Word: rumsfeldism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With the military brass suspicious of him, Rumsfeld then did something truly strange. He kept his potential allies on Capitol Hill--Republicans and Democrats alike--completely in the dark about his plans. Senators from shipbuilding states could not find out if their beloved destroyers and frigates would be axed. Members of Congress with divisions stationed in their backyards kept hearing rumors about deactivation but could not confirm them. There were new leaks every day about dismantling National Guard units and mothballing ships. And when the lawmakers managed to corner him, Rumsfeld gave nothing away. "He made everybody mad," says Dicks...
Behind the scenes, Rumsfeld was making some progress. By late July, he had yoked the Joint Chiefs together and won their O.K. to abandon a cornerstone of U.S. defense strategy--the ability to fight two simultaneous wars. For a decade, that strategy had helped justify the large force structure left over from the cold war. Once Rumsfeld got the generals to abandon it, he could pressure the services to downsize and refashion their forces in support of a more realistic strategy--such as winning one war decisively while deploying peacekeeping troops in perhaps half a dozen other places. "He really...
...economy kept sputtering and Congress enacted a $1.35 trillion tax cut, those rosy surplus projections began to shrink. Military health-care costs rose faster than missile-defense bills. The budget situation became almost impossible. For months, many analysts had been saying the only way Congress might go along with Rumsfeld's reforms was if he sweetened the deal by sprinkling goodies on key districts. But now the extra money was drying up. Rumsfeld went to the White House in July to ask for $38 billion more for next year's military budget, and he came away with less than half...
...month ago, when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, Rumsfeld floated a plan to close dozens of military bases over the next eight years. That proved, if nothing else, that he was serious about cuts, but it was tantamount to declaring war on Capitol Hill. And with that announcement, Rumsfeld reactivated a reserve unit that had outlived its enemy--the secret anti-Clinton operation formed inside the Pentagon in 1993. When Clinton arrived that year and announced his plan to loosen rules on gays in the military, a network sprang up overnight between uniformed officials in the Pentagon...
Officers saluting the Secretary in the corridors of the Pentagon but working behind the scenes to thwart him--this was something that didn't often happen 25 years ago. The CLASSIFIED stamp on Rumsfeld's plan was hardly dry before copies found their way to Capitol Hill. By Aug. 3, it was apparent that lawmakers from both parties would bury any cuts he proposed. Republicans were locked and loaded; Democrats pretended to be sympathetic, just for fun. Says Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army officer: "He was sailing into the teeth of a storm everywhere he looked...