Posted on 08/17/2003 10:14:50 PM PDT by xzins
Even before 9/11 and Americas global war on terrorism, U.S. military leaders argued that force levels needed to rise, or worldwide commitments needed to fall, to avoid wearing out troops and creating personnel shortfalls.
Two years, two wars and two prolonged U.S. occupation forces later, the strain on forces is broader and deeper than at any time since an all-volunteer force began 30 years ago.
The Bush administration has kicked the pace of operations into overdrive with the war in Iraq, on top of Afghanistan, homeland security, peacekeeping in Liberia and rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Still, the administration balks at the cost of expanding active forces beyond 1.37 million. Before he would endorse that, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he wants the services to ease deployment stress through bureaucratic reforms, by assigning and rotating troops more efficiently.
Indeed, said Rumsfeld at an Aug. 5 press conference, we can use the stress on the force to get our act together and to do a better job managing the taxpayers money managing our force in a way thats more respectful of the Guard and Reserve and their employers and their families.
As the issue simmers inside the Pentagon, a rising chorus outside of auditors, defense analysts and advocates for military families suggest the administration already is late in pressing Congress for more people, given the dangerous and daunting contingencies U.S. troops now face.
A new General Accounting Office report (03-670) looks at the strain on U.S. forces just from new domestic missions since 9/11, and criticizes Defense officials for delaying force structure changes to address homeland security needs until the next Quadrennial Defense Review in 2005.
The administration did establish a U.S. Northern Command to coordinate domestic operations, and an office of assistant defense secretary for homeland defense to supervise that responsibility.
But because forces arent tailored to perform missions such as domestic combat air patrols and installation security, training is stunted and readiness is eroding, GAO said.
Meanwhile, the pace of operations for units involved in homeland defense is high enough that thousands of military personnel are exceeding personnel tempo ceilings set by Congress to protect troop morale. As a result, GAO warned, they face future personnel retention problems.
Michael OHanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, studied the troop rotation plan for Iraq, which would maintain current force levels using replacement brigades that will serve there for up to a year. Despite that hardship, reminiscent of combat tours in Vietnam, OHanlon said the Armys rotation base could be exhausted by late 2004.
That means we will have to take the unthinkable step of sending back to Iraq people who returned from there a year before, said OHanlon. Many American soldiers, as dedicated as they are, will choose not to re-enlist rather than accept such an unpalatable and frankly, unfair demand upon them and their families.
In announcing the Iraq force rotation plan, Gen. John Keane, deputy chief of staff, discussed an Army stretched thin. He said 24 of the 33 active brigades or 73 percent deployed overseas in fiscal 2003, along with 15 of 45 Army National Guard enhanced battalions.
In July alone, 369,000 U.S. soldiers were overseas, including 61,000 reservists and 74,000 Guard members. The largest deployments left 133,000 soldiers in Iraq, 34,000 in Kuwait, 31,000 in South Korea, 9,600 in Afghanistan and 5,100 in the Balkans.
Another 29,000 were deployed stateside, away from family, on homeland security missions.
Meredith Leyva, author of Married to the Military: A Survival Guide, and wife of a Navy physician, wrote in a recent commentary that resentment among servicemembers and their families, at the now-unbearable pace of deployments, can hardly be contained by their commanding officers, even though such comments can end their careers.
Comments are welcomed. Write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA 20120-1111, e-mail milupdate@aol.com or visit Philpotts Web site at: www.militaryupdate.com.
Why does the Army NOT increase it's size: it costs 60,000 a year to put a new troop on the ground. I would say we need a 17 division Army, with 3 of those on permanent Border Guard duty to preserve Homeland Security.
Most call for a 40,000 troop increase. Do the math. That's 2.5 billion bucks more per year.
Why not just take that old "peace dividend" (remember that) and put that money formerly spent on troops back into troops? Because the politicians want to institute a 400 billion dollar prescription drug entitlement that will forever suck up that old "peace dividend" money.
I estimated after 9-11 that, if we went to war (good move, GWB!) that we would require a ground force of ten million.
I told both of my sons to figure on a draft if they did not enlist.
I still think this was correct. The idea that Trashcanistan and Iraq will become self-governing, non-threatening states without Germany and Japan-style occupation governments is absurd.
The belief that we will not need to (or be forced into) other engagements while the bulk of our combat power is tied up in South Asia and Iraq is foolish and dangerous.
I pray for the President every day, and I hope I am wrong-but I don't think I am.
This president has my support. But I will speak what I KNOW to be true.
There are 2 ways that I know of to retain these overworked forces. (1) Add a significant number of troops to ease the deployment burden. (2) Raise their pay so DRAMATICALLY that they simply cannot leave such largesse.
The better of those 2 choices is to increase the size of the Army.
Everyone should note that the other services have a different mission statement that has already taken many of them HOME.
The army SHOULD be much larger because it is the Army that has the mission and has ALWAYS had the mission of PEACEMAKING AND PEACEKEEPING once the phase of intense combat is over.
I am not so worried about the impact of the Administration's force structure decisions on those who are serving now.
I am worried about their impact on the defense of the nation.
We are in a dangerous era of history...and we have dangerous enemies who are setting themselves up economically, politically and militarily (and sadly, we are helping them do it) to take abject advantage of current conditions and pose a deadly challenege to our liberty.
I pray it does not come about, but I know we had best keep our eyes open and prepare.
We have ten partially-manned divisions. We have five active SF groups, fielding teams that are at about 80% strength. But we have over 150,000 clerks of one type or another. The army has almost 50,000 enlisted personnel clerks alone. Versus about 35,000 infantry (from privates to generals, including thousands that aren't serving in infantry jobs).
Right now, all those clerks are needed because the personnel system is so bureaucratic and backward. The whole system needs to be overhauled (with most of the clerk stuff contracted out) to get those personnel spaces back.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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