Bacevich is brilliant. I have met and talked with him. His thoughts should be taken seriously. His thoughts should also be taken in context. Besides being a tremendous warrior and a brilliant thinker, he is also a grieving Father who lost a beloved Son in a poorly run war. Maybe he can keep that from affecting his thoughts in this area. The man I met was human in the very best sense of that word. I was in awe of his mentoring of his Lieutenants. It was very much like a Father teaching his Sons. I have an intense admiration for Bacevich, and I agree with his take on our leaders in the military, but I disagree with him on how we determine the size of the Army.
The tooth to tail ration of most armies is at least five to one. The smaller the army, the smaller the tip of the spear. What are the consequences of having too large a force compared to having one too small?
What is really going on here is the classical "guns versus butter" struggle that marks welfare states. Dwindling resources force hard choices and butter usually wins since it has more constituents. The UK is a prime example of how a Great Power declines into irrelevancy. The UK had someone else to pick up the torch, i.e., the US, but there is no one to replace us as the leader of the free world. Nature abhors a vacuum and there will be nations that want to expand and increase their influence thru military power, e.g., China and Russia.
“The principal military lesson of the Global War on Terror affirms what ought to have been the principal military lesson of the Cold War: Force held in readiness has far greater political utility than force expended. Armies are well suited to defending and containing. But invading and occupying countries are fraught with risk. “
How did that work out for the French in 1936? They chose to held their force in readiness, and instead of executing an invasion and occupation when they enjoyed overwhelming force, they waited and suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1940. Hitler's very own words are haunting:
“If France had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs.”
The idea that wars are always won quickly and cleanly is a false concept that cannot be shown from history. The Indian wars were a protracted conflict that lasted over a hundred years, just for the United States.
I never served in the military, so perhaps my views don't count. But I can read a history book. Perhaps the author is right, and a smaller Army is just fine. But this writing seems to be totally backward looking, the old canard of “fighting the last war.” Some British tank designers were creating tanks to span shell cratered trenches even as the German army was rolling across France in 1940. It's easy to use your last experience as a guide and miss the tasks coming up, which may be quite different.
The appropriate size of U.S. forces should be based on projecting the jobs they will be expected to do in the future, not regret over recent operations.
One last point, that I have already posted on another thread. Per capita, the Army should have 650,000 troops to be the same size relative to the population as it did in 1940. Massive welfare spending and support for the bureaucratic state prevents that.
If history should teach us anything, it's that we always tend to fund, train and organize our military around fighting the last war and/ or the aftermath of it instead of looking forward to growing threats. If Bacevich is brilliant, as you attest, he should acknowledge this. I suspect his grief and guilt projection onto an administration that was less than adroit in such matters, no matter how just and honorable the effort may have been, and signing on to Obama "smart power" as a sufficient way of military power projection is clouding his thought process.