3-star general says Army is too small to do its job

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.army21jan21,0,4525632.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

A senior Army general, breaking with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his service's own leadership, said the Army is too small to meet its global commitments and must be substantially increased.
Lt. Gen. John M. Riggs, a decorated Vietnam veteran who is in charge of building an Army for the future, said the force of 480,000 must grow even beyond the 10,000-soldier increase that was endorsed by the Senate last year but failed to win full congressional approval.

"You probably are looking at substantially more than 10,000," Riggs said in an interview with The Sun. "I have been in the Army 39 years, and I've never seen the Army as stretched in that 39 years as I have today."

Riggs, the first senior active-duty officer to publicly urge a larger Army, had no specific target for force structure, saying it should be resolved by the Army and Pentagon leadership.

<snip>

(Retired General) McCaffrey, who recently returned from visiting soldiers in Iraq, agreed that with additional Iraq rotations being planned for the end of the year, the Army must be increased in size: "The Army is going over a cliff by this fall. In my judgment we need 80,000 more troops."

[AP]

1. people not weapons programs, please.

[wuushew]

2. Less military spending please

how about not fighting the entire world that would eliminate the need for such a large army.

[Old and In the Way]

3. I think that's the plan, though.

Kill the domestic economy so that serving in the Army looks like a real career opportunity. These guys are deluded. The Cold War is over, no one wants to do us in. The rest of the world likes capitalism...isn't that what we wanted?

The next President best rid ourselves of the PNAC generals and dismantle the Star Wars fantasy that will bankrupt us and our kids.

[AP]

4. Bush has taken us to DefCon 5 with the rest of the world.

Electing a Dem will just take us down to 4. Until it's clear that Republicans like Bush can't get elected president again, the rest of the world is right to think of us as a possible threat, and emaciating our army is just going to look like an opening for attack. Now's not the time to be destroying the American military.

Hell, if you were Brazil or Venezuela and you thought people like Bush would be president for the next 50 years (with the occassional Democrat) you'd probably develop the bomb and think of ways to exploit weaknesses.

[YankeeFan]

5. Army Too Small

And I agree with that statement completely. While it is true that the Cold War is over, there are too many people like bin Laden who want Americans dead simply because they are Americans. He wants a world that follows Islam only. The thought that there should be freedom to worship God in manner and ways other than his strictly conservative version is so abhorrent to him that he can see nothing beyond pure blind hatred.
In June 1991, I knew that we didn’t need 16 Regular Army divisions that we had at the time. But the drawdown went way too far. In my opinion 12 Regular Army divisions were about what was needed. The National Guard and Reserves could fill out in emergency. Like they did to Liberate Kuwait. About 20% of all troops deployed were either National Guard or Reservists.

But then came Kosovo and its drain on our military. How many troops were pinned down there? If you look on the world map you will see that America has troops all over the globe on various Peacekeeping missions.
How many troops are there in Afghanistan? There is a rotation over there; thinly stretched but still doing a wonderful job. But I recently read a newspaper article about how American Forces are trying to protect Afghani civilians from the Taliban. But because there aren’t enough troops available the villagers are at the mercy of the Taliban’s infiltrators.

When Clinton was elected I was so very happy he was made President. Then he kept on making dumber and dumber mistakes. I almost didn’t vote for him in 1996. But the choice between “The Tin Man” and him made it very easy. Too many military units disbanded for starters. And WAY too much was spent on technological gimmicks. That sounded too much like Viet Nam. I'll skip the Right or Wrong here, please. We had the technological edge, but the Low Tech edge one the day. General Don Starry said at the start of the Viet Nam War, America had one of the best militaries in the world, if not the very best. But at the end of the Conflict, the Military was a mess. I hate to say it, but Reagan was the best thing to happen to the Military in the 1980’s. If only the rest of his presidency was as good.

And now Bin Laden is somewhere in the world laughing at us. We are stretched too far to do any real good.
Once again, I’ll say it; while we don’t need the same amount of Regular Soldiers on duty we had during Bush I, we have way too little Regular Soldiers now.

[Old and In the Way]

12. Way too small.

If you buy into the Pax Americana vision for a New American Century. I figure we'll need about 5MM US troops stationed around the world to liberate the remaining oil available to our rightful destiny. Well, say 2 MM to start, another 3 to replace those that will enforce our goodwill.

We are heading towards $400BB/year in defense spending. We have no legally incorporated enemies that have declared war on the US. There are, by various estimates, maybe 5000 Al Qaeda regulars, but probably far fewer who are capable of inflicting any serious damage by way of a 9/11 attack.

