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The late, great arsenal of democracy
The Late, Great Arsenal of Democracy by John R. Brinkerhoff
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ne of the most important legacies of World War II was knowledge of how to mobilize the nation to win wars, The United States became the arsenal of democracy, with industry, labor, capital, and government working together to manufacture the ships, airplanes, tanks, munitions, and supplies to equip not only American forces but those of our allies. Fifty years later, that legacy is in danger of being squandered. The U.S. government today has neither a program nor even the intention of planning to mobilize the nation in case of a lengthy or large military contingency. To be sure, current national security strategy calls for armed forces capable of waging and winning two simultaneous regional conflicts, but two yawning gaps separate strategy from reality. The first, as experts have attested, is that the existing force structure is too small for the strategy. The second, also attested to by experts, is that the defense budget is too small even to support properly the existing structure. One way to close these gaps between strategy and structure and between structure and readiness and sustainability is simply to increase the defense budget. But the fiscal imperatives facing the nation render it unlikely-even with a Republican Congress-that adequate increases will be forthcoming. The other way to close the gaps is to stand ready to convert potential military power on short notice. A preplanned capability to produce additional war materiel rapidly would at least permit our armed forces to reinforce existing units and fight as long as it takes to win. This approach to filling the holes in the existing force structure can save scarce defense dollars in peacetime while promising to deliver additional military power for wartime. One would think, therefore, that the present administration would be eager to engage in just that sort of mobilization planning. Yet, there is no sign of its being considered. One is tempted to conclude that complacency, ignorance, and aversion to military affairs characterize the Clinton administration’s approach to defense mobilization. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), James Lee Witt, charged by executive order with responsibility for national security preparedness, has simply defaulted on this mission. MeanJohn R. BAnkerhoff
is a consultant on national security matters. He was associate director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for national preparedness from 1981 to 1983 and participated in efforts by the fust Reagan administration to revive national security emergency preparedness.
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BRINKERHOFF while, the National Security Council (NSC) seems more interested in foreign policy, trade, and economics than military preparedness, and is, in any case, overwhelmed by the crises of the moment. Some mid-level NSC staffers are sympathetic to preparedness but cannot get the attention of their bosses, much less the president. Even the Department of Defense (DOD) no longer seems interested in mobilization, perhaps because the service chiefs fear that an effective mobilization plan will undercut their arguments for larger and better outfitted forces in being. Defense intellechials intent on converting the Defense Department into a business corporation see the virtues of saving money by “just in time” management of current inventories but lack the foresight to extend that concept to the creation of new inventories by mobilization. Preparedness, of course, is one of those civic virtues to which everyone pays lip service: sempzrparatus is our guide. Yet, the congressmen, cabinet officers, and senior offkials who praise preparedness are often loath to fund it. The upshot is that the United States today is not prepared, and no programs are being proposed nor hearings being held to correct the sihiation. How did that happen?
The Lessons of World War II After 1945, the men who managed our victory in World War II set out, with a keen sense of mission, to institutionalize the methods they had devised. Their motive was nothing less than to insure the nation against another Pearl Harbor surprise and post-Pearl Harbor embarrassment; and their means was the National Security Act of 1947. Though shaped in part by interservice rivalry, the 1947 refolm nevertheless reflected a distillation of the lessons of World War II, and the framework it created persists to this day. The National Security Council, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), U.S. Air Force, and National Secllrity Resources Board (NSRB) are all products of the National Security Act, and all remain more or less in place today, with one notable and glaring eXCeptiOn---the NdtiOml SeCUrity kSOUrCeS Board. The authors of the National Security Act wisely recognized that modern war demands a national mobilization of resources. But, at the same time, they knew the propensity of the United States was to disarm after each victory. So, rather than tq to sustain a high level of defense spending in peacetime, they sought instead to design a mechanism for swift rearmament whenever the clouds of war should gather anew. To ensure that mobilization got the attention it deserved, the authors specifically restricted the responsibility of the DOD to the use of achlal military power and created a special agency-the National Security Resources Board-to plan for the mobilization of additional actual military power in an emergency. The NSRB was charged with coordinating military, industrial, and civilian mobilization within the executive branch. Within a few years, however, the NSRB lapsed into obscurity, while the DOD, through its own Munitions Board, recaptured authority over immediate
Arsenal of Democracy preparedness issues like procurement. By the time the North Koreans invaded South Korea in June 1950, the nation’s ability to mobilize had already atrophied. Initially, President Harry S Truman tried to implement national mobilization by using the NSRB as the overall coordinating body. But that did not work well, so in December 1950, Truman created the Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) in belated recognition that he could not fight the Korean War without some agency to manage the mobilization for him.’ After the Korean War, the preparedness function was assigned successively to several different agencies. In 1953,President Dwight D. Eisenhower combined the NSRB and ODM into a new Ofhce of Civil and Defense Mobilization (OCDM). The high point for national mobilization preparedness during the cold war followed in 1961,when President John F. Kennedy transferred the civil defense function to the Department of Defense, made each department responsible for its own emergency operations, and created the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP-originally called the Office of Emergency Planning) to plan and coordinate national mobilization. The OEP was positioned in the Executive Office of the President, and the director of OEP routinely sat in on meetings of the National Security Council. This arrangement lasted until 1973, when President Richard Nixon banished the OEP from the White House and exiled the mobilization preparedness function to the General Services Administration as the Federal Preparedness Agency (FPA). During the late 197Os, FPA kept the flame of preparedness lit-but barely. With each change in organization-from the NSRB, ODM, OCDM, OEP, to FPA-the overall effectiveness of mobilization planning declined, owing to the waning interest of successive presidents and secretaries of defense.
