Less Is Not More
Austin Bay and Phil Carter debate military preparedness, only it’s not much of a debate. Resolved: the U.S. Army needs to be bigger. It’s needed to be bigger for a long time. The new Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey, is trying to speed up the current inadequate plans to make the Army larger.
This is not simply a matter for having more troops to deal with Iraq and Afghanistan, although that is also true. It is about having more to deal with rising threats in Iran, North Korea and China, problems which could require varying combinations of credible threat and actual force; air, sea and/or ground. Donald Rumsfeld and his love affair with transformation did us no favors. Technical upgrades and re-thinking how force is applied is necessary, particularly with a problem like China, but we’ve relearned something we never should have forgotten. You still need grunts. No grunts, no can do.
Unfortunately, our leaders are too busy arguing over whether we should be fighting at all.
Next installment of Carter/Bay debate not posted yet, but should pop up here.
Topics: military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:07 am on Tuesday, May 1, 2007
5 Responses to “Less Is Not More”
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May 1st, 2007 at 11:52 am
The problem isn’t whether we need a bigger Army…the problem is whether we have the Demographcs to support a bigger Army.
Hidden in all the happy talk of the Army and Marines making their expanded recuiting goals…is that the Air Force and Marines cut back their goals by an equivalent number of slots.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Ah, we could just lower the standards necessary for enlistment (which we have done already to some extent). Let in more guys without a HS diploma or GED or more who score below a certain threshold on the ASVAB. When I went to boot camp lo those many moons ago there were plenty of guys who went off after chow to study for the GED. They’d have to be limited in the jobs they qualified for (at least on their first enlistment), but they’d probably make troops by and large.
I agree with Austin Bay that 650K active Army and 180K Marines is about right (plus more reserves-maybe 400K guard, 300K Army reserve and 50K Marine Reserve). Plus we should be spending about 5% of GNP on defense.
David Hackworth used to write about redundancy when he was still alive and a lot of what he said still makes sense-there’s no good reason why we can’t stretch our resources somewhat by reducing the redundancies that exist in the services. Just for example: there is no reason why we can’t train medics from all the services at one place (probably Ft. Sam) or MPs or lots of other basic services. There are some specializations that seem to fit this that might not work-Navy EOD guys, for example need to know how to blow stuff up just like all the other EOD guys, but they need to know how to do so underwater and so there training would be a little different, but the larger point is still valid.
As with many things though, there is an entrenched, and more to the point-self interested bureaucracy in place which is resistant to necessary change and God forbid we do away with any command thus eliminating a General officer slot (Hack used to love to point out that at the end of WWII we had 15 million men and 500 General officers, whereas today we have 2.5 million men and 500 General officers).
/rant
May 1st, 2007 at 5:27 pm
SoldiersDad wrote
“the problem is whether we have the Demographcs to support a bigger Army”
Demographics is a non-issue. Simply raise the pay enough and you will have soldiers in droves. America can easily afford to pay much more to lure potential soldiers. They should be paid more anyway.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Forgive me for raising a historical caveat: that of ancient Rome that began to rely on foreign troops for its survival until it fell. This precedent may be cogent, or it may not.
Most of the soldiers in Afghanistan that I sent care boxes to were Hispanic. I deliberately chose a unit that came from Texas (my home state), so naturally many of them would be Hispanic. But, as I investigated further, I discovered that much of the military is made up of Hispanics who do not have citizenship. In fact, military service is their way in. I don’t denigrate their service, or dispute their loyalty, but I question whether this is a viable, healthy way for a country to mount a defense: relying on soldiers whose basic culture and mother tongue do not support the country they are defending, and in fact, whose history (Mexico, in particular) reflect a basic territorial conflict.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 am
Demographics is a non-issue. Simply raise the pay enough and you will have soldiers in droves. America can easily afford to pay much more to lure potential soldiers. They should be paid more anyway.
Sorry, Brian, but demographics is THE issue. We have a healthy economy and a war time footing that does not repeat NOT have a general mobilization. Think WWII, where so many of the normal (mainly young male) workforce were drafted that women moved into industry.
That’s not the case here. We have an all volunteer force with relatively high standards; the primary recuriting pool is the same pool as the economy needs for that workforce. And that demographic pool is limited, given how our recent birth rates have a larger number of senior citizens, and a smaller number of people at the work force entry age (18-25, IIRC….BTW, this is why Social Security is taking a hit right now).
Pay helps, that’s for sure. But to pay someone, you have to recruit them first. The volunteers now serving, bless them, are sometimes foregoing well paid jobs, or at least comfortable jobs, to serve in the military, even with the possibility of combat.
So, literally, our economy helps fund the war, but keeps some people from volunteering, which impacts the war.
CavMedic offers some reasonable solutions (eliminate redundancy, lower standards somewhat, cut back on flag officers [heh!]), but as long as “America is at the mall”, this will be an issue.
And, no, I do NOT favor the draft. We don’t need it. But we do need to get serious about the war……and keep the military well funded and recruited up to strength.