Bush Will Expand Size of Military

[Frodo]

It's pretty much a done deal at this point, which is good news to those of us who aren't pacifists, antiwar activists, or wannabe hippies -now it is a question of by how much he plans to expand it.  McCain and others are urging that the Army be increased from around 510,000 to 600,000 personnel:
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Bush to Expand Size of Military

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 19, 2006; 4:18 PM

President Bush said today that he plans to expand the size of the U.S. military to meet the challenges of a long-term global war against terrorists, a response to warnings that sustained deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the armed forces to near the breaking point.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Bush said he has instructed newly sworn-in Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to report back to him with a plan to increase ground forces. The president gave no estimates about how many troops may be added but indicated that he agreed with suggestions in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill that the current military is stretched too thin to cope with the demands placed on it.

"I'm inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops -- the Army, the Marines," Bush said in the Oval Office session. "And I talked about this to Secretary Gates and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea."

The president's decision comes at a time when he is rethinking his strategy in Iraq and considering, among other options, a short-term surge in troop levels to try to secure violence-torn Baghdad. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are resisting the idea during internal debates in part out of the conviction that it will further strain already-pressed forces.

A substantial military expansion will take years and would not be meaningful in the near term in Iraq. But it would begin to address the growing alarm among commanders about the state of the armed forces. Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, warned Congress last week that the active-duty Army "will break" under the strain of today's war-zone rotations. Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that "the active Army is about broken."

The Army has already temporarily increased its size from 482,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 to 507,000 today and soon to 512,000. But the Army wants to make that 30,000-soldier increase permanent and then grow an additional 7,000 soldiers or more per year. The Army estimates that every 10,000 additional soldiers will cost about $1.2 billion a year.





 

[TheresNoMoney]

It's pretty much a done deal at this point, which is good news to those of us who aren't pacifists, antiwar activists, or wannabe hippies -

A better term for you is fringe-- as in the 23% who still support Bush's handling of the Iraq War and think we need to send in more troops.

Nice insults by the way against the majority of the country.......

[Frodo]

It's pretty much a done deal at this point, which is good news to those of us who aren't pacifists, antiwar activists, or wannabe hippies -

A better term for you is fringe-- as in the 23% who still support Bush's handling of the Iraq War and think we need to send in more troops.

Nice insults by the way against the majority of the country.......

A majority of this country opposes expanding the size of our military? 

[TheresNoMoney]

A majority of this country opposes expanding the size of our military? 

I'm not sure about that, but possibly so. But we both know that "expanding the size of the military" = sending more troops to Iraq.

[MODU]

It's about time someone listened.  We've been calling for a larger military ever since it was raped in the 90s.  All the high-tech toys in the world cannot replace the need for people in the theatre.  We need at least double what they are planning to add though.

[Rob]

Throwing even more money at the military won't do much to stem imperial decline.

[MODU]

Throwing even more money at the military won't do much to stem imperial decline.

That has nothing to do with it.  Our standing volunteer force was decimated due to budget cuts and post Persian Gulf War high.  The mindset of public flag officers and politicians was that we can do more with high-tech weapons than with people.  The US contingent in the Gulf War was more than double what it was in 2003.  That is completely unsat.

[Boris]

Throwing even more money at the military won't do much to stem imperial decline.

That has nothing to do with it.  Our standing volunteer force was decimated due to budget cuts and post Persian Gulf War high.  The mindset of public flag officers and politicians was that we can do more with high-tech weapons than with people.  The US contingent in the Gulf War was more than double what it was in 2003.  That is completely unsat.

Maybe I'm a moron, but for what specific situations will we need a larger military force than we do now? A Korean Peninsula conflict would require a vast number of troops (from not just the U.S. and South Korea either; the European nations would have to chip in also), due to the fact that it would probably quickly turn into a war of attrition. But this article mentions that this is for dealing with terrorism. Within the context of the the "War Against Terrorism" or whatever you want to call it, what scenarios would an increased military be of use? For fighting in multiple locations at once (i.e. Afghanistan and Iraq)? With the way Iraq has gone, I honestly cannot envision the United States undertaking any large scale military actions within the Middle East for a long time. I'm no military strategist, but my common sense says that special forces and other small, elite military units will be doing most of the work in the near future.

[Colin]

Throwing even more money at the military won't do much to stem imperial decline.

Making yourself Emperor though, that'll stem the imperial decline.

[David S]

It's pretty much a done deal at this point, which is good news to those of us who aren't pacifists, antiwar activists, or wannabe hippies -now it is a question of by how much he plans to expand it.  McCain and others are urging that the Army be increased from around 510,000 to 600,000 personnel:

Will you be enlisting soon?

[GOP = Terrorists]

Will you be enlisting soon?

/\/\/\/\/\

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Will you be enlisting soon?

/\/\/\/\/\

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Maybe I'm a moron, but for what specific situations will we need a larger military force than we do now?

I can think of a number of places we could use the troops if we had them.  Even if we merely try to maintain our current commitments we need more troops, adn while more troops in Iraq might not be able to solve the mess there now, they could be of use in Afghanistan.  Then there's Somalia, Darfur, and Zimbabwe where it would nice to be able to at least have a credible threat of troop deployments to back up our diplomacy in the midst of humanitarian crises spurred along by tyrants, plus whatever unknown situation we find ourselves wishing we had troops to send in the next decade.

