I would also say that much of the mundane activities are “outsourced”, leaving more personnel for direct action. The old 7 support for 1 warrior may still exist or even be greater, but many are now contracted. That is also why we have the Halliburton stories in the media

Why bother deploying more horse cavalry against machine guns? Or smashing a fly with a hammer?

Technology will play an ever increasing part in conflict. It's also important to develop new thought processes as we encounter new threats.

There is another thing that does not seem to garner much attention...we have a very high percentage of our armed forces which now has actual experience in combat or combat zones. Battle testing is the truest measure of a fighting force.

Robin,

I agree with Armed Liberal here. There is no technological substitute for armed bodies on the ground. It has been obvious for years that we'll end up occupying much of the Middle East. I called that in my first Strategy Page column three years ago - One Invasion Won't Be Enough.

Well, for some jobs there IS a substitute. That's the whole point of my mentioning specific applications of UAVs and UGVs.

The technology vs. armed bodies dichotomy is a false one overall, however. I did not say we would REPLACE troops with technology. I said we are significantly multiplying the power and effectiveness of each troop through technology.

Comparisons of troop strength at different times can be misleading if you don't take into account the real capabilities per troop of the force at each period. Today we have lower echelon officers making decisions that used to be reserved, not too long ago, to full colonels. They can do that in part because of information technologies deployed on the battlefield and backed up by doctrine and training. And we have small teams of enlisted and NCOs using UAVs to perform recon and surveillance that once took dozens of infantry to accomplish.

That trend is going to accelerate quickly over the next few years.

I don't know if I agree with you or disagree re: occupying the middle east with large numbers of troops because I don't know what you want that occupation to accomplish. Not strategically, but at an operational and tactical level.

But Armed Liberal's charge that Bush has not built up our military over the last 4 years ignores the significant buildup of capabilities that has occurred and which is accelerating rapidly.

On your topic, Mr. Burk, I reviewed the end strength of the US military since 2000. It can be found at"

"The DOD website": http://www.dod.gov/execsec/adr2005.pdf

Of special note...

The number of ground forces (Army and Marine Corps) is increasing - rather slowly, but increasing. Additionally, we also seem to be stressing Active Duty rather than Reserves. That fits well with your analysis. Grow the force slowly, train them well, keep the edge...

I am trying to track the report that shows 2005 end strengths - the hyperlinked chart stops at FY2004. If I remember correctly, there was a +21,000 difference in Active Duty ground forces since FY2000. That is not chump change.

Sorry, here is the link (hopefully I will get it right):

The DOD website

The 'Service Size and Deployment Summary' chart is found on page 75.

I found these numbers last month on another DOD page - and that page included FY2005 which showed another increase in ground force strength.

Boghie,

That small increase in regular strength was imposed by Congress over the Bush administration's objections. The latter, and its opposition to larger increases, is due to its fictitious future budget estimates.

Robin,

We're not fighting the Soviets. This is low insurgency combat. Numbers of bodies are critical. That's why so many reserves have been called up.

Your model utterly fails when you consider the reserve callups. Those aren't specialists only. They're being used as line troops doing things that regulars should be doing.

The reserves are for contingencies and odd needs for particular specialities - in particular they are to provide a surge capability for conquest campaigns. Their use on long-term occupation duty absolutely, totally, proves that we don't have enough regulars.

Until you come out and say, and prove, that use of reserves for occupation duty is among their highest and best uses, you would be better off not drawing attention to this subject. Unless your objective is to show that Armed Liberal was right.

Mr. Holsinger,

FY2000
Army:
Active - 482,170
Reserve - 370,192
Guard - 357,257

Marine Corps:
Active - 173,321
Reserve - 99,855

FY2004
Active - 499,543
Reserve - 321,536
Guard - 345,056

Marine Corps:
Active - 177,480
Reserve - 98,952

And, my memory seems to jog that the Marine Corps now has a bit over 182,000 on Active duty. The active duty Army also grew in FY2005.

My guess is that the the Army ratio of 40% active duty and 60% reserve/guard was not considered optimal. The Marine Corps better than flips thos numbers. Is a 40/60 split really a surge force - or a job corps...

The Reserves will be the first to return, and will not be retained in the numbers prevalent in the Clinton administration.

It is interesting to note that we sent appx 10 of 20 divisions to fight Desert Storm. After Clinton and a willing congress (both sides) gutted the Army, only 10 divisions remain today. I wonder how much we really saved with our "peace dividend". Rebuilding the Army without a draft will be a slow process.

Super 6,

A draft would be worse than useless. We don't want a bunch of ill-trained 2-year enlistments out there. By the time they go through boot camp, infantry training, and weapons training they will only be on-line for 1 1/4 years or so.

Personally, I fit somewhere between Mr. Burk and Mr. Holsinger. We need more active duty ground forces. They are apparently growing at about 4,000 - 5,000 a year. I think more can be done on that requirement without draging more NCOs off the front lines. I know the Marine Corps dramatically modernized their personnel management systems over the past decade. My guess is the Army did the same. That was one of the few benefits of surviving the Clinton Legacy. Thus, recruit training could probably support summer recruit counts in their training battalions year around.

Boghie,

I do not advocate a draft, merely pointing out that the larger Army we once had (all volunteer by the way) would have been nice to have around today. I don't know how many troops we need, I defer to the military leaders. The current transformation of the Army will increase the number of combat brigade teams by ten. I just hate to see us playing catch up to the "size and configuration" we need.

Tom/AL and Robin are talking at cross-purposes, and are both right; it's the prewar Rumsfeld-Shinseki argument writ small. Robin (in Rumsfeld's corner here) is right that the fancy hi-tech stuff is a great force multiplier when it comes time to open up a can of whoopass. Tom and AL (in the Shinseki corner) are also right that there is no substitute for boots on the ground when it comes to occupations and nation-building. These are two seperate tasks that require two different approaches, which is why I'm a fan of Tom Barnett's idea of arranging the military along two parallel tracks -- Leviathan (big whoopass stick) and SysAdmin (everything else). It allows us to move beyond these kinds of unconstructive false dichotomies by bifurcating the issue into what should be done with two distinct militaries rather than One Method to Rule Them All. Right now I would side with Tom (both of them) and AL that the the Leviathan capability is more or less where it needs to be, and that the SysAdmin capacity is getting woefully shortchanged.

Super 6,

We should consider ourselves lucky that we don't look like the emasculated Canadian military after eight years of the Clinton Legacy.

Another four years of Clinton (whether the weak kneed Gore or the conflicted Kerry) and we would still be discussing bilateral extradition agreements with the Taliban.

We started 1988 with 20 Army divisions, were scheduled to reduce to 14 under the Bush I/Cheney plan, and got clobbered to 8 under Bubba.

Matt, the Marine Corps acts more like the SysAdmin Barnett talks about. The Army was too small, and poorly balances (see above) to carry the big stick in this conflict. Right now, the Corps is performing the SysAdmin tasks you are talking about.

Boghie,

IMO we need to return to 1980's ground force levels for both regulars and reserves - about 750,000 Army and 250,000 Marine regulars, plus reserves called up on an as needed basis for short term needs, notably surges for invasions and specialist fillers.

We're going to have a really long-term occupation force commitment in the oil areas along the south side of the Persian Gulf, plus Kuwait as a base. The Saud regime will go down in a few years. The plans for occupying the Saud's oil areas have been in the can for 30-35 years but, after the Saud collapse, we'll also occupy Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, plus possibly Oman or parts of it, as those will be overrun with refugees from what had been Saudi Arabia but will turn into a graveyard.

Here's an interview excerpt with John R. Bradley, author of Saudi Arabia Exposed:

"The invasion will come either because of internal instability or because Washington has decided to abandon the Al-Saud. The U.S. and British have had detailed invasion scenarios in place since the early 1970s, when the Saudis led an oil embargo against the west in support of the Palestinians. U.S. forces are there already, guarding the main oil installations. The U.S. could never risk the oil falling into the hands of its enemies, and if any rumblings of an Islamist revolution were heard, that could offer the pretext. The area itself is geographically contained, and very easy to secure. Within a few hours of a decision it would be American property."

