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Saturday, October 01, 2011
New US military chief seeks balance in US powerWASHINGTON: It’s too early to know how much change Army Gen Martin Dempsey will foster in his role as the top US military officer, but it’s certain that pressures to cut the defence budget — and what that implies for the military and for American foreign policy — will be a dominant issue from day one of his tenure.
Even before taking over as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military office in the US, Dempsey made one thing clear. He differs with his predecessor on one of the most important issues of the day: the threat posed to national security by a growing national debt.
Dempsey was being sworn in on Friday as successor to Navy Adm Mike Mullen, who is retiring. At his Senate confirmation hearing in July, Dempsey was asked whether he agrees with Mullen’s oft-repeated assertion that the debt crisis is the single biggest threat to American national security. “I don’t agree exactly with that,” Dempsey said.
In his view, developed in the course of a 37-year career that includes two tours of command in Iraq and one in Saudi Arabia, American global power and influence are derived from three strengths: military, diplomatic and economic. “You can’t pick or choose,” he said; none of the three is paramount.
So while he sees the debt problem as highly important, Dempsey believes the United States cannot be successful in managing its national security and international affairs without asserting influence through a combination of a powerful military, an effective diplomatic corps and a sound economy.
His will be among the key voices in recommending how to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the defence budget over the coming decade.
By law, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs serves as the senior military adviser to the president, the president’s National Security Council and the secretary of defence. But the chairman is not directly in the chain of command that extends from the president to the secretary of defence to commanders in the field. He is the public face of the US military and weighs in on major policy decisions but is not actually in charge of any troops.
Dempsey is the first army general to hold the job since Hugh Shelton retired in 2001.
One of the legacies of Mullen’s four years as chairman was his less-than-successful effort to persuade Pakistan’s military chief, Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, to do more to contain and disable violent extremist groups like al Qaeda and the Haqqani network.
In the final week of his tenure, Mullen made his biggest headline by telling a Senate committee that the Haqqanis are a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s intelligence service and by asserting that Pakistani intelligence supported and facilitated a string of Haqqani attacks on Americans in Afghanistan. His statement infuriated the Pakistan government and arguably set back, at least temporarily, an already frayed US-Pakistani relationship.
Dempsey’s views on Pakistan’s importance to success in Afghanistan appear similar to Mullen’s, although he has been less specific about the role of the Haqqanis. In his July testimony, he said it has never been clear to him why the Pakistani government goes after some extremist groups but not others. He said that as joint chiefs chairman he would work with the Pakistanis to improve border security.
Like many who rise to the highest ranks of the US military, Dempsey is not known for his public outspokenness. He took over as army chief of staff in April. Before that he commanded the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, and he previously served for several months as acting commander of US Central Command with responsibility for all US military operations and relations in the greater Middle East. He graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1974. ap
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk