Posted on 09/30/2006 5:32:47 PM PDT by mathprof
Even if there were a case for staying the current course in Iraq, America’s badly overstretched Army cannot sustain present force levels much longer without long-term damage. And that could undermine the credibility of American foreign policy for years to come.
The Army has been kept on short rations of troops and equipment for years by a Pentagon more intent on stockpiling futuristic weapons than fighting today’s wars. Now it is pushing up against the limits of hard arithmetic. Senior generals are warning that the Bush administration may have to break its word and again use National Guard units to plug the gap, but no one in Washington is paying serious attention. That was clear last week when Congress recklessly decided to funnel extra money to the Air Force’s irrelevant F-22 stealth fighter.
As early as the fall of 2003, the Congressional Budget Office warned that maintaining substantial force levels in Iraq for more than another six months would be difficult without resorting to damaging short-term expedients.[snip]
These emergency measures have taken a heavy toll on combat readiness and training, on the quality of new recruits, and on the career decisions of some of the Army’s most promising young officers. They cannot be continued indefinitely.
Now, with the security situation worsening in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon concedes that no large withdrawals from either country are likely for the foreseeable future. As a result, even more drastic and expensive steps could soon be needed. The most straightforward would be to greatly increase the overall number of Army combat brigades. That would require recruiting, training and equipping the tens of thousands of additional soldiers needed to fill them.
Yet the Pentagon and Congress remain in an advanced state of denial.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No. It's time to reform our way of engaging the enemy. NUKE 'EM, one city at a time, and if they don't get the message, nuke another city until they get it!! It's time to stop playing "political correctness war". If you've got'em, use 'em, and we got plenty of 'em. The ONLY thing Terrorists fear is Opposition Strength & Commitment to TOTAL VICTORY AT ANY COST. If you wave a big stick, and don't use it, it only makes them laugh. If you have a big stick and use it, they will back away. If you have a big stick and use it to it's fullest capability, they will never bother you again.
And a $1000 fine for a "Kerry/Edwards" bumpersticker.
For an Army on the edge, recruitment and retention don't seem to be hurting.
These jerks should do their homework in what The Impeached One did to gut our military, just as Carter did.
Subsidies to "progressive" programs at leftist universities alone should allow us to put a couple new divisions in the field.
Need to add any bumper sticker for Hillary, too. I saw one this morning on a minivan here in Chico, CA calling to reelect Hitlary to the NY Senate. Not sure why someone in CA would put that on their car when we can't vote there.
I used to get my back up over obscene and offensive gay/lesbian/liberal bumperstickers until it occurred to me that they don't create 'RAT voters but they do tick off conservatives like me and give us an incentive to go to the polls.
I wish I had a picture of the scene I saw at a traffic light during the last election run up. On the left, a very new shiny European sedan with two Kerry/Edwards bumperstickers. On the right, an old cowboy pick-em-up which had obviously born the heat and the day of lots of hard work, a Bush/Cheney bumpersticker on the battered bumper and an American flag in the back window.
How about a national check off income tax form? Just like most chariety donations. Let the American people direct what they want their own tax payments to go for. Better beleive you would have a Trillion Defense/Homeland Security budget and about $50.00 for Subsides and earmarks.
Bingo. I hate agreeing with the Times, because they're not genuine in their concern. They're right on this issue, but they're only bringing it up because it's a needle they can poke the President with.
Still, we need to face the fact that Clinton badly damaged the US military and we're not prepared for the deployments required.
Bush Sr did quite a number, as well. Blaming either of them is pointless and frankly unfair, since GWB has been President more than long enough to have fixed it. Increasing troop levels is simply not a priority with this administration.
It's time to reform the system by which we rely heavily on Reservists and Guardsmen for long-term overseas deployments and authorize a larger active-duty force with larger stockpiles, etc.
That's exactly right. It's great to have the Reserves and NG, and to call on them when need be. Still, this is a failure of planning, to have so few active duty troops. The GWOT, and related wars, will be manpower intensive.
...and what really burns me is that this has to be discussed in public during wartime, since our government has not been properly taking care of business.
It would be discussed more, but people fear the political impact of talking about the Administration's military mismanagement. That's a fine thing if you're more concerned about winning elections than you are the troops, I suppose. It's just sad to see people so afraid of criticism from the other party, that they deny calls to fix at the needs of their troops as some kind of PR stunt.
That sounds great to me. Better to have a strong defensive capability than some usless bridge for the rich in some posh neighborhood, or paying farmers to not till their fields.
.
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President Reagan fixed the damage Carter did with a few years, and had our military large and in charge, during an era of relative peace. I'd do my homework on what GWB has done to increase the size of our military during wartime, but there's not a lot of study material out there.
I'd love to be able to drop this one at the feet of the Slickmeister, but we've had more than long enough to fix that problem, and the shadow of 9/11 to fix it under. There's really no excuse on this one.
I think that the Army has basically been destroyed in detail by Rumsfeld. The Division as a concept has been dismantled and divided into boutique brigades. The large support units have been dismantled. The artillery corps has been dismantled and turned into infantry replacements. Their weapons are no longer used. Indeed, except for a few 155 units they do not exist in Iraq. Fort Sill, the artillery school, has been turned into an infantry basic training base. The cream of the armor tanks has been moved to Iraq where it is bogged down in desert sand and heat and will eventually have to be rebuilt or replaced if another war emergency arises. Army transportation units are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Most of the trucks located in Iraq will never be returned to the US. The pride of American transpotation is being IEDed into a huge junkpile. Forces have been redeployed from other venues, Korea, Germany leaving huge gaps in those areas.
All of this distruction is due to Rumsfeld's pigheadedness in fighting a war on the cheap, canibalizing the Army and its equipment and fighting a war without a coherent plan. Imagine fighting a major war without a draft, with a half sized Navy and no general mobilization- pure stupidity. That's why the enemy hasn't capitulated. They know we're not serious. And that's why this is a dangerous time. It's tempting for North Korea, say, to twist our noses because we don't have the troops or equipment to fight a real war over there. China, perhaps even Russia, will now be tempted to raise hell because we are overextented in Iraq. I think it's now time to begin the draft and raise new divisions and resupply our forces anew, and replace Rummy.
We are currently in the process of expanding the force to 48 Combat Brigades. We have 37 now. The other problem is utility. During Vietnam we had faced an evolving strategic threat that in some ways better equipped then us. Now days any future threat cannot even hope to fight what we field now and win. A big heavy armor force ready to re fight the 1991 Gulf War would be a huge mistake. We simply face no one able to field such a threat. What we need a more flexible professional force. One that could kick Iran's butt, run Counter Insurgency against Iraqi terrorists and still field a force to contain North Korea all at the same time. We need the right force not just the biggest force. Building the right force takes time. It cannot be done just by snapping the fingers.
Using masses of Conventional Troops in Counter Insurgency missions give you the disasters like Napoleon in Spain or the Russians in Afghanistan more often then not. Some times the important lesson to learn from History is what NOT to do.
A large part of the blame also belongs to Congress. How many times have our representatives told the military to buy equipment they didn't want or slip in earmarks for non-miltary projects that only benefited someone in the home district.
Without the futuristic projects, where else will the generals work once they retire?
The "problem" is not, nor has ever been the quality, training or readiness of those in uniform!
The "problem" is trying to fight a Politically Correct war against a large, media savvy and allied, though poorly-trained and equipped Multi-National maniacal enemy.
Toss out Embedded Reporters, the Laws Of Armed Conflict, (LOAC) Rules Of Engagement (ROE) and the Geneva Convention. Get back to a solid WWII "We are here. They are everywhere else!" mentality and the tide would turn before Christmas.
Jack.
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