Our
View: Military not stretched too thin
For
more than a year scholars, pundits and politicians
have sounded an alarm warning that American
military forces are stretched too thinly
across the globe. These thinkers see major
operations taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan,
ongoing deployments in South Korea, Japan
and Germany, and multifarious military commitments
in an additional 125 countries around the
world. Such a spectacle of worldwide, armed
deployment is awesome in scope, so awesome
that it is difficult to believe that such
an effort does not place the United States
in a perilous position on the edge of disaster.
Even
if one were to look only at the raw data,
the current level of deployed soldiers would
seem fairly innocuous. Some 430,000 military
personnel – Army, Navy, Marines, Air
Force, and National Guard – are deployed
in foreign lands. About 180,000 of these
are stationed in and around Iraq. The vast
majority of the remaining forces are engaged
in peacekeeping operations, training exercises
or routine deployments at “lily pads”
from which they can be easily moved into
theaters where conflict is most likely to
erupt.
Taken
as a whole, this figure represents only
a fraction of the total active and reserve
forces of nearly 1.5 million. About 1.1
million American troops are stationed in
the continental United States, Hawaii or
other territories. So, even at face value,
a mere 29 percent of our soldiers is actively
deployed.
But,
again, not all of these 430,000 troops are
involved in combat or even peacekeeping.
Some 40,000 are in South Korea, and that
number is expected to be reduced slowly
over the coming decade. Another 40,000 troops
reside in Japan and about 70,000 are in
Germany. All of these 150,000 troops could
be relocated if necessary, as could many
of the smaller contingents dispersed around
the world. If we then consider that only
some 200,000 of nearly 1.5 million troops
currently are involved in combat, the state
of America’s military appears much
more positive.
While
some important and sizable missions will
occupy troops for years to come (Iraq, Afghanistan,
the Balkans, etc.), overall troop levels
are quite sufficient to sustain America’s
long-standing military policy, the “two-MRC”
strategy.
This
strategy calls for the United States to
at all times be capable of waging “two
major regional contingencies,” meaning
two major military conflicts in separate
areas of the world. The only realistic threat
to this strategy is funding, which can be
jeopardized by a “guns and butter”
policy of paying for both military endeavors
and large scale domestic initiatives like
tax cuts or “universal” healthcare
(President Bush’s plan and John Kerry’s
proposal, respectively).
In
light of this reality, alarmist rhetoric
of the type made by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska,
which calls for a reinstitution of mandatory
civil service to include a draft, is ridiculous.
A
better focus for the concerns of leaders
and citizens in general would be the history
and future of our nation’s national
security imperatives. Such understanding
will lead to a better idea of what our primary
national interest is and will be. Once attained,
this stronger understanding will enhance
the public’s ability to decide on
its own which interventions are necessary
and which are ill advised. Additionally,
it is likely that individuals and the media
will more doggedly question leaders who
advocate the use of military force in the
future.
Our
military is healthy and robust. If our nation’s
people make it a point to become and remain
informed, it always will be.
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