Treating the Pathologies of Victory: Hardening the Nation for Strategic Competition Thomas P. Ehrhard, PhD or years after the Cold War ended, it was In many respects, America’s Cold War tri- Fhard to make the case in polite company umphalism was not exceptional. Winners al- that the United States should continue to fo- most always fall prey to hubris; dramatic win- cus on major-power competition in its nation- ners always do. This is the pathology of victory. al security strategy.1 America won. The Soviet But history exacts a price for hubris. The Union vanished, its republics flew apart, and U.S. national security bureaucracy has been its client states went their own way. The vaunt- aficted by a multitude of strategic viruses ed Soviet military returned home and rapidly over the past 30 years, and the accompanying atrophied. The Soviet Union’s brutal history incremental, almost imperceptible corrosions made it hard enough for American national of the U.S. military accrued after the Cold War security experts to imagine the Soviet Union’s now threaten to undermine the basic competi- swift demise, let alone the relatively bloodless tive advantages that caused America to prevail. way it happened. Not all of these maladies are physical, and for Given the fortuitous outcome, it was easy, many in the national security enterprise, they expedient, and popular to imagine that this are deeply embedded and generational. It is all marked the end of history. The global alliance they know. of representative governments had triumphed Normalized dysfunction infused Penta- over a seemingly implacable foe, and weak au- gon thinking, dialogue, and actions, resulting thoritarian states suddenly seemed vulnera- in a general reluctance to accept the security ble. Events had their own way of highlighting environment as it presented itself. As with the exceptional nature of this strategic turn- all things, strategic pragmatists who saw the ing point. Operation Desert Storm cemented post–Cold War “unipolar moment” as anom- that conclusion as America ejected Saddam alous were forced to swim against this bu- Hussein’s Soviet-equipped army from Kuwait reaucratic current, absorbing derision and using a blizzard of military technology built marginalization.2 Thus, embedded ideas may to prevail against the Red Army in Central be hard to dislodge in the search for strate- Europe. It seemed entirely pessimistic, even gic reawakening. paranoid, to insist that the U.S. military should Major-power competition is back—al- use these events as an opportunity to config- though, of course, it never really left—but the ure itself to prevail against major powers in the pathologies of victory remain. For America 21st century. to rise to the challenge once again, we must The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 19 understand how the end of the Cold War led strategic dialogue that hamstring America’s the American defense bureaucracy to evolve competitive rebirth. ways of thinking that left America in a posi- The essay focuses on the Department of De- tion of competitive inferiority. In this essay, fense (DOD), for that is the center of gravity we will explore some of the most damaging of this publication and the epicenter for some pathologies and recommend prescriptions of the worst cases of pathological strategic to return the U.S. to a position of purpose- dysfunction. To be sure, the entire national ful competitiveness. security enterprise fell prey to these afflic- Although there are many, four pathologies tions, and they all deserve careful retrospec- of victory stand out: tive treatment, but we concentrate mostly on the Pentagon. l The triumphalism of the 1990s led to the The reader should be aware that this essay ultimately corrosive seduction of overseas contains challenges. It specifically calls into engagement and constant intervention; question deeply embedded ways of thinking that have been parroted by many national se- l After 9/11, strategic distraction delayed a curity commentators. Interestingly (and some- more comprehensive understanding and what ironically), many of these themes align reaction to China’s rise and Russia’s re- with propaganda coming from Russia and Chi- emergence as self-identified and seriously na, so the reader must retain a healthy skepti- dangerous enemies; cism, fight confirmation bias, and consider the consequences of how distortions in our collec- l The analytic focus of the Cold War atom- tive thinking afect strategic competitiveness, ized to the point where, as a nation, we all of which may lead the reader to conclude lost our ability to mobilize our brainpower that a fundamental correction is required. for major-power competition and, as a necessary precondition, to conduct deep, Pathology #1: Triumphalism strategically focused studies of our adver- The Cold War’s decisive end virtually guar- saries; and anteed triumphalism in America. Some com- mentators believe we overexploited our victory l As major-power competition reemerged, in foreign policy, for example, by expanding the a new and powerful brand of wishful