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 ...
Irrelevant? Gee whiz!
According to one of your crack reporters, just two days ago, it “can fly at 60,000 feet, twice as high as any other plane.”
Your information is a little out of date. The plan has been reduced to 43 brigades, and those brigades, excepting Stryker and ACR, will only have two maneuver battalions. An option to expand these brigades to three maneuver battalions has been shelved for lack of funding and end strength authorizations.
We could certainly get to a 12 division equivilents with the original 48 brigade plan, but OSD did not allow that to happen. Subsequent to that decision, the Army budget has been cut yet again. No way to get there from here.
When you get your facts straight, let me know
What I fear is that the Cold War will come back. There is no real defense against a 3 million man Army that the Chinese are now building. There is no guarantee that Russia will not rebuild it's once huge army. I think we are dangerously drawn down at the present time because Rummy wants to fight a war using small units. These boutique brigades wouldn't last one day against a huge 3 million man Chinese army.
I wouldn't say boutique brigades but more like cavalry squadron which are more self sustaining.
Cavalry units always had more control of their own support and combat service support units.
Rumsfeld is trying to go to a more deployable force. Its easier to move the brigade(cavalry squadron) then trying to move a division or break up a division. Some of the old timers in my unit say this is nothing new but the way it use to be.
How often does a 155 unit fire in Iraq. The enemy usually pops a few mortar rounds and they are out of there.
I don't what your isssue with the trucks and tanks are. We can always rebuild and will make improvements. Does the government need to set aside money so we always have factory lines ready to produce large quantities of equipment and ammunition? I think we do. However, a few years after were out of Iraq and the military rebuild, Congress will want to save money and will not pay for factories to sit idle.
History will judge if we did it right. If there are no other wars other than Iraq for the next 10 years, then Rumsfeld will be considered smart for not building up the military to such a huge size that wasn't necessary. If something happens with China or North Korea, then Rumsfeld will be faulted for not seeing he should have built up the military.
Excellent idea.
The Afghan winter? No joke--I saw that lame, discredited excuse for the imminent defeat of American forces just this month on the enemy propaganda pages (the "news" propaganda, not the "editorial" propaganda) of The New York Fraud and Treason (formerly The New York Times), motto: "Giving Aid and Comfort the the Enemies of the United States since the Civil War."
Okay, that was before my time. I think that most people would argue that the military was back in good old juggernaut form before 88, but, for arguement's sake, let's say that's true. Let's also say that in WWII, we were able to field a very large and capable Army within a few years.
Somewhere in between is the GWOT, where we suffered a massive unprovoked attack, our troop demands went through the roof, and the troop levels did not rise in any significant way.
Our leaders have not asked for more troops, and Congress has basically had to spoon feed the increases to an unwilling Department of Defense. Why is it somehow unreasonable to think that on the heels of 9/11, and with threats like al-Qa'ida, Iraq, Iran and North Korea looming, we should want a larger military?
This is a different kind of threat. It is no longer a matter of simply rounding up a bunch of cannon fodder and slap uniforms on them. It take time, effort and money to build the professional cadre to run that expanded force.
Sure, but it's been 5 years since 9/11. The longest training cycle for any MOS we run is about 2 years. If this was 2003 I'd be very understanding. It's 2006. Help is not on the way.
Thur out history too rapid expansion of a military has caused almost as many problems for the force as not building a big enough force
Big problems for the force, but bigger ones for our enemies. Besides, I'm not talking about an overnight change. We've had years to get this done. Training modern troops takes time, but not this much time.
Should we be doing more? Sure I would love too spend twice as much but that is one of the limitations of making war in a Constitutional Republic. You got to bring the people along with you, not just snap your fingers and issue orders
Again, I'd be more sympathetic to this arguement if at some point President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld had walked up to the bully pulpit and said, "We need more troops. Write your congressmen, and tell them to support my Increase Army Manpower bill. Young Americans, your country needs you. Go enlist."
If it sounds like I'm not really willing to cut the Administration some slack on this, I'm not. They looked at the Clinton era military they inherited and said, "This size is fine". If the White House needs to be brought back to Jesus the same way they were on the borders, then so be it.
The only ones dumber might be their readership.
Unfortunately, I agree with you both. I've recently spent some time getting ready for deployment to Afghanistan. It is a bit eye opening to listen to some of the junior Army enlisted. They believe we need to finish the job, but they have little confidence in their leadership.
Some folks present modernizing our forces and supporting our troops (with numbers and equipment) as either/or. I don't understand why we are fighting a war in two countries at a time we knew (for 20 years) would be a time of recapitalization, and trying to do both on the cheap.
