# Bush to expand size of military **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 20, 2006, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855 "2006-12-20T00:55:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/1 "2006-12-20T00:55:43Z")
Story [here.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121900880.html) > [@](#): > > The president’s decision comes at a time when he is rethinking his strategy in Iraq and considering, among other options, a short-term surge in troop levels to try to secure violence-torn Baghdad. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are resisting the idea during internal debates in part out of the conviction that it will further strain already-pressed forces. > > A substantial military expansion will take years and would not be meaningful in the near term in Iraq. But it would begin to address the growing alarm among commanders about the state of the armed forces. Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, warned Congress last week that the active-duty Army “will break” under the strain of today’s war-zone rotations. Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that “the active Army is about broken.” Fuck. Just fuck. You couldn’t teach this man a lesson if you pounded it into his head with a hammer. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/2 "2006-12-20T01:59:30Z")
Think quality, not quantity, **BG**. Your OP sucks for GD. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/3 "2006-12-20T02:56:35Z")
Despite Mister Bush, we are stuck in the early years of a long war. I have long said a draft is called for. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/4 "2006-12-20T03:05:36Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] You couldn’t teach this man a lesson if you pounded it into his head with a hammer. [/QUOTE] Actually, if you’d bother to be a student of recent history, the, “faster, lighter, better,” doctrine was the creation of Bush’s first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Although many of the military commanders in the spring of 2003 strongly advocated for using upwards of 400,000 troops in Iraq, Mr. Rumsfield dismissed these requests and went ahead with the ~130,000 troops that we actually used. Many people have said that using this small number of troops was the beginning of our failure in Iraq and made it impossible to provide meaningful security for the nation in its delicate window of transition from dictatorship to, hopefully, democracy. > **[The Lost Year In Iraq | FRONTLINE | PBS](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/)** > > In the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, a group of Americans led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III set off to Baghdad to build a new nation and establish democracy in the Arab Middle East. One year later, with Bremer forced to secretly exit... I do not see Bush’s decision to increase the man-power of the military as evidence that he’s intractable to learning lessons, but the fact that this is occurring in December, 2006 shows that it’s simply too little, too late. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/5 "2006-12-20T03:13:16Z")
[QUOTE=threemae] Actually, if you’d bother to be a student of recent history, the, “faster, lighter, better,” doctrine was the creation of Bush’s first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. [/QUOTE] I don’t think that it was that he actually originated the idea, but more that he was a big booster of it and had the authority to push such a doctrine over more traditional notions of force projection. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/6 "2006-12-20T03:19:58Z")
By the way, speaking purely as a half-assed armchair general with no more expertise than the next shmoe who’s read a book or two, I don’t find the concept inherently idiotic. But there’s a difference in seeing merit in a new strategic idea and insisting on shoehorning it into fitting a situation where such clearly isn’t called for. Rumsfeld et al’s great flaw was failing to plan for the follow-up to the campaign, rather than the campaign itself ( although I could argue, again with great half-assedness, that using a lightly armored marine division to spearhead the charge could have proved messy if the RG had actually made any real attempt to counter-attack - he should have at the very least waited until the heavy division balked by Turkey was re-deployed to the south ). - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/7 "2006-12-20T03:23:58Z")
Sounds like the generals are telling him that the military must recover its manpower losses caused by his Iraq war, but that that can only be done if he \*ends \* it. But yes, the troops were needed in 2003 - now, sending them, even if they can be found somewhere, will only get more people killed uselessly. The debate topic, since one is asked for, could be “How many high-ranking military people will he have to go through until he finds some to tell him what he wants to hear?” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/8 "2006-12-20T04:14:29Z")
[QUOTE=Tamerlane] By the way, speaking purely as a half-assed armchair general with no more expertise than the next shmoe who’s read a book or two, I don’t find the concept inherently idiotic. [/QUOTE] The inherently idiotic concept is that America should be the global military hegemon at all. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/9 "2006-12-20T04:54:14Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] Despite Mister Bush, we are stuck in the early years of a long war. [/QUOTE] No, we’re **not, Paul.** We are in a war from which **we** have the option to walk away at any time. It’s a very rare and enviable situation, but W can’t see how to take advantage of it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/10 "2006-12-20T04:55:40Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Think quality, not quantity, **BG**. Your OP sucks for GD. [/QUOTE] But W is thinking in terms of quantity. That’s the whole point. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/11 "2006-12-20T05:02:34Z")