I also expect us to be stuck with occupation duty, for at least a while, in Iran and Syria - it's just a question of when. But our occupation of the south Persian Gulf oil areas for a generation is IMO a certainty, probably starting in about five years.

I.e., I expect us to have a long-term occupation force in the Persian Gulf comparable in size to the one we had in Germany 1950-90, and possibly for almost as many years - until the oil there runs out or we don't need it anymore. Which means Cold War force levels for the Army and Marines.

This has been obvious since release of our National Security Strategy in June 2002.

Another take on 4GW here
Fourth Generation Warfare and Other Myths

Interesting thoughts........

Robin - the various commenters here have my position right, and so far I'll tsand by it...

The force multipliers are good at the whoopass/lethality thing, but not so good at the 'leather kidneys' thing (a friend just back said the most important thing for an officer was leather kidneys - you sit and drink a lot of tea and coffee with folks.

This is the Robert Kagan 'Imperial Grunt' thing, and there just isn't any substitute for boots to do that.

In reality, if we were to decide to invade Iran (which I'm still not tipping toward), we could easily defeat their military. But the whole occupation thing...

A.L.

A.L.,

It has been obvious for more than ten years that the U.S. can conquer more than it can hold. Iraq's Baathists were just the first to figure that out. They sort of had to reconquer Iraq from the Kurd & Shiite revolt in 1991, and made that their official strategy in 2003. It caught us by surprise.

Which means the "butcher and bolt" policy envisaged in the Atlantic article on Iran will run right into a mullah strategy of hiding out while we're there, and retaking power after we leave. It would exactly repeat the mistake of the first President Bush with Iraq in 1991. Even our present Bush can see that, which is why he won't do it.

The term "butcher and bolt" comes from Churchill's Malakand Field Force which I recommend. You'll understand how apt this term is when you read Churchill's story.

Bombing Iran will just kick the can down the road a la Bill Clinton terrifying camels with cruise missiles hitting empty tents. Let's Pretend We're Doing Something By Doing Damn Little While Talking Big About It.

And, as I pointed out, the mullahs might already have some nukes. So, when we bomb their nuclear enrichment facilities, they'll still do a nuclear test a few months later with one they had all along to prove that we didn't hurt 'em. This is what I think will happen.

There is nothing wrong with obliterating the Mullah's present nuclear capacity, and leaving actual regime change for another day.

We have a pre-existing strategy working in Iraq, which we hope will reverberate through the whole region. But that is going to take some time, before it acquires traction. So, until that policy takes hold and gains traction, take out the Mullah's Manhattan Project.

As for our force structure, many of you seem to be forgetting that we have other obligations, one of which is in a little place called Taiwan. We need at least 3 more divisions. And we need to pull our forces out of Europe, out of the Balkans, so as to have sufficient force where it is required.

Let the Europeans garrison Europe.

And another thing we need to do is to urge the Japanese to field a larger force.

Tom still hasn't told us exactly what tasks he envisions are required of an occupying force, other than drinking a lot of tea with Iraqi leaders.

It matters. Because some tasks do indeed need humans intensively. Other tasks are currently being done by humans but can be slowly replaced by a much smaller number of humans augemented with the right equipment -- even for occupation rather than major conflict, and certainly for homeland defense.

Whether or not we "occupy" "major portions of the middle east" for a long time, homeland defense will IMO be a major issue for our next few decades.

The current split of skills between active duty and reserve forces that was put in place after VietNam is an artifact of an old war and an old policy. However, it's a mistake to think that high tech will render the reservists less able to take up the roles that active duty plays. It depends a lot on the technologies and the doctrine adopted.

Re: the Rumsfeld x Shinseki disagreement, I wasn't there so there's some speculation as to the real content of their disagreement. However, from what I've read that each man has said, there were policy differences, not just tactical ones. Rumsfeld deliberately wanted to keep forces in Iraq to a minimum, in part to force the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own country. One imagines that has turned out to take longer than he either suspected or was willing to predict publicly.

