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| The US Military - A Tactical & Strategic Crisis - Andijan: Why We Must Look Beyond Double-Standards |
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The US military is considered the most powerful fighting force in human history. However in launching its 'War on Terror', American planners are now facing up to a number of challenges relating to recruitment, morale and the use of its reserve force. However though these present significant problems, America's real strategic problem is its inability to face the new asymmetric paradigm
'He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.' -Sun Tzu, the Art of War
In recent months it has become apparent that the US military and especially the army is facing a huge problem with relation to recruitment. The failure to meet the specific targets for the army will inevitably put further strain on the US' force management strategy in the years to come. However, though the recruitment shortage is a major setback, there are more strategic issues that are much more serious for the planners in the Pentagon. These go to the heart of the US's military strategy and the criticism that the US force though the most powerful on the planet is designed to fight wars which have now been superseded by new threats. There is now increasing evidence that the US military's current force configuration and strategy is therefore not fit for purpose for the current asymmetric confrontations, the so called fourth generation wars she will inevitably face.
Let us however deal with the issues of recruitment, which coupled with other social trends also creates a huge problem for the Pentagon. On June 14 Dick Cheney, normally renowned for making excessively optimistic remarks about the Iraqi campaign, stated that the ongoing occupation of Iraq was straining the US military to the point where its readiness is being adversely affected. Though Cheney did not state that Iraq was the sole cause of the recruitment shortage, he also cited the successful economy, it is clear that Iraq remains the dominant reason for the recruitment malaise the US Army now faces. The regular Army has now failed to hit its monthly targets four months running and is projected to have a shortfall of 16% on its September 30th 80,000 man target. The Army is not alone in missing its targets, the Army reserve is projected to be about 10,000 recruits shy away from its September 30 target. This will have profound implications on maintaining effective Iraqi operations; nearly 40% of the 138,000 US force are either reservists or from the National Guard. According to Stratfor, a leading intelligence provider, as of April 30th, the Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard were 18,135 recruits short of their combined goal of 89,599.
It doesn't take a mathematician to conclude that with fewer available soldiers, the reservists and the main army will have to stay longer and return to Iraq more frequently. However, US law guarantees that reservists are limited to 24 consecutive months on active duty, but according to Stratfor the Army may now ask Congress to extend that in order to maintain force levels in Iraq. However, this would be deeply unpopular as continuous deployments are now wearing the reserves down and for many a second stint in Iraq is already the straw that is breaking the camel's back. The Army Reserve's chief, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, wrote in a memo to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker late last year that the stress meant the Army Reserve was 'degenerating into a 'broken' force.' Indeed, the recent revelation that well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan since September 11th 2001 demonstrates the paucity of US regular army depth and surprised even close military observers according to a recent article on salon.com by Mark Benjamin. 'Those are big numbers... a lot bigger than I would have thought', said John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org a defence information web site that tracks the logistics of war. Pike thinks it is too early to tell what the impact will be on the regular Army, but he said the repeated deployments have already broken the reserve forces. Faced with this backdrop, no wonder civilians are not queuing up at the doors of the Pentagon recruiting offices.
Yet recruitment is not the only problem; retention difficulties with junior officers are also a growing trend. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times by Mark Mazetti, cited the loss of Army lieutenants and captains as now being 8.7%, the highest drop out rate since 2001. He believes this trend is keeping Pentagon planners awake at night especially as captains form the backbone of infantry and armoured units deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Captain Fulton a West Point graduate stated when attending a recent seminar organised by a headhunting firm: 'This is a real eye-opener it seems like everyone in the room is either from my squad or from my class.' To counter this the Pentagon have resorted to desperate measures such as promoting people to captain after 36 months of active duty compared to the normal 48 months before 2001. As a result, according to Stratfor, many officers are now being promoted with less experience and less-developed leadership skills. In addition, the Army is lowering the requirements for officer candidates, relaxing age restrictions, and accepting candidates who would normally be rejected because of previous convictions for drug or alcohol-related offences. This allied with a lowering of the criteria for non-commissioned officers, and a new Army directive making it more difficult to kick soldiers out for abusing alcohol or drugs, being overweight or performing unsatisfactorily, such as failing to meet physical fitness standards means that in the future the US military will see a qualitative reduction in both its force and future leadership capability.
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