[QUOTE=threemae] … Although many of the military commanders in the spring of 2003 strongly advocated for using upwards of 400,000 troops in Iraq, Mr. Rumsfield dismissed these requests and went ahead with the ~130,000 troops that we actually used. [/QUOTE] Well, the word now is that we don’t have 400000 troops available for Iraq in which case we didn’t have them in 2003 either and the chiefs and Rumsfeld knew it. I think it quite possible that the 400000 estimate was a way for the military chiefs to say, “This is a bad idea and is beyond our capability with an army and marine corps of their present size.” Increasing the authorized strength of the army and marine corps isn’t of any use in Iraq right now and won’t be for several years. The increase is for the “global war on terrorism” and indicates that GW still thinks that military force will defeat terrorism. That’s just plain nuts. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/12 "2006-12-20T08:21:05Z")
[QUOTE=threemae] Actually, if you’d bother to be a student of recent history, the, “faster, lighter, better,” doctrine was the creation of Bush’s first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. [/QUOTE] Not Rumsfeld’s creation. The idea was put forth most strongly by (I think) Michael E. O’Hanlon prior to 2000. Bush loved the idea and picked Rumsfeld (with years of service including holding the Secretary of Defense position earlier) to carry out the blue sky plans of the armchair enthusiasts. Ironically, from June, 2001, through Sptember 10, 2001, there were an increasing number of pundits expressing the belief that Rumsfeld would be gone by Christmas because he had pissed off the military brass, who dug in their heels and dragged their feet over his “reforms,” (otherwise known as “transformation”), so that he was accomplishing next to nothing. The WTC/Pentagon attacks saved his butt, because with a “war-like” situation, the Joint Chiefs and their minions had to swallow their reservations and just go along with his orders. However, he was following another guy’s blueprints, so it is quite possible that he was carrying them out with less than full comprehension of their ramifications. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/13 "2006-12-20T08:24:01Z")
[Moderating] (I’m leaving this thread here (for now) because it is _turning into_ a discussion that could become a debate, but the OP was cleary a **Pit** rant and I’d have simply moved it if I had gotten here sooner. It may yet get moved depending how it develops.) [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/14 "2006-12-20T13:32:53Z")
Bush must be barking, or that single grey cell that he has left has resigned. Where is he going to find guys willing to fight a war of attrition ? I suppose that training a grunt to fit in a body bag is pretty easy, but I can’t see many volunteers - possibly someone has dug out Reagan’s Star Wars and is trying to re-jig it. There are plenty of trained troops in Iraq, and they speak Arabic with the right accent, possibly someone half smart has suggested to Bush that US domestic resistance to paying for an Iraqi standing army would diminish if the US populace thought :- a) it would cost less b) it would not mean attending funerals for relatives and friends Of course I can think of another option, there are some pretty effective mercenary sources, it would be a laugh to recruit Taliban trained Pakistanis, mix them with Portuguese speaking guys from Pomret - and tack on Chechens for the really dirty work. Best just to evacuate anyone worth saving and let the bonfire burn itself out. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/15 "2006-12-20T13:43:32Z")
Where are the volunteers to come from? 😕😕😕 The Baby Boom is _ **over** _. And our newly arrived wave of illegal immigrants don’t even want to be citizens, much less to fight. Where will we get the surplus young men? And, if there **is** a Draft…how can we keep the Nation functioning, if there is a draft? We don’t produce enough young people to do the civvy grunt work _now_…how do we keep the lights on at home? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/16 "2006-12-20T15:32:31Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] Despite Mister Bush, we are stuck in the early years of a long war. I have long said a draft is called for. [/QUOTE] By “long war,” I really, really hope you don’t mean a **wider** war. Because the idea of expanding the size (and cost) of out military is just throwing good money after bad for purposes of “winning” in Iraq . . . but it’s **exactly** what you would want to do if you were still fixated on invading Iran. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/17 "2006-12-20T15:33:57Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] [Moderating] (I’m leaving this thread here (for now) because it is _turning into_ a discussion that could become a debate, but the OP was cleary a **Pit** rant and I’d have simply moved it if I had gotten here sooner. It may yet get moved depending how it develops.) [/Moderating] [/QUOTE] Your leniency is appreciated. I certainly intended the cited article as debate material but could not restrain myself from adding the (appropriate even for GD, IMO) visceral commentary. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/18 "2006-12-20T15:37:56Z")
To be fair to Bush, this isn’t much different than the John Kerry 2004 proposal to add 40,000 troops. But back in 2004, the situation was thought to be salvageable. In 2007, this is going to be too little too late. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/19 "2006-12-20T15:48:16Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The inherently idiotic concept is that America should be the global military hegemon at all. [/QUOTE] Thus does the empire begin its long, slow collapse. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855/20 "2006-12-20T15:59:30Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Thus does the empire begin its long, slow collapse. [/QUOTE] Hard to tell, from that, whether you’re arguing for or against the idea of America having an empire. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-to-expand-size-of-military/384855.md?page=2)