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Walter Russell Mead, Michael Gordon, and Ronald Steel participate in a lunchtime discussion on U.S. foreign and defense policy.
"And Michael Gordon, who is somebody who all of us have learned a great deal from lately, and I hope will continue."
"We’re going to try to talk about where things are going, where American foreign and military policy is going, how it’s been changed by what’s happening in Iraq. And I’m going to ask both of our panelists to be prescriptive as well as predictive, a little bit."
"And I’d like to start with Michael and ask, where do you see, as a result of this war in Iraq—what impact is that having on sort of the Rumsfeld plans for transformation, American military doctrine? What use is the military making of the experience that it’s having over there?"
MICHAEL R. GORDON: Well, you know, the war, understandably, is having a huge impact on the military, particularly the ground forces. And they are, of necessity, changing the way they do things. It would have been better if some of these changes had been made several years ago but, you know, here’s where we are.
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GORDON: Well, you know, the Army generals talk on—to their retired colleagues about increasing the Army, which is around 500,000 now, you know, anywhere from 50,000 to 60,000. That said, the Army doesn’t propose doing that formally. They’re trying to safeguard their modernization budget. I think if they could get, you know, more forces and all of the weapons in the pipeline, that they would take that. I’m not sure the administration’s prepared to give them that, because there are trade-offs there."
If in fact, this was a story to get added forces/money, and the graph would be made public to influence a decision to deploy said numbers which has been consistently denied in the past by Bush/Rumsfeld as necessary, whereas; Gordon might be doing a favor for a specific General by inserting this classified story on the need for more focus on the number of troops to get the job done...a Democratic talking point.
Sorry, too tierd to do more tonight..maybe someone else can pick up, discard or cover another aspect.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11680/iraqs_impact_on_the_future_of_us_foreign_and_defense_policy.html