A "nightmare scenario"
I doubt we'll be hearing that from anyone, but when we can only scrape together a bit more than 20,000 additional troops to head off the "nightmare scenario", which deployment isn't likely enough to shore up a few parts of one defeated country, you have to wonder how we can even imagine fulfilling the military's longstanding mission of being able to fight (and win) two near-simultaneous major regional conflicts. It appears that we aren't even equipped to fight a new one three-plus years after winning the last one. Certainly not if occupying another defeated country is part of the bargain. Of course, the idea is to be able to fight those two major regional conflicts with the assistance of allies, so that's part of the problem.
We've certainly learned something in the last few years about what our military is good at and what it isn't. If we want to keep using it for what it isn't good at, it will need to be a lot bigger. Or, we can use it to smash opposing armies and end states and regimes that threaten our fundamental national interests. These days that sounds like a novel, radical idea, but it really isn't.
posted at 12:20 AM
2 Comments:
When Charlie Rangel called for reinstating the draft, wasn't he thinking it would be for a bigger army? Or just one that would be more representative of the population as a whole?
My sense was that he mostly wanted the burdens shared more equitably across the usual dividing lines in the society.
Imagine how lost we would be if the Army and Marines weren't so heavily backstopped by the National Guard and private contractors.
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