How Many Ground Troops Does The U.S. Need?

Real Clear Politics ^ | May 10, 2007 | Austin Bay

[gpapa]

How many ground troops does the United States need?

Answering that question depends on your vision of the future -- specifically, the military challenges the United States will face over the next 10 to 15 years.

An "old future" provides some perspective on the current debate over U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps "end strength" (Pentagonese for the number of active duty personnel authorized by Congress).

Let's return to 1990, just before Saddam invaded Kuwait. The U.S. Army had around 750,000 soldiers on active duty; the U.S. Marine Corps had 197,000 Marines. That same year, the U.S. population broke 250 million. Today, the U.S. population is slightly over 300 million.

[neverdem]

IMHO, expand active duty end stength and the reserve components.

[napscoordinator]

750,000 soldiers on active duty. That seems awful high.

[river rat]

Not many -— If we refuse to put “boots on the ground” until AFTER the enemy’s homes, cities and infrastructure have been reduced to a single layer of rubble...

[JoeGar]

Gates also advocates expanding the Marine Corps' active force 27,000, from 175,000 to 202,000 Marines.

When I was in the Marines in 1968, it had 488,000 on active duty.

[GreatOne]

I don't know about overall size, but I have a relative presently serving in the Middle East who says we need at least 300,000 troops in Iraq to do what needs to be done.

One of Bush/Rumsfeld's biggest mistakes was not re-building the military after 9/11 back to pre-Clinton levels. Would be tough to do now.

[neverdem]

750,000 soldiers on active duty. That seems awful high.

In the late 1960s, about 1.5 million were on active duty in the U.S. Army, not counting our reserve components. About 550,000 members of the U.S. Armed Forces were in or stationed about South Vietnam. We had in South Vietnam at least the equivalent of 8 Army divisions, i.e. 1st Cav, 1st ID, 4th ID, 9th ID, 23rd ID, i.e. the Americal Division, 25th ID, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile), including non-divisional units such as the 173rd Airborne Brigade, the 1st Brigade, 5th ID (Mech),(Sep) and the 9th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and 2 Marine divisions, the 1st and 3rd, at the height of our troop strength in IndoChina.

Would you prefer to be perceived as the losers in the Middle East also? ID means Infantry Division. Having been assigned to four of those units does help explain my familiarity. BTW, are you a woman?

[Non-Sequitur]

bump

[keats5]

I’m beginning to think all our young people of fighting age should be trained and armed, like Israel. Our government isn’t protecting our borders and eventually, we may need to protect ourselves from our government.

[Phlap]

The answer is, as many, or, as few, as it takes.

[napscoordinator]

I believe you misinterpreted my post big time. I don’t know where or why you thought I was complaining because that could not be further from the truth. I am in the military and find it disappointing that you would think that I have something against my livelihood. I was asking a simple question that obviously touched a nerve somehow. Oh I am a guy by the way.

[Jim Verdolini]

What is that, about a quarter of 1% of the population...sounds a bit lean to me, especially if we have to deal with China in the next decade or so.

[AFPhys]

I have always believed that each and every American, when they become 17.5yo, should be required to register. At that time, they must designate a two year period between 18 and 26yo that they will perform national service - service with starting pay and duties comparable to an enlisted serviceman (if no college) or to a starting officer (if college). They would advance from there on merit, and in a comparable manner to the military. Very stringent requirements would have to be met to change the designation.

Many of these people would wind up BEING military, I suspect, but I would not exclude other government sector jobs from this pool of workers. I would also support a concept that everyone be given some minimal level of weapons training.

Among the benefits: the military would probably be better thought of by more Americans. There would be no such thing as “contentious objector status.” Everyone would have to serve and get involved in helping their country right from the early years of their life, and that would certainly aid interest in the political scene and political literacy. Low level government jobs would not be given exorbitant pay, since there would be a continuing low level talent influx. Everyone would have some real “job experience” early in life.

Sure, the devil is in the details, but I believe such a concept would be workable, and beneficial to America.

[neverdem]

I believe you misinterpreted my post big time.

You wrote: "750,000 soldiers on active duty. That seems awful high."

Explain yourself, if you please? Thanks for your service!

[Mr. Jeeves]

Big armies make big targets.

[napscoordinator]

I think what I thought was that they were saying there is 750,000 Soldiers in the Army right now. As I have been reading more information, I think they were saying that in 1990 there were 750,000. Since then they downsized the Army big time and now maybe 400,000 are in. I think going up to a million would be a good thing or as high as it takes to get the War on Terror complete and successful. Thanks for your post!!!!!

[neverdem]

IIRC, active duty end strength for the U.S.Army was about 485,000 soldiers with a temporary authorization for another 30,000 more. That's not counting the reserve components, i.e. the Army Reserve, mostly combat support and combat service support units, and the Army National Guard, mostly combat units, that have been called to active duty. Altogether, if the whole Army was mobilized, they can muster about 1.1 million troops.

Full mobilization of all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces gets about 2.1 million uniformed service members. I'm not sure if that includes the U.S. Coast Guard, which switches from the Department of Transportation to the U.S. Navy in time of war, IIRC. I don't believe it does.