There is a deeper balancing act involved in the introduction of new technologies. It's a question of timing: how much, how fast and with which units. The Army's culture is, in many ways, rather conservative. It's a large organization with many disparate parts that has a lot of processes and procedures in place for current doctrine. Army leaders are right to resist change that rips too much up at once.

However, change may be forced by external circumstances. A doctrine that says tank units come in 3s, two at the front and one in reserve to support them, is of limited use when the tanks are called on to patrol the streets of Baghdad - where there is no front, per se. We are looking at alinear battlefields for most of the last 3 years and for many years to come in many places, especially in the case of whatever constitutes any "occupation". But keep in mind that that itself is a result of policy choices. Had we wished, we could have leveled the city instead of patrolling it with minimal force.

Just to expand briefly on that, take a look at the Army's rather technology-aggressive plans for Future Combat Systems. Whether or not it is all implemented, it's useful to note that the Army leaders envision a large number of autonomous vehicles. That means - fewer soldiers driving supply trucks, fewer support roles for transportation and logistics.

But if you look at the FCS technologies envisioned for the soldiers themselves, you see a tenfold or greater increase in the soldier's access to real time info (including UAV and ground sensor surveillance data), firepower, control of robotic or semi-robotic armaments and other capabilities (including antitank weapons, forward observers and so on).

Now look at Tom's assumptions about what the reserves do / need to do and ask: how many of those reservists in combat arms will be more effective doing surveillance, patrols, support duties? And how many truckdrivers can be replaced entirely?

How fast that can occur and in what order is an open question - but not entirely open. Many parts of FCS, especially the soldier system of equipment, are pretty mature, waiting on the improvements in things like batteries to be fielded. Others, such as fully autonomous ground vehicles, are making great strides.

My own guess is that we will use these technologies heavily. The hard part is the transition, being done in the middle of geopolitical upheaval, operational deployment and corrosive rhetoric at home. It really is a balancing act and we may fail.

But it is incorrect to say that the issue of military strength has not been addressed during the last 3 years.

And adding a lot more soldiers would, in the short run, weaken the military. To deploy soldiers you need to train them - and in our military, that means pulling battle-experienced senior NCOs out of operational duty.

I think that’s a very important point. In my time (early 80’s) we had very few NCOs (or officers) with a unit patch on their right shoulder. Though we trained hard, we had very few leaders with actual combat experience.

The emphasis needs to be more on retaining our current crop of experienced soldiers than filling the ranks with new bodies. The E-4 with 2 combat tours under his belt is worth more than 10 new recruits. When the real need is there it does not take long to turn out new infantrymen (about 4 months). But if you churn them out without experienced leaders to lead them – well that’s called cannon fodder.

I'm with AL here: George Bush should have immediately expanded the military — the ground forces, really — in addition to fielding the new gadgets and doctrine. Yes, that task takes years; that's why we should have started four years ago, when we had a need and the political support to do so. We still have the need, but the political support has evaporated.

Yes, we can take down any country, assuming a non-nuclear environment, with our current force levels. But we can only do one at a time, and if we want to not leave a mess behind, we cannot attack more than one country every four to five years. The reason for this is that we simply cannot occupy two countries, and it takes minimum four to five years to build up local forces to take over from our troops. (Afghanistan was an exception, because there was already a trained force, the Northern Alliance, ready to take over.)

So if we're done with fighting now, or willing to go real slow, we're fine with the army we have. But if we, say, suddenly feel threatened by Iran and need to invade, or need to fight a war in SE Asia (Korea or Taiwan), or need to deal with Syria/Lebanon on an expedited basis, we are in real trouble.

In a nutshell, having a larger force gives the US more options. Right now, a lot of our possible options are off the table. This forces us to use sub-optimal options (bombing Iran rather than occupying, for example) or to do nothing in the face of a threat or an opportunity.