Actually Korea is one place where we probably don't need to worry about more troops right now.  When it comes to knocking out massed military formations, out air force is more than capable of doing the job, and if for some reason we try to occupy North Korea, it will be the South Koreans doing that.  I can't imagine that there would be much chance for an insurgency to develop in such a circumstance.

[MODU]

Throwing even more money at the military won't do much to stem imperial decline.

That has nothing to do with it.  Our standing volunteer force was decimated due to budget cuts and post Persian Gulf War high.  The mindset of public flag officers and politicians was that we can do more with high-tech weapons than with people.  The US contingent in the Gulf War was more than double what it was in 2003.  That is completely unsat.

Maybe I'm a moron, but for what specific situations will we need a larger military force than we do now? A Korean Peninsula conflict would require a vast number of troops (from not just the U.S. and South Korea either; the European nations would have to chip in also), due to the fact that it would probably quickly turn into a war of attrition. But this article mentions that this is for dealing with terrorism. Within the context of the the "War Against Terrorism" or whatever you want to call it, what scenarios would an increased military be of use? For fighting in multiple locations at once (i.e. Afghanistan and Iraq)? With the way Iraq has gone, I honestly cannot envision the United States undertaking any large scale military actions within the Middle East for a long time. I'm no military strategist, but my common sense says that special forces and other small, elite military units will be doing most of the work in the near future.

You're not a moron, but the purpose of a standing army is to protect the nation from future attacks.  Right now we've had to tap into our national guard troops to perform the role of the standing army, and we're involved in only two small operations (yes, they are small compared to what our military is suppose to be able to sustain).  The army is suppose to be able to sustain a large two-front war.  Right now we cannot meet that obligation since we reduced the funding of the military and redirected funds that would have paid for an extra 100K troops and placed it into high-tech weapons.  Now, we do need these weapons to maintain the strategic advantage, but we also need the people to use them.

[Wakie]

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that 2 years ago there was a Presidential candidate who called for expanding the military and it was scoffed at by the then President and Sec of Defense.

[MODU]

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that 2 years ago there was a Presidential candidate who called for expanding the military and it was scoffed at by the then President and Sec of Defense.

No one said that Kerry was wrong on all points . . . just most of them. 

[Wakie]

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that 2 years ago there was a Presidential candidate who called for expanding the military and it was scoffed at by the then President and Sec of Defense.

No one said that Kerry was wrong on all points . . . just most of them. 

Kerry wasn't perfect but I would argue that after 2 additional years of Bush we have seen nothing but a steady downward slide of the American condition.

[adam]

Great! It's good to hear that they are finally making a concious effort to rebuild our military strength.

Now, if only we could get them to focus on troop readiness and pay increases rather than on intergalactic space lazers...

[GOP = Terrorists]

Now, if only we could get them to focus on troop readiness and pay increases rather than on intergalactic space lazers...

True Story.

[CPT MikeyMike]

Now, if only we could get them to focus on troop readiness and pay increases rather than on intergalactic space lazers...

True Story.

[Boris]

You're not a moron, but the purpose of a standing army is to protect the nation from future attacks.  Right now we've had to tap into our national guard troops to perform the role of the standing army, and we're involved in only two small operations (yes, they are small compared to what our military is suppose to be able to sustain).  The army is suppose to be able to sustain a large two-front war.  Right now we cannot meet that obligation since we reduced the funding of the military and redirected funds that would have paid for an extra 100K troops and placed it into high-tech weapons.  Now, we do need these weapons to maintain the strategic advantage, but we also need the people to use them.

I understand what you're saying, but aren't you establishing a cold war doctrine to the 21st century? IIRC, the two ability to sustain two wars was based on a hypothetical  Warsaw Pact vs. NATO World War III, in which the United States would have to defend Western Europe and some other strategic point that the USSR would need to take, such as South Korea or parts of the Middle East. With no Cold War, I fail to see how that doctrine is  still relevant.

But yeah, I see what you're saying. Our army is streched far too thin with our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, with National Guard troops doing things, they well, shouldn't be doing. I think that this expansion would have been more prudent before invading Iraq, however.

[MODU]

But yeah, I see what you're saying. Our army is streched far too thin with our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, with National Guard troops doing things, they well, shouldn't be doing. I think that this expansion would have been more prudent before invading Iraq, however.

That's why I constantly reference the post Gulf War high.  People (flag officers and politicians) saw how effective our high-tech weapons were against "the largest army" in the world that they decided to reallocate funds from personnel to weapons.  What they forget is that we had half a million US troops on the ground as well.  This parallels the military following WWII.  For the longest time people (flag officers and politicians) thought that we only needed an air force and some hydrogen bombs for a military following the quick surrender of Japan.  It took a while to realize then that manpower was still required.  Why the gutting of our US personnel in the 1990s wasn't stopped when a simple glance at history should have been a wake-up call, I'll never know.

[opebo]

Obviously the only reason a large military is 'needed' is for imperial adventures which are only in the interests of a tiny elite in the US.