The USAF is cutting 40,000 military and 25% of contractors. We have zero money for upgrading legacy platforms, the Guard is overstretched, and we're sending a lot of folks in to supplement the Army on the ground. WHY!?!
It isn't because the American people aren't willing to spend some money on the military. It is because DoD, under direction of the President, refuses to ask.
And that is a REPUBLICAN shame.
well said, zoomie
This is the bottom line. Well said.
I'll be 'zooming' with an M-16 this winter...and spring...and summer...at 48. And it is a good thing I'm a good shot with a pistol - with the way I shoot an M-16, I might as well skip the ammo and go direct to 'club'!
I've argued for years the ground forces needed more folks. That may be the influence of having 2 kids enlist in the Marines/Army. I'm certain that if you gave the American people a checkoff box for the military on their taxes, that we would have more than enough money to get the job done right.
The President refuses to ask for a larger, stronger military primarily because the Congress long ago put "butter" ahead of "guns" and recognizes that incumbency protection requires keeping the government gravy train rolling to their elderly constituents, professional welfare recipients, and campaign contributors. Most distinguished members of Congress would prefer to cannibalize the military in time of war than to sacrifice their political pork for national security. And those are the odious Republicans; the devious, hedonistic, seditious Democrats actively support and propagandize for the enemy and only support our troops superficially when their political lives depend on it.
It's too bad this editorial is in the NY Times instead of the Washington Times. It might not have generated such ill deserved criticism on this thread as we definitely need more ground troops.
A very good background on the problems the military now faces, can be found by searching the following topic:
Bottom-Up-Review, or without the hyphens, Bottom Up Review.
This was the Clinton Administrations 8 year plan to cut the military, and use the money saved for "domestic programs".
A very good background article to get one started on the subject is found on the Air Force Magazine web site:
http://www.afa.org/magazine/oct2003/1003bur.asp
The Legacy of the Bottom-Up Review
The Bottom-Up Review, completed 10 years ago this month, is one of the stranger episodes in the annals of Pentagon force planning.
Briefly, what happened was this. In March 1993, Les Aspin, the new Secretary of Defense, announced a whopping cut to the defense budget. Incredibly, he made his cut without calculating the impact the reduction would have on force capability. That and other details would be worked out in a “Bottom-Up Review” to follow.....
From the link below, is an overview of the cuts proposed by the Bottom up Review, or BUR:
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=6&sequence=2
Table 2-2.
U.S. Military Forces (By fiscal year)
Bottom-Up
1990 1993 1995 1996 Review Plan a
Strategic Forces
Land-Based ICBMs 1,000 787 585 580 500
Strategic Bombers 277 194 140 126 130
Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles 584 408 360 408 336
Conventional Forces
Land Forces
Army divisions
Active 18 14 12 10 10
Reserve b 10 8 8 8 5 or more
Marine Corps divisions c 4 4 4 4 4
Naval Forces
Battle force ships 546 435 372 357 346
Aircraft carriers
Active 15 13 11 11 11
Reserve 1 0 1 1 1
Navy carriers air wings
Active 13 11 10 10 10
Reserve 2 2 1 1 1
Air Forces
Tacttical fighter wings
Active 24 16 13 13 13
Reserve 12 11 8 7 7
Airlift aircraft
Intertheater 400 382 374 345 d
Intertheater 460 380 428 430 e
SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office using data from Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to the President
and the Congress (March 1996).
The above table for this is about half way down the article, and is easier to read.
There are over 8 million google hits for BUR.
The first link is good for a start to see the problems we are still facing from Les Aspin, and the Clinton ("I LOATHE the military!!")Administration's "Bottom-Up-Review".
Presidents Carter, Bush Sr., Clinton, Truman, Warren G Harding and Andrew Johnson all downsized the military. Interesting points of history, all.
It's 2006, people. I don't care who did what in the past. We've had more than enough time to fix, or begin fixing, the problem. Trying to pass the blame off on past administrations would have been a legitimate gripe in 2001. Now it's just embarassing.
According to one of your crack reporters, just two days ago, it “can fly at 60,000 feet, twice as high as any other plane.”
Exactomundo!
I don't believe that's the case. I think in his mind there is a genuine advantage to keeping the military small and lethal, as the transformationists in the Pentagon want. I don't think he's afraid; I just think he's wrong.
If you really believe that our President would send troops in to a long battle without asking for what he thought they needed, simply because he was afraid of some greaseballs in Congress, you should be demanding his resignation. I don't really think you believe that, though. This sounds more like an excuse than a reason.
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