As I understand it, the structure of the US armed forces since WWII was to be able to maintain deployment on several fronts. There were US military bases, ammo and supply depots, constant carrier battle groups, large Reserves forces, etc etc. We pour billions into all of these assets to guarantee our security first from Communism and now (apparently) from Terrorism.
We deployed between 11-15,000 troops to Afghanistan, largely special forces, plus a collection of coalition and local units. 15,000 troops is obviously, and has been shown to be, practically worthless for doing anything other than protecting Kabul (by comparison, we are deploying 35,000 troops to Baghdad alone for the elections). Much of these troops have been rotated out or moved to Iraq; a skeleton force remains and the country is a virtual anarchy.
Our initial Iraqi deployment was, what, 120,000 troops? The brilliant plan on attacking Iraq (blitzkreig Baghdad with overwhelming force and everyone will be happy and singing in the streets) proved less brilliant every hour that passed after the initial invasion; early on, the supply lines were being hit constantly, and most of the large cities were outside of US control. Units were rushed from Germany and other locations to stabilize the region. 2 years later, the situation is slightly improved, with local governments in place in most areas, but hte infrastructure remains vulnerable and attacks are carried out on a daily basis, while rebuilding has barely begun.
On top of that, apparently we can no longer draw on our Reservists, our soldiers have had their tours extended indefinitely, we’ve exhausted much of our military resources, and it generally seems like there is no way we could possibly enter another military engagement of any scale elsewhere, should the need arise.
How did this happen? We have less than 200,000 troops deployed (in combat) out of a population of 294,000,000. Additionally, regardless of having among the best trained and equipped and technologically advanced militaries in the world, we are incapable of providing security in even Baghdad and Kabul. Without the British troops supporting us, the tenuous grasp on the south of the country we have would be almost impossible.
I realize that much of our military is still deployed at regional bases, and stockpiles are being reserved in case they are needed elsewhere. Also, much of our military power is naval and air power based, which isn’t applicable in these situations, aside from the occasional strafing of cruise missile at a target. This is all on the Army and Marines.
But how did they get stretched so thin? How could that be allowed to happen? Who is responsible (OK, that last one is rhetorical)?