US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen, whose address several months back at a Young Professionals in Foreign Policy event in Washington, D.C. I attended, is without question an articulate, knowledgeable and quite accomplished American military leader. A graduate of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and the recipient of advanced degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School and Harvard Business School, Admiral Mullen commanded three ships during his service, as well as serving as a flag officer in command of a Cruiser-Destroyer Group. As the first naval officer in US history to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he brings much deserved esteem to his branch of the service.

I cannot, however, help but wish for a degree of further clarification with regard to some comments made by the Chairman this week concerning Afghanistan. While making his comments during an interview with the Boston Globe, the admiral seemed to focus the cause of the Taliban and al Qaeda broadening of ties singularly on the failure to move troops out of Iraq and place them in Afghanistan during the period of the George W. Bush presidency. His assessment, while accurate in part, essentially left out other factors and in so doing seemed to leave the reader no option but to infer that the current set of difficulties in Afghanistan were the result of the lackluster course set by President Bush’s choice to focus on Iraq. Whether or not such a course is at part to blame is irrelevant; when it is identified as the sole reason outcomes have not been those desired when clearly such reasoning is irreconcilable to what is known, then one is forced to consider something political is involved rather than a dry assessment of all information available.

Adm. Mullen, however, did not mention what President Barack Obama’s “Carteresque” defense budget privations might do to the efficacy of allied forces in Afghanistan or elsewhere, as Max Boot points out in a recent article. By Adm. Mullen’s own account last summer, a significant shortage of manpower has long existed:

I don't have troops I can reach for, brigades I can reach, to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq. … Afghanistan has been and remains an economy-of-force campaign, which by definition means we need more forces there.

The admiral went on to say that the shortage has existed since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which is nothing controversial. It does beg the question, however, with an estimated defense budget over the next five years that barely keeps up with present inflation rates along with continued talk from Obama of scaling back defense capabilities, where the wisdom is in not increasing budgets and manpower sufficient to eliminate this problem, to speak nothing of having sufficient resources left over for the unthinkable? If one is to fight wars on two fronts, shouldn’t one be prepared to fight wars on two fronts, if not three? Instead, the US seems to be headed from Bush’s minimalist approach to Obama’s famine. Considering further siphoning away resources  by making a highly controversial meme of man-made global warming a defense priority somehow comparable to preventing nuclear weapons’ proliferation or other threats, and a rapid withdrawal of Iraq to buttress Afghanistan without saying the “V” word, the picture becomes even more distressing. One almost is left out of morbid curiosity wishing to watch the inevitable comedy of errors unfold were it not in actuality offering something quite tragic.

Indeed, given Michael Mullin’s comments warning about the dangers of abandoning Iraq, one begins to wonder what his definition of “a rapid withdrawal” would be. In fact, it just so happens that the Chairman has already provided a definition. In a press conference last year as Democrats and Republicans were deciding which candidates they would choose to run for president, Adm. Mullen defined “rapid withdrawal” as, “a withdrawal that would be so fast that it would leave us in a chaotic situation and the gains we have achieved would be lost."

If Adm. Mullen’s earlier statements are combined with the one he made yesterday, one is left again with the realization that there is a substantial need for upgrading rather than downgrading or simply shifting capabilities. Otherwise, you are forced to either rush your withdrawal from Iraq, which Adm. Mullen has already said would “leave us un a chaotic situation” where “the gains we have achieved would be lost”, or slow the exodus of Iraq and create a dangerous situation in Afghanistan. Either option is not a productive method for conducting wars when your country is barely tapping its resources, compared with much of the Cold War era in which such requirements were more properly met. The Admiral is being forced to squeeze air from one end of the balloon into the other when the answer is to put more air into the balloon so that both ends might be full at once.

Naturally, one could also make the point that efforts both in Iraq and Afghanistan might be succeeding more briskly if European members of NATO were prepared to step up and offer more troops. This, too, would provide some much-needed air. At present, the European countries combined offer fewer than half the total number of US troops in Afghanistan, for instance, and far fewer in Iraq. The number declines even more significantly if only combat troops are counted.  It might be fair to complain of Bush-era unilateralism if Europe were not so often making it so through lack of participation and it seems hardly fair to blame Bush-era troop mismanagement for the current administration’s apparent refusal to acknowledge the painfully obvious and do something to fix it.

Considering that Adm. Mullen’s words this week came close to the now-infamous “reset button” theme used by the administration with Russia, it seems to suggest that his thoughts may not have been entirely his own. Nor can the Chairman be blamed for having acted at the behest of his Commander-in-Chief and he should not keep silent when authorized to make progress assessments to the public simply because such assessments might reflect poorly on an elected official – current or former – politically. It strikes one a bit askew, however, when it becomes evident through omission that possible contributors to strategic shortfalls are not being discussed in favor of a retelling of history that fits seamlessly into the current administration’s political narrative.

Experience seems to teach us that politically-motivated micromanagement of military leaders is a reliable first sign of strategic stagnation and perhaps even disaster.  Adding to this a limitation of necessary resources and one finds managing the balloon becomes an increasingly challenging prospect. And while such a prospect may prove challenging when the US is not engaged elsewhere in the world, when realities unexpectedly change, keeping the balloon full in any one area likely becomes impossible. Whereas the Vietnam War was lost by the refusal for political reasons to take advantage of military resources already available, both Iraq and Afghanistan risk unfavorable outcomes – or at least less-advantageous outcomes – by a decision not to have the resources available in the first place. Either results in depleted morale and missions badly damaged. Clearly the answer is not merely to criticize the last administration or to rob Peter to pay Paul, but to give the US military and allied forces what they need to succeed anywhere they are deployed.