What interests me is how little information we have, after 28 months, on what/who constitutes Al Qaeda. Heck, we really don't know much about 9/11 for that matter, except 19 Arab guys managed to hijack 4 planes and our military was incapable of defending Washington, DC with a 52 minute heads-up.

But surely, this administration, who has made Terror the centerpiece of their focus must be all over the problem of Al Qaeda. Why doesn't this administration publish a deck of playing cards so we'd at least know who the evil doers are? I'd think our good friends, the Saudis, could help point them out.

So while the rest of the world is busy growing stronger and bonding through peacefiul trade, our paranoid neocon leaders are busy bankrupting our treasury, turning butter into guns, thus ensuring that the American Century will last another 20 years before we become a second world country unable to produce anything ourselves.

Of course, by that time, the MIC will be finding a new home in which to make their profits on endless war.

[RamboLiberal]

6. I'm kicking this for the day crowd cause it's getting drafty

:kick:

[marie123]

7. I know the draft is coming

and so I must prepare my son for it. Lately instead of thinking what college he may get accepted to, I think of what is the safest branch of the military for him.

My idea is at 17 he will sign up for the air force reserves (or whatever it is called) they seem to be the elite and they seem to have less casualties.

Please someone tell me I am crazy and to continue to look at colleges!

The truth is I stay up at night wondering what will become of my baby and oh ya, my job is going to India this summer

Where is my great country?

[tom_paine]

9. It is coming, and you are wise to prepare

Once the Stalinist Sham of the 2004 "election" reinstalls the Emperor...he will be free to REALLY show hsi and his stooges' true colors.

However, the wise person prepares for both eventalities in case initial assessments are incorrect, so I wouldn;t abandon college planning, either.

I am curious, though, what does your son think and believe about all this himself? It IS his life and ultimately, should be his decision.

One piece of advice from a USAF vet. If and when he enlists, make certain he has a job category lined up. The military gives mostly shit jobs to people who's jobs (MOS) are not guaranteed in their contracts during sign-up.

[MattNC]

10. no it isn't

send him to college - but on the off chance it does occur, you'll have plenty of warning and you can just sign him up for the AF Reserves beforehand.

[SideshowScott]

8. * Cough * Draft * Cough*

Thats what hes really saying..The Pentagon have been hinting and dancing around this for some time now..If Bush gets back into office in '04 ( god help us if that happens ) You can better be sure the draft wil happen

[hatrack]

11. "The Army is going over a cliff by this fall"

Savor this quote, share it with your family and friends.

[jmowreader]

13. PBI underwear on: A case for a return to Reagan-era troop strengths

I know I'm gonna get flamed, so I donned my best PBI "completely fireproof" long johns.

At the height of Bankruptin' Ronnie Reagan's troop buildup, we had 740,000 soldiers on active duty. We had 16 combat divisions. We had the most fearsome army ever assembled.

Ronnie's army fought the Battle of the Dog Kennel in Grenada, the Battle Against Pizza-Faced Dope Peddlers in Panama, and the Four-Day Rout in the Middle East. After Desert Storm shut down and the Cold War ended, we slowly brought our Army down to a troop strength of around 480,000. That army has fought Somalia, the Balkans, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as varied humanitarian missions.

Our army has twice the business and half the manpower of Reagan's army. We have one general wanting a 490,000-troop army and another wanting a 560,000-troop army. I want a 700,000-troop army.

Seven hundred thousand soldiers. That's enough to fight two major regional conflicts--the standard the Department of Defense envisions--while leaving enough manpower to defend our vital strategic interests in Europe and the Pacific, and of course our even more vital strategic interests in the US, Canada and Mexico.

It will give military planners the leeway to swap units into long-term taskings like Iraq. It will ensure that we always have a reserve force--not The Reserves, but active duty divisions standing by in case the shit really hits the fan.

We need: fifteen active duty maneuver divisions--six mechanized infantry, three light infantry, three armored, one airborne, one air assault and one cavalry. We need one artillery division with really serious firepower. We need more artillery--not the multimillion-dollar gun that was on the drawing boards when Bush stole the office, but just plain old M109A6 155mm self-propelled howitzers, which may not have Super Ultra High Technology--no plasma beams or Super Sniffers that find commies around corners--but lay steel on target extremely well. We need a 240mm mortar. We need an M4 Bradley Ambulance because the current armored ambulance can't keep up with the units it's supporting. We need to dump CLP in favor of either Militec or Dri-Slide--preferably Dri-Slide--and Hoppe's Number 9 for cleaning. (If nothing else, Dri-slide's website looks more professional and the company isn't run by fundies.)