Robin,

Tom does not need to provide justifications for more troops. I covered it extensively in two June/July 2003 articles here on Winds of Change.

The American Ground Troop Shortage

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/003719.php

and

U.S. Military -- Back to the Future!

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/003631.php

This is a passage from an article I quoted in "...Back to the Future" that applies here:

Young Men in the Mud

In many ways, the contrast between warfighting and nation-building resembles the difference between productivity in the manufacturing and service industries. Businessmen have long known that you can rather easily substitute capital and technology for labor in manufacturing. Until very recently, however, it's been far more difficult to do so for the service industries. A similar principle applies to military affairs. In warfighting, everything ultimately comes down to sending a projectile downrange. How you send the bullet (or bomb) makes a difference--you can use an infantryman with a rifle, or a B-52 launching a cruise missile. But the effect at the far end is the same--the delivery of kinetic or explosive energy. Over the last 50 years, American strategy has made increasing use of effective technology, substituting machines for men, both to reduce casualties and to outrange our enemies.

But this trading of capital for increased efficiency breaks down in the intensely human missions of peace enforcement and nation-building. American wealth can underwrite certain aspects of those missions: schools, roads, water purification plants, electric power. But it can't substitute machines or money in the human dimension--the need to place American soldiers (or police officers) on patrol to make the peace a reality.

On the shelf of nearly every Army officer, you'll find a book by retired Col. T.R. Fehrenbach on the Korean conflict titled This Kind of War. At the end of World War II, confronted by the military revolution brought on by the atomic bomb, America cut its military from a wartime high of 16 million down to a few hundred thousand. Bombs and airplanes--not soldiers--would now protect America's shores and cities. After fighting as a grunt in Korea, Fehrenbach thought otherwise. Transformation was great for the Air Force and Navy, but for the Army and Marine Corps, the essential nature of warfare remained unchanged.

"You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life," wrote Fehrenbach. "But if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud." It's time Don Rumsfeld brushed up on his Fehrenbach. The book is on Gen. Shinseki's official reading list for the Army, so it's a good bet that one of his generals has a copy he can borrow.

"Should we have built up the military?"

Way back in the late 70's, early 80's, there were discussions about the "achievable size" of the all volunterr force.

There is a finite limit to what proportion of the populations wishes to be a fireman, or policeman, or soldier. The pool is relatively inelastic(to use and economics terms). The National Guard and Reserves have never reached their authorized "N" strength.

So the real question is "Would we better off we conscripts?"

Hello, you have reached the US Army counter insurgency service center

To call in a Predator attack, press 1, and be ready to give your exact latitude and longitude

To call in a helicopter gunship, press 2.

To call in a fuel air weapon, press 3.

For technical information, press 4, and you will be connected to a Lockheed Martin weapons systems expert in Bangalore, India.

To speak to an actual US soldier, please hold.

I grok Robin's points, as I've been covering them for about a year now, every day. The America military has been built up, in one way. And some of this stuff will indeed increase troop strength, too, because it will drop the proportion of supporting forces per infantryman.

BTW, Oshkosh announced today an unmanned heavy truck that was derived from its (finishing) DARPA Grand Challenge project... I expect to see quite a few of these in 5 years. Especially at an average total pay & benefits (not equipping) cost of $112,000 per year per soldier, which is probably UNDERstated due to future medical benefits.

Having said all that, I'm on Armed Liberal's side here.

To cope with a long war, that is likely to be waged on wide fronts, against multiple enemies, and feature a number of "oh s---t, react fast" situations along the way... every military commander understands the need to have reserves for contingencies.

With "Stop Loss," accelerated deployment schedules, et. al., it's pretty clear to me that the current levels aren't cutting it. If the technology build-up was working to the extent that it had to, the USA wouldn't still be doing these things and worrying (correctly) about the sustainability of its Reseves and Guard deployments and recruiting (which have suffered badly - the regular Army is doing fine, BTW). And note, the USA is sucking some wind while fighting on 1.5 fronts at most, while having few real ground options re: Iran that aren't very risky.

Not. Good.

