(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
They said it even before the war began. "Our ten divisions are barely able to handle today's duties. And we are definitely not equipped to wage a full-scale war in Iraq. "
The politicians did not listen to them. The invasion was rolled out and hundreds of thousands of soldiers were sent to the Gulf. Over six months later, Americans still have over 130.000 men and women in place in Iraq.
That's more than twice what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld envisioned in March this year. At the time, he said, the number of soldiers would be reduced to just a few thousand men. But that was not the case.
Now the Pentagon is searching with lights and lanterns to find the soldiers who will replace the current forces in Iraq. And they find them… in the National Guard, in the reserve forces and among the veterans!
Eight out of ten involved
Here's how the dire, and explosive, situation in the US defense is:
Prior to the first Gulf War, the army consisted of 18 divisions (each of 15.000 men) and 700.000 soldiers of all sizes. Today, it is down to ten divisions and 476.000 soldiers.
Over the next few months, eight of the ten divisions will either be on their way to Iraq and Afghanistan, or on their way from these countries. A ninth division is permanently stationed in South Korea. Only one division is not part of the upcoming rotation, or stationed anywhere. It is the XNUMXrd Infantry Division, which we last heard about when it was taking on Baghdad.
A little depending on how one calculates, 70 percent of the army is deployed in a total of 136 countries. That amounts to 370.000 soldiers. 250.000 of these were sent out after the terrorist attack two years ago. In addition to Iraq, Americans still have 11.000 soldiers in Afghanistan, 32.000 in South Korea, 44.000 in Kuwait and five thousand in the Balkans. Operation forces are located in the Philippines, Central Asia and Sinai.
The army is, of course, just one of four arms branches. In total, the US defense consists of 1.4 million soldiers, as well as 1.2 million in the reserve forces. Of this, the army seizes 476.000 regular soldiers plus 550.000 reservists. This means that the army makes up about a third of the standing US forces. But it accounts for the lion's share of efforts in the global war on terrorism.
This has led to a new realization in the United States, at least among the generals: the army is not big enough. To find troops for Iraq next year as well, the Pentagon has had to dig deep into the military pockets – so deep that one has to go all the way back to the Vietnam War to find a similar practice.
Starting next year, a third of Iraq's soldiers will be from the reserve forces, from the National Guard or from the veterans of the "Old Guard" – who have spent the last decades guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
It's easy to send them, and easy to keep them there – because no one can end their involvement in the army as long as they are on a mission. But they are not obliged to stay in the army when they return home…
First professional war
There is only one concern the generals have. But it is not the least, since it is about the US defense in the future.
In the professional US Army, it is completely optional whether you want to be a soldier or not. This applies to all, but not least, reservists who expected that they would be sent out into active service every four or five years. Now they are in service months and years at a time. And not only are they in active service, that is, in war; they are in a land under occupation where they risk being killed every day.
Soldiers from the reserve forces, but also from the active part of the army, vent their frustration in the American media – under their full name. They are outraged by the Iraqis' lack of gratitude, nervous about terrorist attacks and cursed because there is nothing right in the command lines.
Prior to the war, the soldiers in the Third Infantry Division were told that they would be brought home in July-August. During the war, the same message was confirmed three times. In July, they were told that the journey home was postponed indefinitely. A few weeks ago they finally came home. Then they had been in the Gulf since September last year, the last months in the fiery fighting zone around Fallujah. 37 soldiers in the 16.500-man division were killed. No other military units in Iraq have had such high casualties.
Today, therefore, they are exempt from "rotation," as it is called. But that does not mean they can rest on their laurels. A division of Marines that was transported out of Iraq when the Poles entered is now being sent back. The point is: American soldiers are going on double duty on the battlefield in Iraq to get the solitaire going. It erodes morale enormously.
"If the United States fails to recruit troops from Allied countries, or manages to quell the unrest in Iraq, we will risk an unparalleled flag flight from the army," Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General James Helmly told the newspaper USA Today in September. According to Helmly, the critical point will occur sometime in the New Year when active soldiers and reservists return home in droves.
The war in Iraq is, it is pointed out from a military point of view, the first long-running military conflict based on a fully-professional army. The war in Vietnam was largely fought with conscripts. The new military "theater" is therefore a test. How will soldiers who do not have to be soldiers react when the training camps are replaced with "the real thing?"
The generals fear the worst. And it does not make things better that they are deeply dissatisfied with their defense minister, Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld versus Shinseki
The conflict is between technology and infantry. The Minister of Defense preaches a gospel that involves a hard-hitting commitment to sophisticated intelligence and precision bombing – which means the development, production and purchase of expensive and technologically advanced weapons.
In Afghanistan, Rumsfeld got a boost. Because if there was anything this conflict showed, it was that air forces and special forces together could win a war – without putting hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the ground.
But of course Iraq is a whole other thing. It is precisely the foot soldiers who are the most important military ingredient. And that is precisely the point of the generals. It is okay to win a certain type of warrior with little effort on the ground. But a heavy occupation war requires a ground crew of incredible dimensions. And it is a ground crew that the United States does not have today.
Even before the invasion, the war was underway – the one between former army chief Eric Shinseki and defense minister Donald Rumsfeld. Shinseki believed an invasion and occupation of Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of troops. Rumsfeld just blew it off, and dismissed Shinseki verbally long before he was scheduled to resign.
During the farewell ceremony for Shinseki in June this year, Rumsfeld was not present. Rumor has it that he was also not invited. It was a demonstration of how miserable the relationship between Rumsfeld and US generals is. So bad is that
Shinseki – contrary to all custom – gave a fiery speech in which he skinned Rumsfeld for his insinuations that the generals do not want a civilian control of the military.
The verbal quarrel at home would not have done much unless the situation had been so severe. In fact, the United States is trying to wage a war in Iraq with far too few soldiers. And it's not going well. Of pure revenge, of course, the generals could sit down and say: what did we say! But soldiers get blown up in bits and pieces every single day in Iraq. The army risks losing thousands upon thousands of volunteer recruits, and the United States loses the fight against terrorism.
The US is losing the fight against terrorism. Recognition creeps up like a lizard from under a rock. The army is simply not big enough to fight terrorists anywhere in the world. It is too thinly stretched.
"Army overstretch," reads US newspapers. "Stretched too thin," it also says. "The stretched army," writes conservative writer Robert Novak. It's amazing what kind of combinations you can make from the three words "stretched," "army" and "thin." For the generals, it's a horror.
A few more months
In the US, the facet is this: you can endure in Iraq for a few months with US troops. After that, one must go out. It must either happen by the Iraqis taking over themselves, or by the arrival of international forces.
As long as the Americans are in Iraq, the generals have no chance to face military challenges from other parts of the globe; for example, from North Korea. It makes them vulnerable to outside attacks, while being vulnerable to home attacks.
In South Korea, 32.000 Americans look after the security of 50 million South Koreans. In the US, 28.000 Americans look after the safety of 280 million native residents. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan involve eight out of ten divisions. The back is not free, but bare. No general can live with that.
Beware, the military says to the politicians, so you do not plan a twelve-division strategy with only ten divisions. Because in that case you are planning for an army we do not have! – a situation tailored for the use of small, custom nuclear weapons, otherwise.
In the new year, the soldiers will return home from Iraq. Then the generals will at least get an answer to one of their questions – whether the preventive war has support among the people who make up the country's armed forces.
