\t14 janvier 2008 L’hebdomadaire Aviation Week & Space Technology<\/em> (AW&ST) repr\u00e9sente sans aucun doute l’une des voix informelles et indirectes les plus autoris\u00e9es du complexe militaro-industriel (CMI) am\u00e9ricaniste. AW&ST fait de l’excellent journalisme, selon les r\u00e8gles du m\u00e9tier et selon les normes et consignes des int\u00e9r\u00eats que repr\u00e9sente cette publication. Il s’agit de l’esprit du complexe militaro-industriel, plus que de grossi\u00e8re et lourde propagandes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tEn r\u00e9unissant deux \u00e9ditoriaux r\u00e9cents d’AW&ST, qui sont \u00e9videmment l’avis le plus autoris\u00e9 de la publication, on obtient un ensemble rendant compte de la perception de ces milieux du CMI \u00e0 la fois de la situation pr\u00e9sente et de son avenir; c’est-\u00e0-dire qu’on obtient un diagnostic d’une profonde inqui\u00e9tude du CMI \u00e0 l’heure de la succession de GW Bush. Les deux \u00e9ditoriaux datent respectivement des 15 d\u00e9cembre 2007 et du 7 janvier 2008. Le premier concerne l’\u00e9tat du Pentagone, le second le cadre plus g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de la politique US, notamment ext\u00e9rieure et de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 nationale, o\u00f9 le Pentagone doit \u00eatre consid\u00e9r\u00e9 pour que sa situation soit mieux envisag\u00e9e.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tEn un sens, les deux \u00e9ditos se r\u00e9pondent. Le premier constate l’\u00e9tat catastrophique de la machinerie centrale du Complexe, le Pentagone, et pose, sans illusion excessive nous semble-t-il, la question de savoir si l’administration Bush va lancer le mouvement pour r\u00e9parer la machine (\u00abBush’s Last Chance To Repair The Pentagon<\/em>\u00bb, le 17 d\u00e9cembre 2007<\/a>). Le second lui r\u00e9pond tristement et piteusement, et m\u00eame avec une certaine rage contenue, qu’il n’y a \u00e9videmment aucune chance pour que cela se fasse (\u00abParalysis in Washington: Sadly, More of the Same Looms for 2008<\/em>\u00bb, le 7 janvier 2008<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tNous publions quelques extraits significatifs de ces deux \u00e9ditoriaux.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t La n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 urgente de r\u00e9former le Pentagone.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abThe fact Washington must face is that nearly five years of war have left U.S. forces worse off than they have been in a generationyes, since Vietnamand restoring them will take budget-building unlike any in the past. The administration’s four-year funding forecast last February of a plateau for the regular budget and progressive reductions in off-budget warfighting money was misleading. It is in these four coming years, as the Bush people leave town and their successors dig in, that the budgetary chickens will come home to roost.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbFor example, in Fiscal 2009 and succeeding years, the Pentagon will have to finance the ground-forces buildup of 92,000 active-duty personnel Bush accepted this year after sticking for years with the denials of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that any increase was needed. The department must tend to the war’s wounded; repair and replace weapons that have been damaged or lost; restore stockpiles and prepositioned supplies to prewar levels; implement the shortest-term, most compelling of the counterinsurgency lessons it has learned in Iraq; and rebuild the morale of soldiers and Marines who, in the absence of a military draft, have borne unfair burdens. Without the first and last of these undertakings, finding 92,000 more volunteers for the Army and Marine Corps will be difficult if not impossible.<\/em> []<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbNever mind the advocacy of an extra percentage of gross domestic product for defense to heal the system, the extra $20 billion for Air Force aircraft acquisition, the extra $10 billion or so for shipbuilding. None of these things will happen, and each will become less and less likely as Bush’s successor tries to clean up the mess.<\/em> […]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbCongressional investigators and some lawmakers believe a large source of extra funds is available within each year’s defense budgetan annual $20-50 billion lost to waste, fraud and abuse. Much of this loss could be found and put to good use if defense contractors, the Pentagon acquisition community and the organizations that over-specify weapon-system requirements made serious attempts to do their jobs better. Tossing around guesses about the extent of waste, fraud and abuse is even easier than proposing unrealistic, self-serving budget increases. But the low end of the estimated waste range represents nearly 12% of procurement and R&D funds in the Pentagon’s regular appropriation for Fiscal 2008; the high end approaches 29%.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe existence of a serious level of waste is undeniable, surfacing as it does just about every time an acquisition program runs into delays and\/or overruns. To maintain its credibility in what likely will become a more competitive struggle in the next few years between defense and other government functions for federal dollars, the Pentagon will have to sharpen its program management skills and execution<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t La situation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 nationale des USA caract\u00e9ris\u00e9e par l’absence de direction.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abAt a time when civility, collaboration and constructive compromise are needed more than ever between U.S. political parties and leadersand between the U.S. and other nationsthe prospect instead is for deteriorating relationships. The deeper the U.S. gets into its presidential election campaign, the more partisan its public life is likely to become. And the closer the Bush presidency gets to its end in January 2009, the more the rest of the world is likely to calibrate its actions to Bush’s successor.<\/em> […]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbFor lack of listening and engagement, the U.S. has given up much of its leadership role in international affairs. Period.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb Allies and potential friends alike will watch developments in Iraq, as the U.S. continues to prosecute a war that few of them supported at the start, lost most of its justifications early on and has been bungled throughout.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb The U.S.-sponsored initiative to find a peace formula for Israel, its neighbors and the Palestinians will bear fruit slowly, if at all.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb Almost all of the nearly 200 nations meeting recently in Bali to develop a greenhouse-gas reduction regime for 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires, are dissatisfied that the U.S. committed itself to no more than two years of negotiations that history suggests will produce only grudging concessions, if any, to global-warming realities.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb Political chaos in Pakistan following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto shows again that the U.S. needs to confront challenges abroad with subtlety, not bombast. Instability in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, close by and hostile to nuclear-armed India, is the last thing the world needs.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe common denominator in all these challenges, domestic and international, is that overcoming them will require leaders of good will and generous spirit to devise compromises that everyone is willing to support for the greater good. That is how things used to get done. Sadly, its absence is the source of 2007’s failures and the pessimism with which we begin 2008.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n \tLe constat g\u00e9n\u00e9ral est r\u00e9sum\u00e9 par une phrase, qui mesure la chute vertigineuse de la puissance US depuis 2001. Cette phrase (extraite de l’\u00e9ditorial du 7 janvier), dont nous nous permettons de souligner en gras le composant essentiel, pourrait aller dans les deux \u00e9ditoriaux tant elle constitue, comme un lien entre les deux analyses, une conclusion symbolique fondamentale. Elle mesure \u00e0 elle seule le destin des ambitions US dans l’\u00e9volution de l’aventure irakienne. Elle donne la mesure du constat d’incapacit\u00e9 et d’impuissance de l’initiative politico-militaire qui a constitu\u00e9 l’essentiel de l’effort h\u00e9g\u00e9monique des USA depuis le 11 septembre 2001. Elle a \u00e0 la fois une r\u00e9sonance technique et mat\u00e9rielle, \u00e0 la fois une r\u00e9sonance politique et presque philosophique, puisque, effectivement, la direction am\u00e9ricaniste a intimement li\u00e9 ses ambitions politiques les plus hautes aux capacit\u00e9s militaires de la puissance am\u00e9ricaniste, ent\u00e9rinant ainsi, au travers de cette simple phrase, l’\u00e9chec de la guerre am\u00e9ricaniste. Elle mesure la profondeur de la chute de la puissance am\u00e9ricaniste par rapport aux illusions que nous avons tous<\/strong> entretenu \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de cette puissance, lorsqu’on a \u00e0 l’esprit que l’on parle de l’Irak comme test supr\u00eame de cette puissance, un pays de 25 millions d’habitants, sous-\u00e9quip\u00e9 et \u00e0 la d\u00e9rive lorsque les USA l’attaqu\u00e8rent:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abNo matter how the administration and Congress evaluate the outcome of this year’s surge of forces, no matter what sort of pullout schedule, resolutions or amendments Congress passes, no matter what President Bush vetoes and regardless of whether Congress overrides, the U.S. is<\/em> no longer capable of sustaining the effort it has poured into Iraq since 2003.<\/em><\/strong>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLe plus path\u00e9tique dans ces \u00e9ditoriaux auxquels nous donnons tant de signification, c’est l’inexistence compl\u00e8te de la moindre esquisse d’une solution ou d’un espoir d’am\u00e9lioration de la situation. Il n’y a strictement aucune raison pour que ce qu’AW&ST \u00e9crit pour 2008 (\u00abthe pessimism with which we begin 2008<\/em>\u00bb) ne vaille pas pour 2009, en pire. L’\u00e9tat du Pentagone sera, d\u00e9but 2009, pire qu’en ce d\u00e9but d’ann\u00e9e 2008.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tIl ne s’agit plus, aujourd’hui, d’une affirmation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale et n\u00e9cessairement vague, une affirmation qu’on pourrait ignorer avec la qualification m\u00e9prisante qu’elle n’est qu’un anath\u00e8me anti-am\u00e9ricaniste de plus. La crise du Pentagone est d\u00e9sormais sortie de l’abstraction des analyses th\u00e9oriques. Les cons\u00e9quences sur les structures des forces, m\u00eame hors des \u00e9v\u00e9nements conjoncturels comme l’Irak (qui a mis l’U.S. Army dans une situation catastrophique), sont r\u00e9elles et commencent \u00e0 \u00eatre comptabilis\u00e9es. Il est d\u00e9sormais acquis que l’USAF va \u00eatre priv\u00e9e ind\u00e9finiment de 162 \u00e0 180 chasseurs F-15, soit autour de 40% des avions de cette cat\u00e9gorie affect\u00e9s \u00e0 la d\u00e9fense de l’espace a\u00e9rien national. Ce seul point est un cas de crise majeure qui sort du cadre habituel de cette sorte d’\u00e9v\u00e9nement, selon le mot du g\u00e9n\u00e9ral John W. Corley, commandant l’Air Combat Command (cit\u00e9 dans le Washington Post<\/em> du 11 janvier<\/a>): \u00abThis is not isolated. This is systemic.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\nCrise syst\u00e9mique, \u00e9videmment<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n