The Creation and Abdication of FEMA In 1979, the mobilization preparedness function was again merged, this time into the newly formed Federal Emergency Management Agency. The idea was to unify the agencies responsible for various aspects of federal involvement in civil and military emergencies. Thus, agencies that dealt with hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods were bundled together with those that fretted about nuclear attack or large-scale conventional war. FEMA, a creation of Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Reorganization Proposal, has proven to be an efficient way to manage federal assistance in domestic emergencies. It has been a failure for national security emergencies. For, as time passed, FEMA’s effort and interest in domestic emergencies naturally waxed-such emergencies do occur, after all, with some frequency-while its bureaucratic attention to the unlikely (and unpleasant) prospect of war steadily waned, Simply put, the alleviation of 1 On the early years of mobilization, see Roderick L. Vawter, Irz~~trinlililobiliznlion: (Washington, D.C.: National Defense Llniversity, 1983), p. 9.
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BRINKERHOFF suffering in the here and now drove out long-range planning for emergencies that appeared unlikely even to those charged with preparing for them. FEMA’s national security effort revived briefly during President Ronald Reagan’s first term, when a concerted effort was made to revive interest in civil defense against a nuclear attack and update obsolete plans for national mobilization. These efforts, however, came to naught, partially because of flagging interest but also because of leadership problems at FEMA-the director resigned amidst charges of petty corruption,’ and other senior officials also left. Reagan’s Department of Defense came to support active defenses against nuclear attack, but not passive defenses, while military leaders busy planning retaliation against the Soviet Union did not give much thought to their own country’s inadequate civil defense program. When FEMA One reason for the DOD’s lack of interest in mobilization leadership preparedness was the belief that there would be insufficient time to crank up an arsenal of democracy if and when the Soviets ignores did attack in Western Europe. The military chiefs thought they national would have to fight with what they had or initiate nuclear warfare security, it is to avoid defeat. Another reason for the decline of preparedness only following planning was the inordinate attention paid to “continuity of government” (COG). COG is a sensible program designed to orders. ensure that the United States will have a working civil government in the event of a nuclear attack. During the cold war, there was concern that the Soviets could execute a decapitating attack to wipe out Washington, DC., and with it the president, cabinet, Congress, Supreme Court, and the headquarters of federal agencies. Prudence therefore demanded that precautions be taken to preserve the president, Congress, and Supreme Court, along with core cadres of federal employees to reconstitute the civil government after an attack. DOD supported this program because it wanted civilian leaders (the National Command Authorities) to authorize nuclear responses against the Soviets and because it needed someone to make peace. COG was and is a good idea, and FEMA’s well-funded and highly classified role in COG got a lot of attention and support, diverting efforts once again away from the more abstract chores of mobilization and industrial preparedness. In effect, therefore, COG became the tail that wagged the mobilization dog, even during the defense conscious 1980s. The deterioration of FEMA’s ability to perform the mobilization and preparedness missions might, at any time, have been reversed by inspired presidential leadership, but this was never the case. In the second Reagan administration, the senior leadership of FEMA and the people in charge of mobilization preparedness themselves lost interest in the program. In the Bush administration, the political appointees sent to run FEMA were ineffective. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D., Mel.) and others in Congress charged that FEMA was ‘d dumping ground for incompetent politicians.” DOD’s response to the
Arsenal of Democracy weakness of FEMA was to try to take over the mission-not to enhance preparedness but to convert it into short-term programs. After a long struggle, DOD won control from FEMA of the National Defense Stockpile, whereupon DOD proceeded to sell off strategic materials to pay for current capability. When the cold war ended, the Bush administration simply cut COG and abandoned mobilization altogether. Its views on preparedness were well illustrated by the national security adviser: “When warning time is only a few days, ensuring robust and ready forces takes priority over mobilization preparedness. Similarly, when warning shifts to several years, there is sufficient time to mobilize, so mobilization preparedness expenditures again have a lower priority.“* The Bush administration’s cavalier dismissal of the importance of preparedness set the stage for the final debilitation of the program.
The Death of Mobilization Preparedness The arrival of President Bill Clinton was viewed with cautious hope by mobilization preparedness enthusiasts. Time and again, as the quality of leadership and support at FEMA deteriorated, career employees said that it could not get much worse. Time and again, it did get worse. Clinton’s new team at FEMA disdained mobilization from the outset. The FEMA national security strategy for the post-cold war era does not envision a need for mobilization preparedness, as shown by the following threat assessment: The need for mobilization functions on a scale suffkient to supportmobilization for a major conventional war has virtually vanished. The residual concern (i.e., the reemergence of a belligerent and expansionist Russia or a militarily capable and belligerent China) is remote. . Consequently FEMA’s mobilization preparedness function should be made relevant in light of the post-cold war environment.5
That is an astonishing statement from the political appointee charged by Executive Order 12656 with being the principal adviser to the president on national security emergency preparedness, the adviser whose agency’s motto is Pace AC Be210Merita (peace through preparedness for war). The statements above reflect the conventional wisdom and, on the surface, are true, but the whole intellectual approach is wrong. It is as if an insurance salesman were to argue that there is no need to buy a policy because chances of a fire are slim. It is the duty of those charged with providing insurance against unlikely but disastrous events to argue the desirability of preparation. The new leaders of FEMA have not considered the real needs of post-cold war mobilization (as will be described below). Instead, they want to make FEMA’s mobilization preparedness function relevant by converting the laws and regulations for mobilization into additional tools for managing domestic 4 Brent Scow~roli to Robert Morris, Mar. 16, 1990. 5 Jatnes L. Witt to Anthony Lake, Apr. 21, 1994.
