Posted on 12/14/2006 5:55:20 PM PST by KantianBurke
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As President Bush weighs new strategies for Iraq, the Army's top general warned Thursday that his force "will break" without thousands more active duty troops and greater use of the reserves.
Noting the strain put on the force by operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the global war on terrorism, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said he wants to grow his half-million-member Army beyond the 30,000 troops already added in recent years. Though he didn't give an exact number, he said it would take significant time, commitment by the nation, noting some 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers could be added per year.
Officials also need greater authority to tap the National Guard and Reserve, long ago set up as a strategic reserve but now needed as an integral part of the nation's deployed forces, Schoomaker told a commission studying possible changes in those two forces. "Over the last five years, the sustained strategic demand ... is placing a strain on the Army's all-volunteer force," Schoomaker told the commission in a Capitol Hill hearing.
"At this pace ... we will break the active component" unless more reserves can be called up to help, Schoomaker said in prepared remarks.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Schoomaker said Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, is looking at several military options for the war, including shifting many troops from combat missions to training Iraqi units.
The Army in recent days has been looking at how many additional troops could be sent to Iraq, if the president decides a surge in forces would be helpful. But, officials say, only about 10,000 to 15,000 troops could be sent and an end to the war would have to be in sight because it would drain the pool of available soldiers for combat.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Where'd you get that? If that were true we would only have 2000 or so troops going on patrol and I know that we have more than that who go out. Anyway, I'd like to know what a REMF is in Iraq? On our FOB at least 60% of the troops went on regular patrols, the rest pulled tower duty or were cooking or turning wrenches. Whether it was platoon route clearance every morning and evening, the support platoon doing LOGPACs or a or MEDCAP missions so that kids could see the doc we kept the roads hot and that was only one Cav squadron.
Technically, yes, and I agree with your premise. Here's where that ship has run aground, though.
The idea behind the Army transformation is to create a light, mobile, lethal force. One that will tear apart other conventional military forces fast, accurately, and with minimal casualties. Even in it's semi-transformed state, that's what we saw in 2003 against Saddam's army. The Pentagon wants a force that can do that against anyone. Like, say, China.
Having a large mass of light fighters, against their large mass of light fighters, runs the risk of high casualties. That's why the brass, increasingly gunshy of the media, is averse to the idea.
What we're starting to see is that the enemy doesn't have to lie down and play dead, just because Force XXI shot all of it's tanks from 2 miles away. Our light, lethal, agile force is death incarnate against enemy armor, but it isn't heavy enough to occupy and enforce our will on a resisting populace. That takes boots, and lots of them.
So, cost savings aside, we need more ground pounders, especially of the SOF variety. Not peacekeepers, not warfighters, but surgical instruments of U.S. power. People who can actually accomplish United States foreign policy objectives once major combat operations stop, and the tough work of winning the peace starts.
We never want to lose the 'death incarnate' conventional power. It's the best thing our tax dollars go to, hands down. We just need to add useful components, like the light fighters you mention, to round out our capabilities. Spending three years losing what you won in three weeks is a hard thing to do. It didn't have to be this way.
"As part of the effort to relieve the strain on the force, the Army is developing plans to accelerate the creation of two new combat brigades, The Associated Press has learned."
Two brigades. Freaking brilliant.
Keeping in mind that a brigade may be composed of a Regiment or two. Something less than 3,450 troops or so. At the outside, not counting REMF's this is 7,000 combat troops. To train Hezbullah Shiites.
The more relevant question is, "Does Schoomaker want to continue allowing Iran to dish it out to Iraq?" Or would he like to do what General Patton would have done (put down the growing Iranian source of problems)?
Actually I think this is exactly what Rummy had in mind, but it won't work. The Army is not just the Marine Corps writ large. The Marines were always intended for expeditionary warfare in support of the Navy. Now they have adapted to a variety of mission quite well, but their TO&E still reflects that expeditionary nature. The Army has to meet a variety of roles as challenges change: right now there is no force on force threat, but in 10 years we might be up against China and we'll need experienced armor troops and those can't be made overnight.
Well said.
that might be necessary at some point in the near future.
It's no accident that the U.S. lost the ability to have a substantial portion of its population in uniform once we gave @ssholes like Kristol any credibility to make statements like this about U.S. military and foreign policy.
Yeah, but "ground pounders" are useless if they've been reduced to little more than a well-armed Peace Corps.
There is never a "peace dividend." Something always comes along after all these so called cuts and we pay for it. Many of us felt after Gulf War I when the cuts started, and they started sending troops home to the USA and not back to Germany and cutting divisions, that it was a very bad move. We felt that at some point, sooner or later, we were going to pay for it. And, we have. We have over extended our people, they are doing long deployments without enough time to refit and rest up. Some on 3d or 4th tours to Iraq. EVERYTIME we cut forces and equipment, it costs more to bring it all back when we need it again. The so called LEADERSHIP in D.C. continue to make the same mistakes, decade after decade. They just never, ever learn.
Thank you, General (salute!)
Not only did it work. It worked magnificently.
Not only did it fail, it failed spectacularly. Here is why.
The military victory our forces achieved in Iraq is unprecedented in the history of warfare with regard to invading a hostile nation guarded by an entrenched defense with numerically superior forces. The insurgency we are now fighting is an entirely different battle.
Simply put, Iraq is not secured. What you have stated above is an example of the phrase, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Yes, we brought the big hammer, and smashed Saddam's army magnificently. Nailed 'em. Unfortunately, just because we're good at something doesn't mean that it's all we need. The Army doesn't like counterinsurgencies. It likes fighting other tanks and troops. It's good at it. After Vietnam, it got out of the counterinsurgency business to focus on core competency; killing other maneuver units.
That's great, and against the Soviets, a solid decision. The only problem is that our current enemies don't form maneuver units, and don't need to. They don't play our game. It's like trying to hit nails made of soft rubber into a board, but we keep on hammering, because it's all we know how to do.
Your argument is that since the enemy has failed to field a maneuver force that can beat ours, we win. Rules like that are an obtuse vanity we hold ourselves to, but our happily enemies ignore. Victory is determined by who exercises political their will on the other, regardless of how they get it done. We need a force that's capable of doing so, and we need to rethink how we score our games.
And if history proves anything, it proves you cannot defeat an insurgency by trying to overwhelm it with superior numbers of conventional forces.
You can't hammer it down, if that's what you're implying, but more conventional forces coupled with smart policies, cultural awareness and SOF tactics can work wonders.
Many of us felt after Gulf War I when the cuts started,...
The cuts started earlier than that. I was released in '88 under Bush I then called back for DS. That "Peace Dividend" was great wasn't it?
You are right on about leadership however. What a mess.
Patton is my name.
Mainly my cuts is about the draw backs in Europe and sending all those people back to the US. There was no place for them, many were let go.
How to keep the tail from consuming the teeth, so to speak? Our military is so bureaucratic.
GEN Patton was killed by a bump in the road, in occupied germany. You ever stop and think, maybe that bump was an IED?
Me too, ets in '88 after not making a promotional gate. There was still a Patton (son) in the army then.
One reason the US Army has been so successful in war is because it has an enormous logistics capability, an enormous training capability, and an enormous bureaucracy.
It is the bureaucracy that needs to have its slots justified in detail slot by slot.
It's not the divisions that are needed....it's the balls to let them FIGHT THE WAR in a NORMAL manner.....kill people, break things!
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