Nonetheless, the president's call to increase the Army and Marine Corps by nearly 15 percent over the next five years -- at an initial cost of nearly $100 billion and at least $15 billion per year thereafter -- has received nearly universal support in a Congress dominated by Democrats.
Say it ain't so! Unfortunately its sad but true; Democrats have been lining up to agree with Bush. Can't be seen as weak, the horror! But more on that below. The Post goes into more detail on why this is such a bad idea - no mission. Its certainly not Iraq:
First, deciding to add to the Army today would do nothing to deal with the stress of Iraq. The hype about our Army is true: Our troops are the world's best. And it takes time to make them so. The lag time for recruitment, training and deployment means that new forces would be available far too late to ease the stresses now facing the Army in Iraq. Even on a fast track, it might be as long as five years before an additional combat-ready brigade would be ready to deploy there
So what is their mission and when are we going to talk about it? The Post continues:
If this is about invading Iran, or carrying out a land war in China, as The Post has suggested, then maybe we need to have a national debate about that strategy, not slip it in sideways by expanding the Army without agreeing on the mission. The experience of Iraq has clearly dulled America's appetite for continuing in the role of designated global occupier and nation-builder.
I guess the Post doesn't want seconds on that meal. The Post also points out one of the big lessons of Iraq that Bush and many in Congress, including even many who voted agaisnt the war, still don't seem to get:
Terrorism is not a political movement so much as a logical weapon of choice for political extremists facing a superpower. There will always be a military component to meeting this threat. But as administration spokesmen have testified, the primary role in this "long war" may well belong not to the military but to the State Department, foreign assistance agencies, and the Treasury and Justice departments, supported by the appropriate application of force (usually in small numbers and with Special Forces troops, not Army brigades). The Army does not need to grow to perform this mission; it needs to refocus.The question the new Congress must deal with is one not of enlarging the Army but of redefining the armed forces' mission in today's world. Do we want an Army big enough to invade and occupy Iran or Syria? Or do we want a tailored, restructured force designed to play its role in the pursuit of terrorist organizations (along with other tools of statecraft) and with enough heft to play a part in peacekeeping operations, deter potential adversaries and decisively win intense but brief conventional conflicts? This strategic alternative is hardly an endorsement of the "Rumsfeld doctrine." The U.S. military as currently sized can still "go heavy" when needed. What it can't do is remain indefinitely bogged down in a static mission with inadequate body armor and no strategy.
So what exactly do we need more troops for? Terrorism? Seems like we've already learned that more troops isn't the answer. Iraq? They won't get there in time, and we should be getting out, not putting more troops in. Iran or Syria? No thanks. Been there, done that. Or more precisely we haven't done that very well at all. For some unforseeable future need? That isn't a mission. This is just the kind of Orwellian thinking we need to move away from.
As Gordon Adams notes (who also co-authored the WaPo Op Ed):
The case for force expansion has not been made. For some supporters, growing the ground forces smacks of seizing the moment because the Congress looks willing to spend the money, regardless of the rationale. For others, it looks like political safety - rather than tell the American public how we should engage the world and what the role of the military should be in that engagement, let's just grow the military and we'll look "tough on defense."
Where do our presidential candidates stand?
So given that Bush is asking for almost 100,000 more troops that its very unclear we need or even what they would be used for, and given the Pentagon's questionable recruiting tactics (see here, here, here, and here) and obvious disinterest among Americans to join or even stay, where do our presidential candidates stand?
With all of the discussion on foreign policy lately and attempts to show how Democrats are making the case for a new direction, we would expect a wholesale rejection of a costly expansion without a purpose, but unfortunately that's not the case, at least not among two of the frontrunners.
It ain't a pretty picture folks:
What do Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Bill Richardson, and Gen. Pete Schoomaker, among others, have in common? They all think the U.S. military is on the verge of breaking and the solution is to make it bigger. Yet, none of them have told us why it should grow. Every one of them has put the expansion cart ahead of the strategic horse.