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BRINKERHOFF emergencies. That is made clear by another extract from FEMA’s strategy: “Specifically, the issue is: what is needed to mitigate, respond to, and recover from the potential national security impacts of a catastrophic event?“’ Thus, the whole attention of FEMA has turned to domestic emergencies. That is natural, for the new political leaders of FEMA are people with extensive experience in domestic emergency management but no background in national security affairs. They do not understand and perhaps dislike national security. The consequences of this major shift in emphasis have been drastic. Director Witt has eliminated program funds for mobilization preparedness, transferred some experienced personnel to different jobs and induced others to resign, and cut the program to only three full-time personnel, who are working on tasks unrelated to true mobilization planning. The FEMA Advisory Board was reconstituted without representation from the national security community. In retrospect, this should have been predictable. How could President Clinton and his advisers, composed almost exclusively of people with no expertise or interest in military affairs, be expected to support a program calling for national mobilization against a remote threat? Short of a vocal plea from the chairman of the JCS, why should the national security adviser or director of FEMA, charged personally by the president to cause no embarrassment to the adminisu-ation for slow or sloppy responses to major natural disasters, pay any attention to mobilization? The players in this drama are doing what they believe is right. If one accepts the premise that the federal government should be proactive in helping victims of domestic disasters, the government should at least do that mission well. So when FEMA leadership ignores national security, it is only following orders. The basic problem is simply in making the same agency responsible both for frequent natural disasters and infrequent wars. It just doesn’t work.
Statists versus Free Marketeers Yet another factor in the decline of mobilization preparedness is the issue of how much government control of the economy is needed to support military operations. There are two fairly distinct views on the extremes, with a continuum between. “Statists” advocate a high degree of government control of the economy during mobilization in order to direct resources to the proper uses. “Free marketeers” advocate allowing the forces of the free market to direct resources to the proper uses even during mobilization.’ Mobilization has been an arena in which the major opposing forces of L7.S. democracy have vied for superiority. The mobilization for World War II
Arsenal of Democracy was run by the statists. Within a month after Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, the government had put into place rationing, economic controls, and resource allocation. These government controls were implemented and enforced by a horde of bureaucrats in newly formed temporary wartime agencies, issuing orders and telling business, labor, and citizens generally what to do and what not to do. The most important single control element of the mobilization for World War II was the controlled-materials program, which allocated each pound of steel, aluminum, and copper, thus regulating industrial production. This approach worked during World War II, for the need was apparent and the people supported a high degree of government control.8 During the demobilization after World War II, the conflict between statists and free marketeers grew, with significant impact on the national security apparatus. The immediate goal of the statists was to unify the armed forces and create a single Department of Defense, but the free marketeers resisted, aided by navy parochialism, and forced instead the creation of the National Military Establishment-a weak organization. Over the past forty-five years, DOD has gradually become the all-powerful, Modern mobili_ centrally controlled organization envisioned in 1947 by the zation WU be proponents of its formation. faster, The statist model of mobilization was institutionalized smaller, after the war by the creation of the NSRB. But while the idea and smarter of a single department to control and manage the armed forces than before. was barely acceptable to the resurgent free marketeers, the idea of central government control of resources even in wartime was repugnant. The NSRE3was quietly but firmly relegated to long-range planning. Truman was not sympathetic to the statist viewpoint, and he tried at frst to run the Korean War without a central agency to manage mobilization. After six months of controversy and confusion, however, he created the Office of Defense Mobilization to get the job done. From that point on, the working assumption for mobilization planners was that temporary wartime agencies would be created to exercise strict government control of the economy. Congress strengthened that assumption when in 1950 it passed the Defense Production Act, giving the president authority to control the economy in an emergency. During the Reagan administration, adamant opposition arose to government control of the economy even during a wartime mobilization. So, ironically, a president dedicated to increasing America’s military power eschewed on ideological grounds the use of a powerful tool to increase that strength quickly when needed. (Of course, if Reagan had done the opposite, we would have to call it ironic that a president dedicated to free markets embraced centralized government control.) Reagan’s people were so averse to government infringement on the free market that they would not permit proper mobilization s David Novick, Melvin Anshen, and W. C. Tiuppner, Wartime Production Contrub (New York: De Capo Press, 1976J is an excellent description of the use of the controIled-materials program to manage the mobilization for World War II, written by men who conducted the program.
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BRINKERHOFF planning. But this issue of government control versus the free market need not remain an impediment to rational mobilization preparedness. The methods of mobilization best adapted to post-cold war conflict and technology can be accomplished without either excessive government controls or complete reliance on the free market.
