European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 03, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday february 3, 1993 commentary the stars and stripes Page s show that potent Medicine needed Robert Reno normally if a list of companies including say general motors United technologies Mcdonnell Douglas ism Sears and Boeing announced in the space of a few weeks massive layoffs that were in some cases the largest in their history we would assume that the econ omy had sustained an uncommon catastrophe of some nature. The common shares of Many of these companies have traditionally found their Way into portfolios that included savings Bonds for heaven s Sake. Moreover the. Employment that is evaporating at these corporations includes some of the most highly paid Indus trial jobs in America both at the White Collar and production Levels. And the fact that these Job losses Are occur " ring at a time when the business Cycle is technically at least several months into an upswing illustrates both the perversity and fragility of the phenomenon that economist Irwin Kolner of chemical Bank has called a recovery without Job growth which is to say a recovery without precedent. There Are to be sure non cyclical explanations for Many of these layoffs defense cutbacks structural changes in the automobile retail and computer Sec tors but they do not alone explain this Cascade of corporate Haemorrhages or mitigate their Ripple effect. Even Alan Greenspan chairman of the Federal re serve seems to have arrived at the View that government cannot simply stand by and watch this process take place while depending on lower interest rates to turn things around. The optimism revealed in recent surveys of consumer attitudes May prove fleeting if Overall labor Market conditions remain sub Dued he told Congress last week. And yes Greenspan seemed to say even a modest fiscal stimulus deficit financed is in order. The general thrust of the policy of this administration is not different from the uniform a Black Bunje re Kowt tie Blue suit Pink sup that which i expressed in my prepared re Marks he said. We can read this to mean that even a conservative like Greenspan is sufficiently worried about the sustainability of recovery that he will tolerate the sort of deliberately keynesian jump Start to which conservatives Are traditionally so hostile Greenspan also said he did not see any lurking threat of resurgent inflation. If anything Greenspan s words Tell us that the $15 billion or $20 billion stimulative fiscal push that the Clinton administration is now contemplating is an exceedingly timid policy response. Secretary of labor Robert Reich stressed last week that this amount diluted in a $6 trillion Economy is essentially modest. Nobel economist James Tobin for in stance has called for a fiscal stimulus As High As $60 billion. Indeed if Clinton had not inherited such an enormous structural budget deficit from the Reagan and Bush administrations the present state. Of the Economy would probably Call for a stimulus twice that and with very Little inflationary risk. The. Real Gamble is in doing nothing or too Little. Sixty years of economic history have taught us that the keynesian card especially when it is played skilfully and aggressively in times of relatively stable prices is the most effective Short term Job creating remedy in the government s policy deck. C nowadays military Force must be Strong enough to work the Vietnam War May catch up with president Clinton vet. In this 25th anniversary week of the 1968 tet offensive which wrote a finish to America s chances for Victory in Vietnam there is a sense of Dejavu about the recent bombing of Iraq and in talks about using . Air Power to impose a no Fly zone in Serbia. As was the Case in Vietnam military Power is again being seen not in its classic sense As an instrument of Power to win on the Battlefield but As a kind of a Diplo Matic signalling device. The roots of this foolish approach go Back to 1957 and professor Robert Osgood s Book on limited War. As Osgood saw it wrote critic Stephen Peter Rosen More than a decade ago military problems Are no proper part of a theory of limited War. This is because limited War is an essentially diplomatic instrument a tool for bargaining with the War As such did not deserve study Osgood opined in an Early exercise of political correctness. The object of the exercise he said was to reach the mind of the enemy to Tell him what you want him to hear by War or threats of War. All this could be dismissed As so much academic twaddle if it were not for the fact that this lunacy be came the basis of . Strategy in by Harvard Law school professor Johi to. Mcnaughton then serving As an assistant Secretary of defense in the Johnson administration the strategy of gradual response or slow squeeze was described in musical terms an orchestration of activities that would proceed in Crescendo fashion toward a finale. The joint chiefs of staff did not like Mcnaughton s tune wrote military historian Dave Palmer. The generals argued that if Force were to be used at All it should be applied hard and fast to obtain maximum Impact with minimum loss. To Start lightly and escalate slowly they held would be like pulling a tooth bit by bit rather than All at in sentiments that reportedly once again surfaced during recent talks about the bombing of Iraq the joint chiefs of staff stated if the purpose were to affect Hanoi s will. The United states would have to hit hard at vital Points and demonstrate a willingness to apply unlimited it was a reiteration of a Basic dictum. If the enemy is to be coerced wrote Karl von Clausewitz 150 years earlier you must put him in a situation that is even More unpleasant than the sacrifice you Call on him to make. The hardships must not of course be merely transient at least not in appearance. Otherwise the enemy would not give in but would wait for things to but All that military talk fell on deaf ears. The High level officials involved in the direction of the War said Rosen in words that apply equally to the lawyers and academics who make up the new Clinton Cabinet simply had had Little experience in the direction of a War and had not studied military to whom could they turn for help Rosen asked. The obvious answer is to the military this was not done because the military was not the an Imus was Mutual. Defense Secretary Robert Mcnanara who later admitted his will to fight was broken in 1965, even As he committed the first . Ground troops to combat and his Whiz kids were held in contempt Harry g. Summers by most military officers. The result Rosen said was that there was no generally agreed comprehensive military strategy for winning the in its place there was a limited War theory of Sig Naling but it had been a Complete the signals they had sent to the enemy intentionally or not were that the United states was not serious about what it was doing. As Clausewitz had predicted All the North vietnamese had to do was wait for things to the joint chiefs of stuff today arc being criticized by armchair strategists for reluctance to use limited military Power to Send signals to Iraq or to Serbia and for their insistence that if we do use military Power we do it Deci sively. This has deep roots not Only in Vietnam but also in the fundamentals of warfare. As Mark Watson wrote in his official history of world War ii " t he facts of War Are often in total opposition to the facts of peace the efficient commander does not seek to use just enough Means but an excess of Means. A military Force that is just Strong enough to take a position will suffer heavy casualties in doing so a Force vastly Superior to the enemy s will do the Job without serious loss of pcs chairman Gen. Colin l. Powell and the serv ice chiefs know that from bitter Battlefield experience. When it comes to military operations Clinton pledged that he would listen to their advice. Let us Hope that is one Campaign Promise he keeps. C angolan tunes the opinion apr a in it column and cartoon on Ihl 99 rep int to of in author and a in now a to a con Len a m apr no ing the v1w of the sur and strip or in unto Sut
