Army Officials Say Many More Active-Duty Troops Are Needed

[cal04]

Source: Washington Post

The Army needs to add at least 30,000 active-duty soldiers to its ranks to fulfill its responsibilities around the world without becoming stretched dangerously thin, senior Army officials warn.

"You can't do what we've been tasked to do with the number of people we have," Undersecretary of the Army Nelson Ford said in an interview last week. "You can see a point where it's going to be very difficult to cope."

Already, the Army lacks a strategic reserve of brigades trained and ready for major combat, officials said, and units being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan are receiving new soldiers at the last minute, meaning they have insufficient time to train together before crossing into the war zone.

But the demand for soldiers extends beyond those countries, with the Pentagon creating new missions that require troops trained in cyber-warfare, homeland defense, intelligence-gathering and other areas, Ford said. "We have five to 10 new missions, and we are already stretched now."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[davidinalameda]

1. get rid of DADT

and the military will get gays and lesbians who want to serve their country OPENLY!

[earthside]

2. That is BS

We don't need bases in Italy or Germany or Britain anymore. We don't need any troops in Iraq anymore. We don't need troops in South Korea anymore. The list of places where U.S. troops and the military are now -- where it doesn't have to be -- goes on and on and on.

We have far, far more active-duty soldiers right now than we need for the reasonable defense of this nation.

[Bigmack]

6. We need more..there's only 750 bases overseas!nt

[Captain Hilts]

18. A radar station doesn't make a "base." nt

[Bigmack]

21. I'm sure that if Iran had a "radar station" next to Israel...

.. the US would consider it a "base".... or a Russian "radar station" in Cuba.

The figure of 750 is actually low, based on what Chalmers Johnson says in "Sorrow of Empires".  He's not counting the 50-person intell bases in Turkey and London, and bases like that. If you read Chalmers' book, you'll understand better.

Besides which... we simply can't afford that shit anymore.

[MADem]

8. Those Euro bases don't have massive contingents of personnel.

Germany has been consolidated and downsized. Further, a lot of the logistics support is done by CIVILIANS.

We do need the bases--how do you think the aircraft get from Spot A to Spot C? Those bases are Spot B--refueling stations/crew rest locales. They're also logistic support centers for forward deployed units and ships.

We're not there to play the Marshall Plan game anymore--we're there to provide links in a worldwide supply chain.

As for Korea, we're not "there" yet. Not so long as that nutty midget is still running the north. Even the Chinese have a hard time controlling that little twirp.

You'll have to take Iraq up with the new administration. We'll leave there when the new Commander in Chief gives the order.

[John Q. Citizen]

14. I'm tired of empire, aren't you? It's a losing proposition you know, that in the end will

impoverish us and enslave us.

This won't make us free.

[MADem]

25. We're actually drawing down in Europe. Our permanent footprint has shrunk a great deal.

The footprint has expanded in the middle east, but those facilities are being called non-permanent.

If you take issue with what you call empire, I wouldn't look to the new administration to change it dramatically. The SECDEF stays the same; the request for thirty thousand addditional trooops has already been made.

[John Q. Citizen]

27. Just because Empire is wrong doesn't mean the greedy won't pursue it

They think they can beat the odds.

Meanwhile the rest of us are totally fucked.

[MADem]

28. It's the prerogative of the Commander in Chief.

I wouldn't invest in plowshares just yet. It's far too soon for that.

[John Q. Citizen]

33. Empire is the prerogative of the CiC? Under what doctrine? Empire will destroy the republic.

They are incompatible.

Empire and constitutional republic can't co-exist for long.

We have what, 7 hundred plus bases around the world? That's stupid and it will harm us bad.

[MADem]

35. Look dear, you take it up with President Obama, now, why don't you?

I'm afraid I just can't excited enough to want to argue with you. I also doubt President Obama is going to dump all those bases either, especially the ones that foreign governments help to fund. In any event, he'll make that call after consultation with his SECSTATE and SECDEF, not me, nor you.

[John Q. Citizen]

37. Empire gives you a head ache? Well don't think about it. Don't sully your beautiful mind.

[MADem]

38. There ya go. Boorish, angry and confrontational. To a complete stranger.

On the internet.

Bet you wouldn't behave that way in person. Hope it made you feel tough. You seem to need it.

You, and YOUR beautiful mind, go on and have a nice day.

[John Q. Citizen]

39. Calm down dear. I don't think it's me, i think it's you. You are far to fragil for a discussion.

Everyone is mean to you?

Well I wasn't. Whether you know that or not.

[MADem]

40. Ah, you always make "beautiful mind" snark at those you deeply care for?

Silly me, how could I possibly have misinterpreted that venemous spittle remark?

No fear, dear--I'm calm as a gentle sea. And not fragile at all, though you might know something about that condition.

I'm not perturbed by people looking to get their lonely jollies by griping at me on the "series of tubes." See, in order to be upset, I'd have to care, and I just don't.

You have a cheery day, now! Find yourself some friends!

[earthside]

17. That's Crap

"We do need the bases--how do you think the aircraft get from Spot A to Spot C? Those bases are Spot B--refueling stations/crew rest locales. They're also logistic support centers for forward deployed units and ships."