Modern
Mobilization
Modem mobilization will be smaller, faster, and smarter than before. The threat has gone down in real terms, but it is still significant in relative terms: Mobilizations will be smaller relative to the overall economy. The mobilization for the Persian Gulf war of 1990-91 was large in absolute terms but, compared to the national economy, too small to cause a blip in the economic indicators. It is highly unlikely that future mobilizations will have any adverse impact on the civil economy or even be noticed by most citizens. Mobilizations will be faster because major regional wars can occur with little warning. This places a premium on detailed planning and advance arrangements that can be implemented quickly. Such programs as the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) and the Ready Reserve Fleet @RF) paid off in the Persian Gulf war by reacting quickly on short notice to augment DOD with existing resources. The same kinds of programs need to be devised for providing additional resources quickly on short notice. Mobilizations will be smarter because weapons and munitions are more complicated, and there are more constraints on what can be done domestically. It is no longer possible to convert a vacant cornfield to an airplane factory in ninety days; it would take over a year just to get the necessary permits. More, and more detailed, planning needs to be done in advance. The problem is in getting the people, the money, and the support to perform the kind of planning that modem mobilization requires. Many Americans-including defense and foreign-policy specialists who should know better-believe that there is no need for preparedness in the world today. But if history is a guide, the most dangerous times are when there is no apparent danger. Preparedness is indeed a form of insurance. People do not really believe they are going to have an accident, but because many accidents occur daily, they buy insurance just in case. Americans’ own history should 232
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Arsenal of Democracy suffice to convince them that some preparedness insurance against the probability of war is well worth the cost. What should that insurance policy entail? At the least, it should include an organization for mobilization preparedness, some dedicated and experienced mobilization planners, and a modest program of basic preparedness actions. The organizational format of an independent mobilization preparedness agency inherited from World War II no longer suffices. One of the reasons for the decline of mobilization preparedness has been adherence to the idea that a separate mobilization agency can be effective in the modem era. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt invented the organizational structure to wage World War II, he was carrying on in the same way he had organized to fight the Great Depression. That was a highly personal approach, characterized by multiple independent agencies created successively with overlapping charters and much confusion, and ill suited for the modem era. The regular departments and agencies of the federal government were at that time relatively small and easily superseded by the wartime agencies that ran the mobilization. That situation no longer exists. The federal government today is much bigger and more pervasive than in the 194Os, hence existing agencies are quite capable of implementing mobilization without additional wartime bureaucracies. However, those same departments and agencies are also fully occupied with their day-today programs and are not inclined to pay much heed-in peacetime-to some “mobilization tsar” who is trying to divert their attention and resources to preparations for some improbable fuhlre war. Even with strong presidential support-which has been rare-a small independent agency will lack the clout to create and maintain an effective program of preparedness. But, if a small independent agency is not the answer, what is?
The National Preparedness Council The most effective organizational approach to mobilization may be the same approach employed in the intelligence community. The National Intelligence Council (MC) serves the director of central intelligence (DC0 by coordinating and integrating the labors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of Intelligence in the Department of Energy, the Ofice of Intelligence in the Department of State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other departments and agencies with an intelligence arm.” A National Preparedness Council (NPC) could likewise serve as an advisory group to the president and preparedness community in order to coordinate all departments and agencies involved in national mobilization. The vice president of the United States would be a good choice for the chairman 9 1 am indebted to my colleague, Joseph Muckerman, formerly director of emergency planning in the O&e of the Secretary of Defense, for suggesting that the National Intelligence Council model could apply to national security preparedness.
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BRINKERHOFF of the NIT, giving this effort the prestige it needs. The vice chairman could be a prominent statesman, with experience in national security preparedness, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The total number of personnel in the NIT would not need to exceed two hundred, and its work could be done by National Preparedness Offtcers (NPOs) appointed from government, industry, or academia to serve specified terms. For instance: An NPO for emergency authorities would monitor the laws and regulations relating to presidential emergency powers and work closely with Congress on legislative proposals to codify, simplify, and update emergency authorities in the law. An NPO for industrial preparedness would monitor the industrial base and coordinate policies and programs to assure that the industrial base can support the US. national security strategy. An NPO for infrastructure systems would monitor such systems and coordinate policies and programs to assure that they can support the U.S. national security strategy. An NPO for economics and trade would monitor global patterns of finance, economics, and trade and recommend policies and programs to support the U.S. national security strategy. An NPO for human resources would monitor the size, skills, and surge capability of the U.S. labor force and recommend policies and programs to support the U.S. national security strategy. An NPO for science and technology would monitor the status of technological development for preparedness and work with the president’s science adviser to assure that preparedness concerns are addressed in national science and technology policy. An NPO for program integration would monitor the overall stahis of national security preparedness and work with the director of OMB to justify preparedness programs approved by the president and the NSC. In addition: A director of analysis would support the NPOs with a small staff of analysts and funds for contractor support. The director of analysis would assure that NIT studies and reports are objective and methodologically sound. 234 I Orbis
Arsenal of Democracy A director of production would assist NPOs in the preparation and publication of an annual report, national preparedness estimates, advisory reports, and other documents, and the arrangement and conduct of national preparedness symposiums. The next question is: What should the mobilization preparedness council do? That is a legitimate concern, and the first thing the new NPC should do is determine what kind of preparedness programs are needed to support the president’s national security strategy in light of the realities of the defense budget. In formulating the programs, several specific issues must be considered: What additional resources would be needed to fill the gap between the actual readiness of the armed forces and the readiness needed to wage one major regional conflict? How could this gap be fdled quickly on short notice? What additional resources would be needed to fight a second major regional contingency while the first is still going on, and how could these be provided? What actions should be taken as a hedge against one or both of the major regional contingencies lasting longer than planned? What additional forces, above those provided in the peacetime force structure, would be needed to wage two near-simultaneous regional wars? What measures should be taken to prepare the United States to increase its military power substantially in the event that a nation or coalition of nations becomes a major threat? We may not require good answers to these questions next year, or the year after that. But we had better start asking them now, and asking them of someone other than the people who handle blizzards and floods, if we expect to have the answers before the next century-or the next Pearl Harbor.
