30 July 2010 Shove another regiment back through the meat-grinder

30 July 2010 Shove another regiment back through the meat-grinder


Impact of past defense cuts should warn of risks



By Max Boot

Friday, July 30, 2010



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072905005.html

“The prospect of an exit from Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked rumblings on Capitol Hill that it's time to cut the defense budget. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says, "I'm pretty certain cuts are coming -- in defense and the whole budget." Defense Secretary Bob Gates is already pushing to cancel some big-ticket programs and to wring savings out of the existing budget.

If there were ever evidence that it's impossible to learn from history -- or at least that it's difficult for politicians to do so -- this is it. Before they rush to cut defense spending, lawmakers should consider the consequences of previous attempts to cash in on a "peace dividend."

The column is heavy on numbers. The thrust of the column is valid. In seeking to stop funding war-sized armies and navies, we have historically cut our military to the bone and left it unable to repair or replace aging and badly worn hardware from the smallest hand guns to the most technically advanced weapons platforms. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, & marines acquire and maintain proficiency at their trade by repeated and demanding cycles of training. There are no substitutes for training and that training must be realistic. While some simulator time can be invaluable, nothing replaces the actual hands-on down in the dirt, up in the sky, or under the oceans operational training that takes our troops out into harm’s way and brings them back safely when possible.

Our current armed forces were pared back after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ability to maintain two major conflicts and a third brush-fire action is gone. We’re spread too thinly and all our potential enemies know it. We lack the naval forces to project power in distant nations as we could once. Our carrier battle groups and the fleet elements needed for independent actions have simply been worn out, phased out of service to cut costs, or declared unnecessary by a congress and an electorate that have never worn the nation’s uniforms or heard shots fired in anger.

Those volunteer troops we still fund are being used up and discarded at a hellish rate. They cycle from one combat tour to another with no decompression time, too little time to re-equip and to train up, and the certainty that they will be facing the same miserable job for as long as they are in our armed forces. Between tired troops and tired equipment, layer in tired and ineffectual tactics, campaigns with no victory markers, no territory won or held. It is a thankless job done by a few volunteers for a citizenry that thinks that only rejects and drop-outs join the armed forces.

Since the demise of the Soviets and the down-grading of their client armies our troops have undergone the post Cold War reduction in forces and the post Desert Storm depletion. Despite these, the Bush/Cheney administration decided to engage in two foreign wars and a lot of saber rattling. Since they neglected to fund these adventures there was no way to increase the number of available combatants to a realistic level. So the too-few troops we have are being pumped from battlefield to battlefield, like raw meat being ground ever smaller and spread more thinly. Our enemies see. Our troops see and pay the butchers’ bill; there and after they return.

If we are going to pretend we have the power to police a large part of the world, we’d better begin taking better care of our troops, and of the expensive tools they need to hold up their end of the bargain they made with a nation that has never managed to learn and recall how few and how precious those battalions, squadrons, and ships’ crews truly are.

I’m not worried about the right wing’s “invasion of Islamic fundamentalists”; I’m not worried about mutiny in the ranks of our troops. I am worried that in the near future they may decide that if no one else values them enough to treat them well, they might as well stop pretending the nation cares about them.