There's nothing like a root canal emergency to make your day. And night. I'm functional now, (sort of), but am scheduled for dental surgery next week when the infection is under control - they're going to redo a ten year old root canal procedure, this time by going in from underneath. And they promise to be really thorough this time. I can hardly wait.

Robin,

I did ask if you really wanted to go there, so sit straight and take what’s comin’ to you.

You have not explained, because you can’t, how it is to proper to subject reserves to repeated lengthy deployments during a low intensity combat campaign. That is flat out misuse – it harms national security by making the government loathe to use the reserves in their intended role of surges for combat due to fear that they won’t re-enlist, makes them less physically capable of performing their designed missions by reducing their numeric strength (because overuse on occupation duty in Iraq reduced retention and recruiting), and even creates legal barriers to use of them in their intended role due to statutory limitations on the active duty they can be called up for.

All of these things are happening now, when the reserves are needed for impending major operations against a nuclear-armed foe, due to failure to timely expand the regular ground forces. And that wasn’t for lack of money – this is America – we can and have afforded larger regular forces. It was due to lack of will by the Army, by the Department of Defense, and ultimately by President Bush.

There has been time for an orderly expansion of the regular ground forces. The money was available. But the will wasn’t there.

You are not on active duty. You are not required by your office to defend the government’s policy. You chose to do so voluntarily. You defended the failure to expand the regular ground forces on the basis that it was unnecessary, not for lack of means or that it was inexpedient relative to more pressing needs (a tradeoff issue).

Your statements on this issue are another beautiful theory murdered by brutal facts .- the excessive deployment of reserves led to those being unavailable for their intended purpose right when we desperately need them. This alone proves our regular ground forces have been badly under strength for the past two years.

And this was predicted in advance by lots of people – Army Chief of Staff Shinseki, Trent Telenko here, etc.

There is no excuse.

Robin – re Persian Gulf occupation,

Your request that I explain the "tasks" required of the occupation force highlights the limitations of your thinking – you focus on means as opposed to objectives, because you understand the former better than the latter. So you have "can’t see the forest for the trees" issues, which is an excellent way to be repeatedly mugged by reality.

It is common for several objectives to be served by the same policy, and for some of those objectives to be covert or even unconscious. Policies devised to serve overt objectives can also be pressed into service against other objectives simply by the force of events. IMO that will happen in the Persian Gulf.

The Saud regime is going down and, when it does, the whole status quo in the Middle East will go with it. The Saud collapse will doom the small Gulf states as they will be overwhelmed with refugees fleeing anarchic violence and civil infrastructure breakdown (the latter due to the foreign workers going home, with the Saud labor force lacking the technical skills or social discipline to operate the civil infrastructure).

We’ve had plans to seize the Saudi oil areas for two generations now, and apparently the forces to do so have been in place for 15 years. It will not at all be difficult to expand those to the small Gulf states.

So we’ll end up controlling, and defending, the Persian Gulf’s oil production from the Kuwait border southeast to Oman. We will have a garrison there to do that. The only questions are how many and for how long.

Which is where the de facto objective comes in. The threat to our production of oil there will come from the usual Arab nutballs in what had been Saudi Arabia. Which means we will either exclude Arab civilians from the oil areas, or control them. I predict the latter. Which means we’ll need a larger ground garrison than that necessary for mere security in the absence of an Arab population there, i.e., 100,000+ men and women.

So population control will be a means of securing the Gulf’s oil production. But, IMO, it will also be a de facto objective.

And what our large, 100,000+ , Persian Gulf garrison will really end up doing is a manual attitude adjustment on the psychotic dysfunctional Arab tribal culture in that culture’s heartland. We’ll slaughter the nutballs in immense numbers while creating a new, more tolerant and functional, Arab culture in our zone of occupation. So the garrison will IMO expand to more than 200,000.

This will be a muti-generation task. Which is about how long the oil there will last.

Funny how things work out like that.

And, for techies like you, “Boys, she's got more to play with in the way of toys!”

