"Fixing" the military? Fix the Clinton cuts

Thomas Donnally and Frederick Kagan:

For the American Left, there are many reasons to withdraw from Iraq: we're caught in the middle of a sectarian civil war, the Iraqi government is a perfidious ally, Iraq is a diversion from the real war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and so on. Some of these arguments are strategically shortsighted, others are based on false premises (such as the fact that the sectarian civil war is over in Iraq and bin Laden is in Pakistan, not Afghanistan), but at least they are more or less logically coherent. What makes almost no sense is the proposal that we turn success in Iraq into defeat so that we can "fix the military."

Fixing the "broken" military is a reliable campaign talking point for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; the Democrats have embraced the idea that soldiers are a new constituency in their Coalition of the Victimized. Obama's victory speech after the South Carolina primary in January grouped soldiers and their families with "the mother who can't get Medicaid for her sick child," the "teacher who works another shift at Dunkin Donuts" and the "Maytag worker who is now competing with his own teenager for a $7-an-hour job at Walmart."

The fix-the-military argument was recently made at greater length by the New York Times. On May 18, the paper's editorialists noted that the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a serious toll on the Army and Marine Corps, wearing down not only people but equipment "at an unprecedented rate." Well, the loss rates would not have been surprising to the defenders of Bastogne, the armies at Antietam, or the servicemen and women in any other major war, but it is true that US land forces have been asked to do too much with too little for too long.

The question is how we should respond to this fact. The Times and its anti-war allies argue that the remedy is not to expand the force to meet the wartime mission, but to reduce the mission to what a small force can handle, consistent with a decent family life, defense budgets constrained to historic lows and peacetime recruitment and promotion "standards."

In other words, let's not fix the problem. Let's give up.

The Army and the Marines are indeed under great stress, but, as service leaders, officers, and sergeants-major take great pains to explain, they are far from broken. If anything, the tactical performance and discipline of US forces in the field has improved significantly in recent years. The Iraq surge is a case study of counterinsurgency warfare planned and executed brilliantly. Broken forces do not conduct such operations. From the level of team and squad to supreme command, US forces have adapted themselves remarkably to a war they were not at first ready to fight. In retrospect what is remarkable is how resilient and flexible the all-volunteer, professional force has proven to be.

The compelling reason to reinvest in America's Army and Marine Corps is not to withdraw and prepare for the "next war," but to build land forces capable of sustaining and prevailing in the so-called "Long War," the effort to secure more legitimate governments, and thus a more durable stability, in vital regions like the Persian Gulf.

So what does a Long War land force look like?

To begin with, it's bigger. Much bigger: We need a total active-duty Army and Marine Corps of about one million. That is almost exactly the same as the two land services were at the end of the Cold War, but it's a lot more than the total of about 700,000, and much more than the 750,000 called for by the Bush Administration's plan - a plan, by the way, endorsed by Obama. John McCain has recommended an expansion to 900,000. (So who's for "staying the course"?)

This larger Long War force must also be durable. This places a premium on active-duty, long-service professionals. Irregular warfare calls for regulars, not conscripts. Those who advocate a return to the draft want to end the war, not win it. The next president should do what President Bush has not: Ask Americans to serve the nation in uniform. This is a matter not only of moral conscience, but military effectiveness. The alleys of Baghdad or the hills of Helmand are not places to deploy draftees. The next president would also be wise to increase incentives for career officers and NCOs. In fact, the greatest career incentives would be to expand the size and modernize the equipment of the force; victory is the greatest reward for soldiering.

The demand for durability also means clarifying, as best we can, the distinct roles of the Army and the Marine Corps. To fix the Marines, first fix the Army. As retired Marine Lieutenant General - and former New York Times military correspondent - Bernard Trainor recently wrote, "Marines have been almost indistinguishable from the Army for the past five years of the Iraq war. Marines repeatedly must supplement our shorthanded Army, which cannot satisfy its assignments unassisted." Restructuring and repairing the Army will allow the Marine Corps to resume its traditional - and still critical - function as a sea-based expeditionary force. Fixing the active Army would also alleviate the burdens on the National Guard, which is also almost indistinguishable from the active force.

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There is much more. I agree with much of what they are saying. We made a mistake at the beginning of this war in not replacing the military cuts that were imposed by the Clinton Administration. There was an assumption that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would be short term operations and that we could get back to the Bush administrations goal of building a next generation military.

We should take advantage of the Clinton cuts to rebuild the military to in a way that is better suited to long term counterinsurgency operations as well as having the combat power to engage in combat persisting kinetic operations like those in conventional warfare. Increasing the size of the forces is imperative for both. With a larger force we can have a rotation that provides training time for both types of warfare and reduce the stress on the fighting force.

The Marines have already reached their goal for the size of the force approved and could probably expand further. these objectives are realistic and should be pursued.

A strategy of retreat favored by Obama will only prolong the war and make it more expensive in terms of men and material as well as the loss of more innocent lives.