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ne of the most important legacies of World War II was knowledge of how to mobilize the nation to win wars, The United States became the arsenal of democracy, with industry, labor, capital, and government working together to manufacture the ships, airplanes, tanks, munitions, and supplies to equip not only American forces but those of our allies. Fifty years later, that legacy is in danger of being squandered. The U.S. government today has neither a program nor even the intention of planning to mobilize the nation in case of a lengthy or large military contingency. To be sure, current national security strategy calls for armed forces capable of waging and winning two simultaneous regional conflicts, but two yawning gaps separate strategy from reality. The first, as experts have attested, is that the existing force structure is too small for the strategy. The second, also attested to by experts, is that the defense budget is too small even to support properly the existing structure. One way to close these gaps between strategy and structure and between structure and readiness and sustainability is simply to increase the defense budget. But the fiscal imperatives facing the nation render it unlikely-even with a Republican Congress-that adequate increases will be forthcoming. The other way to close the gaps is to stand ready to convert potential military power on short notice. A preplanned capability to produce additional war materiel rapidly would at least permit our armed forces to reinforce existing units and fight as long as it takes to win. This approach to filling the holes in the existing force structure can save scarce defense dollars in peacetime while promising to deliver additional military power for wartime. One would think, therefore, that the present administration would be eager to engage in just that sort of mobilization planning. Yet, there is no sign of its being considered. One is tempted to conclude that complacency, ignorance, and aversion to military affairs characterize the Clinton administration’s approach to defense mobilization. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), James Lee Witt, charged by executive order with responsibility for national security preparedness, has simply defaulted on this mission. MeanJohn R. BAnkerhoff
is a consultant on national security matters. He was associate director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for national preparedness from 1981 to 1983 and participated in efforts by the fust Reagan administration to revive national security emergency preparedness.
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BRINKERHOFF while, the National Security Council (NSC) seems more interested in foreign policy, trade, and economics than military preparedness, and is, in any case, overwhelmed by the crises of the moment. Some mid-level NSC staffers are sympathetic to preparedness but cannot get the attention of their bosses, much less the president. Even the Department of Defense (DOD) no longer seems interested in mobilization, perhaps because the service chiefs fear that an effective mobilization plan will undercut their arguments for larger and better outfitted forces in being. Defense intellechials intent on converting the Defense Department into a business corporation see the virtues of saving money by “just in time” management of current inventories but lack the foresight to extend that concept to the creation of new inventories by mobilization. Preparedness, of course, is one of those civic virtues to which everyone pays lip service: sempzrparatus is our guide. Yet, the congressmen, cabinet officers, and senior offkials who praise preparedness are often loath to fund it. The upshot is that the United States today is not prepared, and no programs are being proposed nor hearings being held to correct the sihiation. How did that happen?
The Lessons of World War II After 1945, the men who managed our victory in World War II set out, with a keen sense of mission, to institutionalize the methods they had devised. Their motive was nothing less than to insure the nation against another Pearl Harbor surprise and post-Pearl Harbor embarrassment; and their means was the National Security Act of 1947. Though shaped in part by interservice rivalry, the 1947 refolm nevertheless reflected a distillation of the lessons of World War II, and the framework it created persists to this day. The National Security Council, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), U.S. Air Force, and National Secllrity Resources Board (NSRB) are all products of the National Security Act, and all remain more or less in place today, with one notable and glaring eXCeptiOn---the NdtiOml SeCUrity kSOUrCeS Board. The authors of the National Security Act wisely recognized that modern war demands a national mobilization of resources. But, at the same time, they knew the propensity of the United States was to disarm after each victory. So, rather than tq to sustain a high level of defense spending in peacetime, they sought instead to design a mechanism for swift rearmament whenever the clouds of war should gather anew. To ensure that mobilization got the attention it deserved, the authors specifically restricted the responsibility of the DOD to the use of achlal military power and created a special agency-the National Security Resources Board-to plan for the mobilization of additional actual military power in an emergency. The NSRB was charged with coordinating military, industrial, and civilian mobilization within the executive branch. Within a few years, however, the NSRB lapsed into obscurity, while the DOD, through its own Munitions Board, recaptured authority over immediate
Arsenal of Democracy preparedness issues like procurement. By the time the North Koreans invaded South Korea in June 1950, the nation’s ability to mobilize had already atrophied. Initially, President Harry S Truman tried to implement national mobilization by using the NSRB as the overall coordinating body. But that did not work well, so in December 1950, Truman created the Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) in belated recognition that he could not fight the Korean War without some agency to manage the mobilization for him.’ After the Korean War, the preparedness function was assigned successively to several different agencies. In 1953,President Dwight D. Eisenhower combined the NSRB and ODM into a new Ofhce of Civil and Defense Mobilization (OCDM). The high point for national mobilization preparedness during the cold war followed in 1961,when President John F. Kennedy transferred the civil defense function to the Department of Defense, made each department responsible for its own emergency operations, and created the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP-originally called the Office of Emergency Planning) to plan and coordinate national mobilization. The OEP was positioned in the Executive Office of the President, and the director of OEP routinely sat in on meetings of the National Security Council. This arrangement lasted until 1973, when President Richard Nixon banished the OEP from the White House and exiled the mobilization preparedness function to the General Services Administration as the Federal Preparedness Agency (FPA). During the late 197Os, FPA kept the flame of preparedness lit-but barely. With each change in organization-from the NSRB, ODM, OCDM, OEP, to FPA-the overall effectiveness of mobilization planning declined, owing to the waning interest of successive presidents and secretaries of defense.