To further our population control objective, we’ll eventually "chip 'em" – implant microchips (the pet ID concept) in the population with all sorts of interesting electronics inside, the variety depending on the individuals being chipped. Those would at least be transponders. Some would have audio surveillance, and a few would probably be unpleasant – "be good or you’ll drop dead with blood oozing from your eyes, ears and nose".

I'm not saying this will be pleasant.

Funny you should mention oil running out. I wrote a piece about Iran running out of oil yesterday.

BTW I'm a big fan of greasy hearted women and automatic men.

Don't ever change people even if you can.

The empire is falling.

This is the final thrash of the Ottoman Empire. It is going to hurt.

#7 Tom,

Might the maintenance of a large reserve contingent in Iraq on the pretext of "not enough troops" be the perfect feint for a surge into Iran?

Maybe they are in position to surge.

You know Sun Tzu and all that.

I particularly like the Dorsai Novels in with respect to operational tactics. You know the bit where all the troops will go to the practice area in the field and they will not do well. Not well at all. After a week of not doing well you will start sending them back to the city with weekend passes.

Meanwhile the real fighting force (about 300 men if I recall) will cover 200 miles in three days on the ground and immediatey attack. The forces on "shore leave" will be called back on a catch as catch can basis for re-enfocements and occupation troops.

Well I'm sure our Pentagon guys have lots of tricks up their sleve.

BTW when we go we will go like Sherman with the absolute minimum of tail. No point in letting alSadar screw up the party.

In fact logistics could be handled totally outside Iraq. The Shat Al Arab (spelling?) River.

We seem to be arguing apples and oranges. Yes, new technology is a huge force multiplier. Each unit is more capable. But, you have to have enough units to get to the Schwerpunkt in a timely manner to be able to use those capabilities where they are needed. That means a) enough of them deployed where they can reach where the fight is, and b) means of getting there in time and numbers sufficient to influence the outcome. Do I think we need a larger force? Yes. Do I think we will need a WW II sized force? No, we will never mobilize that thoroughly again.

We went through the late '70's and early '80's with an Army of 16-18 active duty divisions plus various other formations [i.e. 3rd ACR is frequently used interchangeably with divisions]. We maintained those forces without a draft, and without crippling the economy. We went down to 10-12 Divisions and retired the colors to Carlisle Barracks. Since then, we have became engaged in an actual world war. We have lived off of the surpluses remaining from the Cold War, but they are dwindling fast. Since our reserves are so thoroughly committed to the current operations, we have neither the forces to respond to an enemy action, nor the ability to threaten the enemy on multiple fronts. This is not good.

If I had my druthers, we would bring 3 [three] divisions back to life, configured as we are doing our current divisions. This is not an economy breaker, and will allow us to slow the tempo of operations for the reserves and the regulars; plus giving us the strategic leeway to react and to threaten. For the Navy, I would love to have two more flight decks with associated air wings [I know, that means also the escorts and logistics] to increase our surge capability; PLUS one or two of either our old mothballed carriers or new construction based on commercial containership hulls solely to support SPEC OPS the way we used the CORAL SEA in the Afghan Operation. These do not need to be Battle Group capable, they are functionally troop transports that give us an over the horizon ability to support SPEC OPS anywhere. For the Air Force, I want to go into series production of C-17's, a C-5 replacement, and whatever works best to quickly enhance our air to air refueling capability. We have plenty of bombers, precision munitions can be carried by almost anything and guided in; but we strained our airlift and refueling capabilities almost to the breaking point in Iraq.

"The Logistician draws the line beyond which the Tactician dares not tread." Our advantages are largely that we can get more, and better, men and material to the front and use them faster than the enemy can react. A few more tanker and transport wings will enhance our capabilities far beyond the cost of operating them. Oh, and I would love to start working on a replacement "mudfighter" to follow on after the A-10 Warthog. The Hog is amazing, but getting old, and we need more.

The "more vs better" argument is not as black and white as it seems. We have the capability, but not the will, to have 'a bit more AND a lot better' without bankrupting the country. The problem is, most of the political class does not comprehend that we are facing a multi-front world war.