Refueling stations for where? Crew rest locales for what missions? We do not need those bases anymore than France should (for the same reasons) be allowed their own bases in Iowa for refueling en route to their Pacific territories. This notion that WE need military bases in other sovereign nations is the mentality of empire. As the current economic crisis and environmental/resources emergency shows, those days are behind us -- whether we realize it yet or not.

It is time for the United States to start acting like a regular, civil, country and stop projecting military power everywhere 'we' decide we want to for the sake of corporate profit.

So, we do not need more active-duty military personnel -- that is a fiction propagated by the imperialists in the Pentagon, the State Department and Wall Street. We have plenty of troops now for all reasonable defensive purposes. I'd like to see someone prove otherwise.

[MADem]

24. Sorry, my mileage varies.

We have agreements with allies and it's incumbent on us to honor them. We also provide humanitarian outreach via our military supply lines.

You don't know too much about mil-to-mil activity, here in the USA now, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't say such ill-informed things.

For example, both Germany (at Dulles Airport) and Turkey (in Mechanicsburg PA) have facilities here. We DO have trade-offs working. We also train pilots from around the world, and we also train foreign military personnel in everything from law enforcement to logistics. Foreign military cadets attend our military academies and graduate schools, too. I went to school with Israelis, Jordanians, Turks, even Taiwanese.

Also, if you knew a thing about how SOFA agreements work, with the exception of GITMO, our bases are continuously approved by the host nation, and the host nation makes a tidy buck off them. We're not "imposing"--it's a Quid Pro Quo.

Finally, the relationship between the President-Elect and General Dynamics suggests to me that if you're looking for the US to start investing in plowshare companies, you'll be waiting for a long time. And Obama must be one of those evil imperialists you despise, because he is keeping on Bush's SECDEF, who has asked for thirty thousand additional Army personnel.

So....whatever. You think what you'd like.

[Captain Hilts]

19. We also need the bases to practice with allies. Does this mean that India, Thailand, Germany...

etc. should no longer train fighter pilots in the US?

[tabasco]

20. Get your ass off the internet and down to the recruiters office

if you want an American Empire.

[MADem]

26. There are a lot of people on DU who have served full military careers.

Being belligerent doesn't advance the discussion, and makes you seem intemperate and ... combative, yourself.

[Donnachaidh]

3. that military industrial complex needs more bodies

I know -- draft all those republicans that spend so much time playing politics with other people's rights. They have plenty of time to push draconian laws, but no time to serve their country?

They should start with that list of people who were giving time and money to take away the marriage rights of a minority group.

DRAFT them.

[acmavm]

4. Well aren't they in luck? No one has a job so the economic climate is just

right to see the number of enlistees climb.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Well, that explains the phone calls.

[MADem]

9. Tell 'em the kid they're looking for is legally blind, or is missing a leg or a foot.

They'll take him off the list.

[aquart]

7. Military needs to curtail its ambitions. As does America.

[glinda]

10. Well now they have the homeless to draw upon

[MadMaddie]

15. Well considering many of the homeless are former military

personel, I don't think the homeless would want to go back in the military.

[glinda]

23. Touche'

[IndianaGreen]

11. With the economy in the tank, they should have no problem recruiting desperate people

What we need to do is to shrink our global responsibilities, and shrink them drastically. Our nation was created as a republic, not an empire.

[Mari333]

12. oh for christs sake bring them home. n/t

[jmowreader]

13. I could have told them that in 1991, back before the drawdown really got going

When we still had communists to push around, the Army's endstrength was 760,000 troops in uniform. They did a good job.

Now, thanks to two Bushes, several wars and the push to privatize that which should never be privatized, we've got Nelson Ford up there claiming, correctly, we don't have enough soldiers.

What have we done instead of having enough soldiers? We're paying civilians $85,000 a year (which means we're paying their employers a hell of a lot more than that) to go to Iraq and supply dirty water, rat-infested food and showers that kill our own soldiers through electrocution to our fighting men and women. This is a mistake, and it's one easily solvable: return the Army to the structure we had when Mikhail Gorbachev was still General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and let them do their own damn service support activities.

The response will be "but it's not economical to train soldiers who will only be in the Army three years to maintain the complex fighting systems we have." Fine. The Navy has a similar problem--some of its systems are extremely complex, and you just can't let expensive training walk out the door in three years. They had a program (which may still exist) where a sailor would enlist for a four-year hitch then extend for two more years, giving them six years to try to convince the guy to stay in the Navy for another hitch.

[shanti]

16. good luck with that

until we are out of iraq, AND our national guard is back home, no way in hell should anyone be signing on the dotted line.

[bemildred]

22. Yes, more futile bullshit is just the thing we need. nt

[natrat]

29. is this for the war on terror or the war on our solvency? fuck them fuck them fuck them

[Comrade Commissar]

30. It's even worse, the war machine needs to feed on our children!

[Amonester]

31. Has USOTA Nelson Ford ever heard about 'Change'?

Yeah. "Change". As in "Less" squandering of Trillions We DON'T have?

Someone please tell him we're BROKE.

[tuckessee]

32. FTA n/t

[Bragi]

34. Here's a solution

If Obama dropped his plan to escalate the pointless war in Afghanistan, then that would reduce requirements by exactly 30,000 troops.

Glad to be of help on this.

[Mari333]

36. yep nt