The Creation and Abdication of FEMA In 1979, the mobilization preparedness function was again merged, this time into the newly formed Federal Emergency Management Agency. The idea was to unify the agencies responsible for various aspects of federal involvement in civil and military emergencies. Thus, agencies that dealt with hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods were bundled together with those that fretted about nuclear attack or large-scale conventional war. FEMA, a creation of Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Reorganization Proposal, has proven to be an efficient way to manage federal assistance in domestic emergencies. It has been a failure for national security emergencies. For, as time passed, FEMA’s effort and interest in domestic emergencies naturally waxed-such emergencies do occur, after all, with some frequency-while its bureaucratic attention to the unlikely (and unpleasant) prospect of war steadily waned, Simply put, the alleviation of 1 On the early years of mobilization, see Roderick L. Vawter, Irz~~trinlililobiliznlion: (Washington, D.C.: National Defense Llniversity, 1983), p. 9.
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BRINKERHOFF suffering in the here and now drove out long-range planning for emergencies that appeared unlikely even to those charged with preparing for them. FEMA’s national security effort revived briefly during President Ronald Reagan’s first term, when a concerted effort was made to revive interest in civil defense against a nuclear attack and update obsolete plans for national mobilization. These efforts, however, came to naught, partially because of flagging interest but also because of leadership problems at FEMA-the director resigned amidst charges of petty corruption,’ and other senior officials also left. Reagan’s Department of Defense came to support active defenses against nuclear attack, but not passive defenses, while military leaders busy planning retaliation against the Soviet Union did not give much thought to their own country’s inadequate civil defense program. When FEMA One reason for the DOD’s lack of interest in mobilization leadership preparedness was the belief that there would be insufficient time to crank up an arsenal of democracy if and when the Soviets ignores did attack in Western Europe. The military chiefs thought they national would have to fight with what they had or initiate nuclear warfare security, it is to avoid defeat. Another reason for the decline of preparedness only following planning was the inordinate attention paid to “continuity of government” (COG). COG is a sensible program designed to orders. ensure that the United States will have a working civil government in the event of a nuclear attack. During the cold war, there was concern that the Soviets could execute a decapitating attack to wipe out Washington, DC., and with it the president, cabinet, Congress, Supreme Court, and the headquarters of federal agencies. Prudence therefore demanded that precautions be taken to preserve the president, Congress, and Supreme Court, along with core cadres of federal employees to reconstitute the civil government after an attack. DOD supported this program because it wanted civilian leaders (the National Command Authorities) to authorize nuclear responses against the Soviets and because it needed someone to make peace. COG was and is a good idea, and FEMA’s well-funded and highly classified role in COG got a lot of attention and support, diverting efforts once again away from the more abstract chores of mobilization and industrial preparedness. In effect, therefore, COG became the tail that wagged the mobilization dog, even during the defense conscious 1980s. The deterioration of FEMA’s ability to perform the mobilization and preparedness missions might, at any time, have been reversed by inspired presidential leadership, but this was never the case. In the second Reagan administration, the senior leadership of FEMA and the people in charge of mobilization preparedness themselves lost interest in the program. In the Bush administration, the political appointees sent to run FEMA were ineffective. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D., Mel.) and others in Congress charged that FEMA was ‘d dumping ground for incompetent politicians.” DOD’s response to the
Arsenal of Democracy weakness of FEMA was to try to take over the mission-not to enhance preparedness but to convert it into short-term programs. After a long struggle, DOD won control from FEMA of the National Defense Stockpile, whereupon DOD proceeded to sell off strategic materials to pay for current capability. When the cold war ended, the Bush administration simply cut COG and abandoned mobilization altogether. Its views on preparedness were well illustrated by the national security adviser: “When warning time is only a few days, ensuring robust and ready forces takes priority over mobilization preparedness. Similarly, when warning shifts to several years, there is sufficient time to mobilize, so mobilization preparedness expenditures again have a lower priority.“* The Bush administration’s cavalier dismissal of the importance of preparedness set the stage for the final debilitation of the program.
The Death of Mobilization Preparedness The arrival of President Bill Clinton was viewed with cautious hope by mobilization preparedness enthusiasts. Time and again, as the quality of leadership and support at FEMA deteriorated, career employees said that it could not get much worse. Time and again, it did get worse. Clinton’s new team at FEMA disdained mobilization from the outset. The FEMA national security strategy for the post-cold war era does not envision a need for mobilization preparedness, as shown by the following threat assessment: The need for mobilization functions on a scale suffkient to supportmobilization for a major conventional war has virtually vanished. The residual concern (i.e., the reemergence of a belligerent and expansionist Russia or a militarily capable and belligerent China) is remote. . Consequently FEMA’s mobilization preparedness function should be made relevant in light of the post-cold war environment.5
That is an astonishing statement from the political appointee charged by Executive Order 12656 with being the principal adviser to the president on national security emergency preparedness, the adviser whose agency’s motto is Pace AC Be210Merita (peace through preparedness for war). The statements above reflect the conventional wisdom and, on the surface, are true, but the whole intellectual approach is wrong. It is as if an insurance salesman were to argue that there is no need to buy a policy because chances of a fire are slim. It is the duty of those charged with providing insurance against unlikely but disastrous events to argue the desirability of preparation. The new leaders of FEMA have not considered the real needs of post-cold war mobilization (as will be described below). Instead, they want to make FEMA’s mobilization preparedness function relevant by converting the laws and regulations for mobilization into additional tools for managing domestic 4 Brent Scow~roli to Robert Morris, Mar. 16, 1990. 5 Jatnes L. Witt to Anthony Lake, Apr. 21, 1994.
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BRINKERHOFF emergencies. That is made clear by another extract from FEMA’s strategy: “Specifically, the issue is: what is needed to mitigate, respond to, and recover from the potential national security impacts of a catastrophic event?“’ Thus, the whole attention of FEMA has turned to domestic emergencies. That is natural, for the new political leaders of FEMA are people with extensive experience in domestic emergency management but no background in national security affairs. They do not understand and perhaps dislike national security. The consequences of this major shift in emphasis have been drastic. Director Witt has eliminated program funds for mobilization preparedness, transferred some experienced personnel to different jobs and induced others to resign, and cut the program to only three full-time personnel, who are working on tasks unrelated to true mobilization planning. The FEMA Advisory Board was reconstituted without representation from the national security community. In retrospect, this should have been predictable. How could President Clinton and his advisers, composed almost exclusively of people with no expertise or interest in military affairs, be expected to support a program calling for national mobilization against a remote threat? Short of a vocal plea from the chairman of the JCS, why should the national security adviser or director of FEMA, charged personally by the president to cause no embarrassment to the adminisu-ation for slow or sloppy responses to major natural disasters, pay any attention to mobilization? The players in this drama are doing what they believe is right. If one accepts the premise that the federal government should be proactive in helping victims of domestic disasters, the government should at least do that mission well. So when FEMA leadership ignores national security, it is only following orders. The basic problem is simply in making the same agency responsible both for frequent natural disasters and infrequent wars. It just doesn’t work.
Statists versus Free Marketeers Yet another factor in the decline of mobilization preparedness is the issue of how much government control of the economy is needed to support military operations. There are two fairly distinct views on the extremes, with a continuum between. “Statists” advocate a high degree of government control of the economy during mobilization in order to direct resources to the proper uses. “Free marketeers” advocate allowing the forces of the free market to direct resources to the proper uses even during mobilization.’ Mobilization has been an arena in which the major opposing forces of L7.S. democracy have vied for superiority. The mobilization for World War II
Arsenal of Democracy was run by the statists. Within a month after Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, the government had put into place rationing, economic controls, and resource allocation. These government controls were implemented and enforced by a horde of bureaucrats in newly formed temporary wartime agencies, issuing orders and telling business, labor, and citizens generally what to do and what not to do. The most important single control element of the mobilization for World War II was the controlled-materials program, which allocated each pound of steel, aluminum, and copper, thus regulating industrial production. This approach worked during World War II, for the need was apparent and the people supported a high degree of government control.8 During the demobilization after World War II, the conflict between statists and free marketeers grew, with significant impact on the national security apparatus. The immediate goal of the statists was to unify the armed forces and create a single Department of Defense, but the free marketeers resisted, aided by navy parochialism, and forced instead the creation of the National Military Establishment-a weak organization. Over the past forty-five years, DOD has gradually become the all-powerful, Modern mobili_ centrally controlled organization envisioned in 1947 by the zation WU be proponents of its formation. faster, The statist model of mobilization was institutionalized smaller, after the war by the creation of the NSRB. But while the idea and smarter of a single department to control and manage the armed forces than before. was barely acceptable to the resurgent free marketeers, the idea of central government control of resources even in wartime was repugnant. The NSRE3was quietly but firmly relegated to long-range planning. Truman was not sympathetic to the statist viewpoint, and he tried at frst to run the Korean War without a central agency to manage mobilization. After six months of controversy and confusion, however, he created the Office of Defense Mobilization to get the job done. From that point on, the working assumption for mobilization planners was that temporary wartime agencies would be created to exercise strict government control of the economy. Congress strengthened that assumption when in 1950 it passed the Defense Production Act, giving the president authority to control the economy in an emergency. During the Reagan administration, adamant opposition arose to government control of the economy even during a wartime mobilization. So, ironically, a president dedicated to increasing America’s military power eschewed on ideological grounds the use of a powerful tool to increase that strength quickly when needed. (Of course, if Reagan had done the opposite, we would have to call it ironic that a president dedicated to free markets embraced centralized government control.) Reagan’s people were so averse to government infringement on the free market that they would not permit proper mobilization s David Novick, Melvin Anshen, and W. C. Tiuppner, Wartime Production Contrub (New York: De Capo Press, 1976J is an excellent description of the use of the controIled-materials program to manage the mobilization for World War II, written by men who conducted the program.
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BRINKERHOFF planning. But this issue of government control versus the free market need not remain an impediment to rational mobilization preparedness. The methods of mobilization best adapted to post-cold war conflict and technology can be accomplished without either excessive government controls or complete reliance on the free market.