North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) thinking surfaced that actively resisted into previous Warsaw Pact and even, in the strategic reform on the scale required by case of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, into the emerging security environment. formerly Soviet territories. From a broader perspective, however, history will treat Amer- This essay explores each of these Amer- ica as a remarkably forgiving victor. Perhaps ican post–Cold War pathologies, revealing more important, as a matter of rediscovering their deleterious, if unintended, effect on competitive discipline and focus, we must gain our ability to compete with Russia and Chi- greater awareness of and become more allergic na in the coming decades. The triumphalism to parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda. of the 1990s forms the foundational mindset. Externally, by any historical standard, Ameri- Its bookend, wishful thinking, infuses all of ca served as a magnanimous victor, but the in- the pathologies, so it can be thought of as the ternal efects of such a dramatic victory sowed key enabler. In the concluding section, six seeds of dysfunction that act as a competitive key strategic judgments about today’s secu- anchor restricting vital strategic reform. rity environment, resisted by a bureaucracy Bureaucratically, the remarkable end of bathed in this acquired mindset, demonstrate the Cold War led to the elimination of bed- the deleterious efects on our contemporary rock institutions by decisions that catalyzed 20 2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength a corrosion of our nuclear deterrence forces in Langley, Virginia. Conventional force lead- and set in motion a series of conventional force ers opined that the dramatic increases in con- distortions in force posture, war planning, and ventional military efectiveness created by the force modernization and recapitalization that, Second Ofset Strategy could supplant nucle- unless challenged and reformed, will hamper ar weapons.4 As a result, ofcers with nuclear our ability to compete efectively against two experience gradually found their careers cur- dedicated foes. More ominously, the 1990s tailed, and nuclear unit morale plummeted. served as a prime catalyst for the rise of China The dramatic anti-nuclear maneuvers of and Russia’s resurgence. the immediate post–Cold War period and The abandonment and subsequent neglect their aftermath now seem shortsighted in of our nuclear strength represents a clear ex- light of the atrophy and institutional neglect ample, and it happened quickly. In 1991, the within the Air Force’s nuclear enterprise. Af- George H. W. Bush Administration ordered ter a series of embarrassing incidents involv- dramatic, unilateral nuclear weapon reduc- ing the loss of control of a nuclear weapon tions (called Presidential Nuclear Initiatives or and related firing of the Air Force Secretary PNIs) in which Russian reciprocity was merely and Chief of Staf in 2009, the Air Force was “encouraged.” The entire PNI process occurred compelled to reincarnate a SAC-like insti- in a backroom manner with little consultation tution in the form of the Air Force Global or debate. Although the PNIs contained some Strike Command, led by a four-star general.5 strategic logic, such as attempting to induce Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, address- a reduction of Russian tactical nuclear weap- ing the obvious morale problem in the force, ons, the Russians never reciprocated. Thus, we declared that “we must restore the prestige were left with a massive Russian superiority in that attracted the brightest minds of the Cold tactical nuclear weapons that, together with War era.”6 Unfortunately, however, they had the rise of Vladimir Putin and the volatility of already, as airmen like to say, fallen behind his regime, presents a major threat to strate- the power curve on nuclear. No amount of re- gic stability. port-writing, fist-pounding, rhetorical assur- Additionally, the PNIs afected strategic nu- ances, or half-hearted stabs at institutional clear forces in a way that significantly exceeded reform could bring back the rather draconian, arms control agreements, including the uni- highly disciplined culture required to advo- lateral, accelerated retirement of the Minute- cate for, control, and operate nuclear systems man II ICBM and the cancellation of mobile that had been established over decades. Peacekeeper and small ICBM programs. PNIs Today, every important American nuclear also ended Peacekeeper production; capped system needs recapitalization, and the defense the B-2 stealth bomber program at a “plati- bureaucracy delayed each of those systems num bullet” level of 20 aircraft; terminated the until there is no more room to retreat.7 Due stealthy (nuclear) Advanced Cruise Missile; to bureaucratic triumphalism, the entire nu- and ended production of the advanced W-88 clear enterprise has been fighting a retrograde D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile action since the end of the Cold War with no (SLBM) warhead.3 Perhaps most important, relief in sight.