Gates Calls For Increased Military
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has requested an increase in the active duty United States Army and Marine Corps of 92,000 troops. Frankly, the increase is long overdue and reflects the overzealous reduction in the standing military during the Clinton administration. This is actually a fairly common theme in US history, however. The military has traditionally been cut too hard after a war, the end of the Cold War was no different.
The permanent increase of 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines would cost more than $10 billion annually and take five years to achieve, underscoring the Pentagon's conviction that today's wars and anti-terrorism operations will endure for many years. "We call those 'long war' forces," a senior military official said.
The growth also reflects mounting concern among Army leaders over a deepening readiness crisis, as repeated war-zone rotations have worn out troops and equipment, leaving two-thirds of Army combat units in the United States unprepared to deploy. The active-duty Army would increase to 547,000 troops and the Marine Corps to 202,000.
"It will take some time for these new troops to become available for deployment, but it is important that our men and women in uniform know that additional manpower and resources are on the way," Gates told a packed House Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday. Lawmakers have expressed bipartisan support for permanent growth of the military over the past few years and applauded the proposal.
Gates also announced a politically sensitive policy change to allow the remobilization of National Guard and reserve units, in which thousands of reservists who have already served in Iraq could be involuntarily called up for another tour. The major changes — both sharp reversals from the direction taken by former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — show that Gates is moving on issues that had festered for years at the Pentagon.
The problem has always been that it is easy to cut the armed forces after a war and funnel the "savings" to some other program. The realization that this has turned out to have been a bad decision usually comes several years - or even a few decades - later when the next war hits. That fixing the shortage later inevitably costs more than it would have to not cut as deeply is a lesson we Americans never seem to get. The increases appear to have widespread support in Congress, so it should not be difficult to get the legislation passed. Hopefully.