Modern
Mobilization
Modem mobilization will be smaller, faster, and smarter than before. The threat has gone down in real terms, but it is still significant in relative terms: Mobilizations will be smaller relative to the overall economy. The mobilization for the Persian Gulf war of 1990-91 was large in absolute terms but, compared to the national economy, too small to cause a blip in the economic indicators. It is highly unlikely that future mobilizations will have any adverse impact on the civil economy or even be noticed by most citizens. Mobilizations will be faster because major regional wars can occur with little warning. This places a premium on detailed planning and advance arrangements that can be implemented quickly. Such programs as the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) and the Ready Reserve Fleet @RF) paid off in the Persian Gulf war by reacting quickly on short notice to augment DOD with existing resources. The same kinds of programs need to be devised for providing additional resources quickly on short notice. Mobilizations will be smarter because weapons and munitions are more complicated, and there are more constraints on what can be done domestically. It is no longer possible to convert a vacant cornfield to an airplane factory in ninety days; it would take over a year just to get the necessary permits. More, and more detailed, planning needs to be done in advance. The problem is in getting the people, the money, and the support to perform the kind of planning that modem mobilization requires. Many Americans-including defense and foreign-policy specialists who should know better-believe that there is no need for preparedness in the world today. But if history is a guide, the most dangerous times are when there is no apparent danger. Preparedness is indeed a form of insurance. People do not really believe they are going to have an accident, but because many accidents occur daily, they buy insurance just in case. Americans’ own history should 232
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Arsenal of Democracy suffice to convince them that some preparedness insurance against the probability of war is well worth the cost. What should that insurance policy entail? At the least, it should include an organization for mobilization preparedness, some dedicated and experienced mobilization planners, and a modest program of basic preparedness actions. The organizational format of an independent mobilization preparedness agency inherited from World War II no longer suffices. One of the reasons for the decline of mobilization preparedness has been adherence to the idea that a separate mobilization agency can be effective in the modem era. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt invented the organizational structure to wage World War II, he was carrying on in the same way he had organized to fight the Great Depression. That was a highly personal approach, characterized by multiple independent agencies created successively with overlapping charters and much confusion, and ill suited for the modem era. The regular departments and agencies of the federal government were at that time relatively small and easily superseded by the wartime agencies that ran the mobilization. That situation no longer exists. The federal government today is much bigger and more pervasive than in the 194Os, hence existing agencies are quite capable of implementing mobilization without additional wartime bureaucracies. However, those same departments and agencies are also fully occupied with their day-today programs and are not inclined to pay much heed-in peacetime-to some “mobilization tsar” who is trying to divert their attention and resources to preparations for some improbable fuhlre war. Even with strong presidential support-which has been rare-a small independent agency will lack the clout to create and maintain an effective program of preparedness. But, if a small independent agency is not the answer, what is?
The National Preparedness Council The most effective organizational approach to mobilization may be the same approach employed in the intelligence community. The National Intelligence Council (MC) serves the director of central intelligence (DC0 by coordinating and integrating the labors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of Intelligence in the Department of Energy, the Ofice of Intelligence in the Department of State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other departments and agencies with an intelligence arm.” A National Preparedness Council (NPC) could likewise serve as an advisory group to the president and preparedness community in order to coordinate all departments and agencies involved in national mobilization. The vice president of the United States would be a good choice for the chairman 9 1 am indebted to my colleague, Joseph Muckerman, formerly director of emergency planning in the O&e of the Secretary of Defense, for suggesting that the National Intelligence Council model could apply to national security preparedness.
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BRINKERHOFF of the NIT, giving this effort the prestige it needs. The vice chairman could be a prominent statesman, with experience in national security preparedness, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The total number of personnel in the NIT would not need to exceed two hundred, and its work could be done by National Preparedness Offtcers (NPOs) appointed from government, industry, or academia to serve specified terms. For instance: An NPO for emergency authorities would monitor the laws and regulations relating to presidential emergency powers and work closely with Congress on legislative proposals to codify, simplify, and update emergency authorities in the law. An NPO for industrial preparedness would monitor the industrial base and coordinate policies and programs to assure that the industrial base can support the US. national security strategy. An NPO for infrastructure systems would monitor such systems and coordinate policies and programs to assure that they can support the U.S. national security strategy. An NPO for economics and trade would monitor global patterns of finance, economics, and trade and recommend policies and programs to support the U.S. national security strategy. An NPO for human resources would monitor the size, skills, and surge capability of the U.S. labor force and recommend policies and programs to support the U.S. national security strategy. An NPO for science and technology would monitor the status of technological development for preparedness and work with the president’s science adviser to assure that preparedness concerns are addressed in national science and technology policy. An NPO for program integration would monitor the overall stahis of national security preparedness and work with the director of OMB to justify preparedness programs approved by the president and the NSC. In addition: A director of analysis would support the NPOs with a small staff of analysts and funds for contractor support. The director of analysis would assure that NIT studies and reports are objective and methodologically sound. 234 I Orbis
Arsenal of Democracy A director of production would assist NPOs in the preparation and publication of an annual report, national preparedness estimates, advisory reports, and other documents, and the arrangement and conduct of national preparedness symposiums. The next question is: What should the mobilization preparedness council do? That is a legitimate concern, and the first thing the new NPC should do is determine what kind of preparedness programs are needed to support the president’s national security strategy in light of the realities of the defense budget. In formulating the programs, several specific issues must be considered: What additional resources would be needed to fill the gap between the actual readiness of the armed forces and the readiness needed to wage one major regional conflict? How could this gap be fdled quickly on short notice? What additional resources would be needed to fight a second major regional contingency while the first is still going on, and how could these be provided? What actions should be taken as a hedge against one or both of the major regional contingencies lasting longer than planned? What additional forces, above those provided in the peacetime force structure, would be needed to wage two near-simultaneous regional wars? What measures should be taken to prepare the United States to increase its military power substantially in the event that a nation or coalition of nations becomes a major threat? We may not require good answers to these questions next year, or the year after that. But we had better start asking them now, and asking them of someone other than the people who handle blizzards and floods, if we expect to have the answers before the next century-or the next Pearl Harbor.
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