Free Republic

NATIONAL SECURITY: THE NATIONAL GUARD IN CRISIS Disagreement Over Guard's Future Results in Gridlock BY DAVID WOOD And HARRY ESTEVEc.2005 Newhouse News Service The deepening stress on the Army National Guard is going to take some extraordinarily difficult political work and compromise to resolve. There's little sign of it happening. The Guard is overused, poorly equipped and losing manpower. The new requirements and expectations being heaped on it -- foreign combat missions, domestic counterterrorism responsibilities -- mean something's got to be done, soon. ``We have little time to spare," said Frank Hoffman, a senior strategist at the Marine Corps...

ON FIGHTING A 16-DIVISION WAR WITH A 10-DIVISION FORCE >by Keith W. Mines > >March 8, 2005 > >Keith W. Mines recently retired from the U.S. Army reserves >after 22 years of active, reserve, and National Guard >service, including military and civilian assignments in >Grenada, Honduras, El Salvador, Israel, Somalia, Haiti, >Hungary, Afghanistan, and Iraq. A former intelligence >analyst, he currently serves as a Political Officer with the >U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. Mr. Mines is a founding member of >the Council on Emerging National Security Affairs (CENSA). >These views are decidedly his own and do not reflect U.S. >government policy....

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY 29 September 2003 by Dr. George Friedman The Unpredictability of War and Force Structure Summary In the United States' open-ended war against al Qaeda and militant Islam, two factors are driving up requirements for the size of the U.S. military. One is the unpredictability surrounding the number of theaters in which this war will be waged in the next two years, and the second is the type of warfare in which the United States is compelled to engage, which can swallow up huge numbers of troops in defensive operations. However, for several reasons, U.S. defense personnel policies...