There’s been a debate going on over at Winds of Change on the subject of “building up our military”. Robin Burk argues “No” since technology is an effective force multiplier. Marc Danziger (Armed Liberal) argues “Yes”. I think that, if we’re going to man large forces in places all over the world and meet the other obligations we’ve undertaken, we’ll have to.
A study commissioned by the Pentagon apparently agrees with AL:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a “thin green line” that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.
Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon’s decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.
As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army’s 2005 recruiting slump – missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 – and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.
“You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue,” he said in an interview. He added that the Army is still a highly effective fighting force and is implementing a plan that will expand the number of combat brigades available for rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 136-page report represents a more sobering picture of the Army’s condition than military officials offer in public. While not released publicly, a copy of the report was provided in response to an Associated Press inquiry.
Illustrating his level of concern about strain on the Army, Krepinevich titled one of his report’s chapters, “The Thin Green Line.”
He wrote that the Army is “in a race against time” to adjust to the demands of war “or risk ‘breaking’ the force in the form of a catastrophic decline” in recruitment and re-enlistment.
Col. Lewis Boone, spokesman for Army Forces Command, which is responsible for providing troops to war commanders, said it would be “a very extreme characterization” to call the Army broken. He said his organization has been able to fulfill every request for troops that it has received from field commanders.
Let me be very clear: I don’t believe in a larger army but I also don’t believe in all the troop commitments we’ve got. And I also believe that we need a much better tooth-to-tail ratio. But we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. You can’t get blood out of a stone.
UPDATE: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is answering questions about the report right now. He’s emphasizing readiness, the improvement of tooth-to-tail, and battle-hardenedness. I’ll provide a link when it’s available. And here it is. Here’s the most relevant part:
Q Mr. Secretary, you and General Pace and other leaders in the Pentagon have said — in the past year have said that the Army is not only not broken, but not even close to being broken.
And yet former Defense Secretary Perry issued a report today on the Hill which says, as other reports on the outside, that the U.S. military ground forces have been placed under enormous strain by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so much so that potential adversaries could be tempted to challenge the United States. It says — he said at a press conference that if the strain is not relieved, that it will have highly corrosive and long-term effects on the military. And this report warns of looming crises in recruiting new troops and retaining current ones that threatens the viability of the all-volunteer military, and cites critical equipment shortfalls in the Army and National Guard. How do you respond —
SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I haven’t read the report, Charlie. But from what you’ve said, it’s clear that those comments do not reflect the current situation. They are either out of date or just misdirected.
The — there’s no question but that if a country is in a conflict — and we are in the global war on terror — that it requires our forces to do something other than what they do in peacetime. And so if one thinks that a wartime force is the same as a peacetime force, they obviously are wrong.
The issue of recruiting and retention — retention is up and recruiting — against higher goals than previously because we’re increasing the size of the ground forces — the recruiting against them have met their goals — these higher goals, I believe, every one of the last seven months.
The force is not broken. The implication in what you said is also, I think, almost backwards in this sense: the world saw the United States military go halfway around the world and in a matter of weeks throw the al Qaeda and Taliban out of Afghanistan, in a landlocked country thousands and thousands of miles away. They saw what the United States military did in Iraq, and the message from that is not that this armed force is broken, but that this armed force is enormously capable.
Second, I would say that it is not only capable of functioning in a very effective way and therefore ought to increase the deterrent rather than weaken it; in addition, it’s battle-hardened and it is not a peacetime force that has been in barracks or garrisons.
It is a force that has been deployed, functioned effectively and, as I say, battle hardened. So while I haven’t read it, I think that it’s a misunderstanding of the situation and —
