Army Navy Games
Micheal O'Hanlan wrote an Op Ed in the post last Friday I had been waiting for. I wasn't waiting for his piece A Matter of Force -- and Fairness
(washingtonpost.com) necessarily, or in particular. I just wanted a
front section analysis piece on the state of the Army. If not
from the Washington Post then from one or another of the dreadnaughts
of the 4th estate. O'Hanlan has a gig over at the Brookings Inst. Iraq Index
I want to return to a moment in the debate last Thursday. President
Bush was trying to lambast Sen. Kerry for his glib slogan 'Wrong war
Wrong time Wrong country'. Which he repeated a number of times, then
followed with his own canned retort that this was no way to lead, that
it wasn't something that a commander in chief should say. First of all
this doesn't make the neccesary distinction that at the moment Sen.
Kerry is not commander in chief, he is engaged in seeking the
presidency which requires that he speak to differences in policy and
approach. To critisize. Moreover, I don't recall ever falling to
the ground and
curling up catotonic into a fetal position based on what anybody in
"higher" places thought felt or said. To the degree I felt the need to
be served by them, when I was a serviceman in the U S Navy, I liked it
best when I thought they had a clue. Occaisionaly that happened. I
don't want to suggest the President or anyone is in severe delusional
state concerning the service man's or woman's need for his input.
Looming far larger to the service man is the transcendant grounding you
have in the military: you have the work. you have a sense of duty that
extends far beyond the job description of a given billet. An ideal of
professionalism. A pragmatic centering on attacking the problem at hand.
You can see this in the recent turn around towards engaging the
insurgents in cities like Sammarra, Fallujah, and Etcetera US, Iraq Weigh major new offensives |
csmonitor. The political interest may have been not to have a spike in
fighting or american casualties in the run up to our election. The U S
military in Iraq understands it cannot cede cities for any legnth of
time to the insurgency. Certainly not and have any hope for a valid
Iraqi national election, which increasingly everything hangs on. It is
also notable that this fighting when it occurs has achieved
considerable local success which speaks to the quality and training of
American service personnel.
Along with this though there is the steady undercurrent of stories of
how stressfull and difficult this fight is. There is the bleak fact
that this war has cost the lives of over a thousand soldiers, marines
and sailors. The army is paying attention to this: Army May Reduce Length of Tours in Combat Zones
| NY Times. One of the very real questions in all this: is the U S
military over-extended. The Army has 10 active and 8 reserve
divisions around 485,000 personnel, the Marine corps another 175,000 in
a further 3 divisions (paired with a marine airwing). It used to be
thought this force level was adequate to fight one major war and an
additional regional war simultaniously. I recall being concerned when I
was in the 7th fleet that the Chinese launching an assualt across the
straits of Taiwan was considered a regional war scenario. With 140,000
troops still in Iraq at a time when the plan was to have this number
down to 40 or 50 thousand, its clear that force planning is strained.
Within a month the major units involved in Iraq will all have been
there twice. Much of this pressured rotation is simply a effect of a
more careful rotation being thrown into the shredder. It has
neccesitated a temporary inflation of the military by 25,000. This is
accomplished through stop-loss orders and activating portions of
the reserve not normally activated, but also through some fairly
agressive tactics on the Military's part towards its own personnal: see
Soldiers say they are being threatened with Iraq duty | metafilter. It may or may, not point towards raising the baseline force size .
As O'Hanlon's piece notes the critical measures are the rates of
retention and new enlistments. it is seen that as long as these
numbers. stay firm the all volunteer military can remain - volunteer (House Crushes Military Draft Bill (Reuters)). I
wonder further; though, who it is that is committing and
re-committing. This is a juncture point where if some
constitute portion of the American population demonstrates a preference
towards military service at a time of great strain, the make up and
nature of the US Military can change in a very small time frame. Todays
military seems better educated - outside of my rating and a few others
the number of people with high school degrees fell off rapidly. It also
is getting to be a decidedly southern enterprise. though in regard to
the American population of the South and West well balanced. The
question is to what degree does the military need to bear a resemblance
to the nation at whole, before it becomes more of an internal mercenary
force rather than a national military.
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