://www.alwayscoldcall.blogspot.com
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