1 My understanding is that, like it or not, the surge can't last past next spring anyway.  At least not without extending the tours *again*, on units that will already have been deployed 15 months (or more) by spring 2008.

We stay with the current numbers past next spring, we break the Army.  Period.  For real, this time.

Or we get Congress to pony up a ridiculously large supplemental, the likes of which we've never seen before, to support a 2-year deployment for the troops.  You want to be a member of the party supporting THAT in an election year? 

Success or not, troops start coming home next spring, summer at the latest.  Petraeus may be 100% accurate on the military issues, but even he can't solve that problem, so if I was a nefarious person, I'd argue that he can give whatever reason he wants for the troops coming home next year, and get the political benefit of talking withdrawal when there's no other alternative anyway.

2

Why can't we maintain current troop levels past spring or summer? How many are gonna be leaving?

Don't we have 70,000 people in Germany and 40,000 in Japan and 40,000 in South Korea?

Granted, they are not all combat troops. Perhaps not even mostly combat troops.

But that's 150,000 people right there standing around picking the underpants out of their ass and propping up the local bratwurst economy.

Not what I would consider vital.

Plus another 20,000 in the rest of Europe, and another 40k in Kuwait...If only a quarter of them are combat units, that's still 50,000 soldiers.

And that's foreign deployed, I don't know how many are stateside.

3 Dave, if the war has to be and can be won we could do a few things to refill the military.  Fat bonus pay for people over-extended (maybe 100,000$ for the optional overstay) or a draft. If the government offered a year long deployment worth six figures in a new draft that people have to register for (sort of like winning the lottery except people try and kill you for a year) and win it could provide enough willing people to pair up with veterans who know the right way to go about things in Iraq.

4 Entropy-- difference between combat troops and support troops.  Also, we don't want to strip everything in the cupboard bare, in case Iran, Korea or God-knows-what-else goes up.

The fact is, the surge is just that-- a surge, a bargain made that in the short-term the Army et al. can suck it up for a while more in order to make a difference on the ground.

Now, that said-- once the surge goes away, we can go back to a "normal", pre-surge deployment in Iraq for some time to come.  The trouble there, however, is that, once again, you're asking your volunteers to go back on even more deployments to Iraq, thus increasing your retention problems even more in the future.

Hey, some people are motivated to do three tours in Iraq.  But five?  Six?  That's a lot of strain to put on your field-grade officers and NCOs.  I'd argue that it's borderline insane (Hell, we didn't ask G.I.'s in WWII to stay *that* long in a combat theater-- and they didn't have a choice in the matter).

I've always argued that we can do whatever we want with the Army we have-- but it means we need to expend the resources to keep it in shape.  Either we spend a lot of money to keep the force we have today strong enough to stay, or we spend a lot, LOT more money to increase the size of the force to deal with an unending (relatively speaking) combat deployment.

These guys and gals are the best soldiers we've ever had, but we've been dulling the sharp end of the spear for over four years now.  No one knows when that spear will finally break, but to argue that it won't if we keep this optempo up. . . it's a risky gamble in an increasingly dangerous world.

5

I just think he is saying that the long term plan is still to get American soldiers out and let Iraq take over. That it is realistic to put a general timeframe of next year or so to do it.  Not get out, but move back and start giving the country over to Iraqi control.

That sounds to me like the only way to win this? 

6

Well, I don't see anything else going up.

Certainly, Putin is not going to invade Germany. And if he IS going to invade Germany...well, err....Oh well.

I didn't really like Germany anyway.

South Korea has a compitent, capable, formidable military. They should be fully capable of defending their own damn border, and I think maybe having to actually take responsibility for themselves will be good for them, and make them stop being a bunch of goddamn moronic hippy moonbats.

I'm of the opinion we should get most of our troops out of Germany and South Korea, regardless of whether or not we have anywhere to send them. Even before the Iraq war started.

If any shit gets started in the mid east, like with Iran...well...that's where we're stripping everything else to send them. So...yeah. We're beefing up that area.

Other then that....the only trouble I see potentially popping up in the next few years (that I give a shit about...if the Serbs reinvade Kosovo I don't care) is China crossing the straight. Which they might do if they think we're incapable of response.

But honestly I think that's a battle you're gonna be looking to fight just about 100% with just your Air Force and Navy anyway, who are not the ones being taxed by Iraq.

7 This is very smart.  He's offering the Dems a political out, while doing it from a "we're winning" perspective and making clear that there's a lot of unfinished business.

8

I'd say same as I said in the other thread.

If this is a military decision, then it is what it is. I have no ideas about such things. Petraeus knows what he's doing.

But if, as I slightly fear, it's a partially political decision...

It's very smart politics, in the short term, and potentially fatal a bit further out. It's a political gambit, and likely the last.

9 What he is a saying is that if he can have troops for a longer period, he thinks places like Anbar which temporarily are very safe, will hopefully be fully safe allowing us to pull out troops from there. (Probably like to do that now and re-deploy them inside Iraq, but any new surge in fighting there will make the left shitgrinned.)

10 Forces in Germany aren't there for Germany, or even NATO's sake.  That's where they're based, where they're logistically supported, and where they can best deploy from.  Besides, most everything in Germany's already in the Iraq rotation.  Ditto for Korea, where all we're keeping there is a single brigade as a "tripwire."

Those ARE the reserves. 

As for the Air Force and the Navy, it's true that they're the first line of defense in any major theater war scenario.  But they are also being taxed by Iraq (the Navy less so, but the Air Force is also running down quite a bit of equipment readiness in this war-- airframe hours add up, especially for our mobility and tanker assets).

Bottom line?  We're stretched thin.  We have been for several years now, and it's not going to get any better as long as we're in Iraq (which I am all for, BTW-- just mentioning the opportunity cost of keeping 150,000+ troops there indefinitely).

11

Dave,

Tell me then if you disagree, but if what you say is true, this strikes me as unacceptable and as something we must find a way to fix.

Reguardless of Iraq even, that portrayal disturbs me.

The worlds only hyperpower cannot sustain a force of 200,000 any longer then a year into the future???

Ancient Persians have us beat in terms of numbers. How the hell are we going to fight North Korea if we have to, let alone CHINA, if it ever came to that?

12

I know we have a tremendous deal of 'force multipliers'. Obviously we would decimate ancient persians. And in war, numbers alone confer no advantage.

But the jist seems to be, force multipliers and everything else applied, we do not have the force to occupy Iraq for 2 more years.

That is worrisome.

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