Per Iraq campaign's stress on military resources - Is US multi war capabililty a fib?

Great Debates
1

We seem to be running out of manpower (and material in some cases) to sustain the Iraq campaign, and are (apparently) having to make adjustments all over the place to reinforce troop strength. Is the notion that the US can really engage a hardened enemy on several fronts accurate, when we seem to have our hands so full with just the Iraq handover, with an enemy that we are supposed to have already conquered?

Are we dangerously fooling outselves on this issue of true milti-war capability, or is that not the US Military preparedness goal anymore?

2

I think the time of the US being able to fight 2 major wars and a brush fire war somewhere else are long past. We just don’t have that kind of military anymore. What we have now is a force designed to basically destroy ANY enemy rapidly and throughly and then go home to party. I think the occupation itself is whats presenting the problems, as our personnel are used to rotating out sooner than they have been. For whatever reason, our leaders mis-judged what Iraq was and would become and didn’t prepare for this length, or this tough, of an occupation.

As to the material of war, we simply don’t have the vast stockpiles of the newest and deadliest weapons anymore. For one thing, they take a lot more to manufacture as far as technology and skill goes. For another they are damned expensive. So, we have limited stockpiles…which we’ve used up and are now, slowly, replacing. Also, our equipment, by its very nature, is high maintenance. Its not designed to be in continuous service for years at a time without stand down and refit time. Its doing VERY well IMO, but its being strapped and eventually it will come back to bite us on the ass.

-XT

3

I agree. The US no longer has the natural resources inside the US to fight a major war like WWII, or maybe even Korea. At the beginning of WWII the Mesabi Iron range in Minnesota was huge. Now it is a big hole in the ground and I think they are operating on secondary quality ore. Our known domestic oil reserves are inadequate for that kind of also. I took advanced flight training at Ft. Sumner, NM and we used to fly a lot of night cross country over toward the Midland-Odessa, TX region. In order to produce the amount of fuel needed there was also a lot of unusable residue left over from the distillation process. A lot of refining then was by fractional distillation, catalytic crackers being expensive and for the fuel supply-demand situation at the time, not really needed. Anyway, the excess heavy stuff was run out into large ponds and burned. The ground was often nearly covered from horizon to horizon with ponds of the gunk on fire. And so our domestic reserves of that resource are also quite depleted.

If a draft is instituted we have plenty of people but finding supplies of war material for them inside our borders would be a real problem.

4

I think you’re about 20 years behind in your concept of strategic thinking. I’m pretty sure that the fight-a-2-front war concept has diminished significantly since the Cold War. However, in the case of 2 minor wars, say Iraq and N. Korea, we could still fight a 2 front war. (despite whatever you may say, the Iraq war was really kind of dinky in terms of organized resistance.) Obviously, in order to fight a 2 front war, we’d have to mobilize the NG and reserves almost completely, but that was always part of the plan, even back in the 80’s.

The US Army has 10 active duty divisions, 2 independent brigades, and 2 Armored Cavalry Regiments.

The National Guard has 10 divisions, 15 independent brigades and 1 Armored Cavalry division.

This gives the Army a strength of about 25 divisions (3 brigades roughly equal a division).

Considering that only about 22 combat brigades are currently in Iraq, we’ve hardly put all our eggs in one basket from a war fighting sense. We could keep the same number of troops in Iraq and still whip North Korea’s ass- it’d just stretch us thin.

The issue is that the rotations home are becoming somewhat problematic. It’s not that the numbers aren’t there- I think it’s that there aren’t necessarily the right numbers of troops with the right specialties or training there.
As for the equipment issue… I’m not sure what you’re smoking. Although our equipment isn’t necessarily using 2004 technology, that’s not at all uncommon. Typically military equipment lags 5-15 years behind the civilian state-of-the-art in things like electronics, etc… It’s not necessarily bureaucracy, but a combination of not wanting to retrain troops on equipment every year, getting our money’s worth out of what we did buy, and these days, a certain amount of reluctance to buy the best and newest, if the last generation of equipment will still whip anyone else’s stuff handily.

And it’s not like the rest of the world is somehow passing us by. Tank-wise, the M1A2 is equal to the LeClerc, Challenger 2, Leopard 2A4, and T-90, plus our crews are well-trained and have combat experience.

The rest of our weapons follow the same pattern, and in some cases (aircraft, naval ships) are about the best in the world.

As for the maintenance aspect, that’s just retarded. If anything, it’s the exact opposite of what you say. Few countries actually USE their equipment in peacetime training anywhere near as much as the US does. Our equipment is made for in-field maintenance and support- ever wonder why we haven’t yet heard about widespread equipment failures and maintenance problems? Because that’s something our military planned for.

I think many people are thinking that since we have a good chunk of our active duty forces in Iraq, that somehow we’re on the ropes or otherwise having trouble aren’t aware of the larger picture. In case of another war, I’d just about guarantee that the majority of combat troops in Iraq would be replaced by NG troops and the active duty troops would head for wherever the war is.

The only thing they’re having trouble with that I’m aware of is NG re-enlistments due to National Guardsmen not wanting to suspend their careers and go off to Iraq for a year.

5

From the Secretary’s Message in the Quadrennial Defense Review of 1997:

That got toned down in the 2001 QDF to this:

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr2001.pdf

So nowadays the military should be able to take out Iraq or Syria, but not North Korea.

6

…Iran or Syria…

7

It also depends on what you mean by “fighting a war.” Do you mean “bombing the bejeebus out of a target”, or do you mean “maintain an occupying force in the enemy territory indefinitely”?

Barring current events, I think the United States could manage two simultaneous “bombing the bejeebus” wars – say, Afghanistan and Iraq. Planting troops on the ground and expecting them to keep the peace while the “liberated” locals take potshots at them is an entirely different matter all together.

8

No idea who most of your post was directed too. Who is smoking something? I didn’t even see anywhere where someone said the world was passing us by. Our weapons systems are the most advanced in the world…bar none. As is our training. No one trains like we do. The issue is logistics. We simply don’t MAKE huge stockpiles of things like cruise missiles, smart bombs, etc. So, when we use them, we have to make more. In addition there isn’t unlimited transport capabilities to move supplies, re-inforcements, etc hither and yon. Currently our logistics is strapped. Its not on the edge by any means, but its certainly under strain. Put another conflict on it and you’ll strain it even more…maybe to the breaking point. You seem to be operating under the mis-conception that fighting wars is about shooting people or blowing things up.

I’m assuming this bit of hand waving is directed at me? Did you actually read what I said? I said our equipment was holding up fine, but that it isn’t designed to be in the field indefinitely without major maintenance…the kind that can’t be handled in the field. Have you actually ever BEEN in the military? If so, then you should know that maintenance of our equipment is vital and continuously on going process. Our equipment, by its very nature, tends to require a lot of maintenance because it IS so advanced. Sure, it can and is field maintained…but not indefinitely. Take any of our advanced systems and you’ll find that its mandatory that after so much time that equipment be stood down for full scale maintenance…something that can’t be done in the field.

If we got into another major war/occupation right now we’d be hard pressed from logistics perspectives to support it. Sure, we have the warm bodies, but fighting modern wars, especially American style wars, requires a hell of a lot more than warm bodies. Could we do it? Ya, we probably could…but we’d be even further out on the edge if we did. And THEN what would we do if a third problem cropped up requiring US troops? At that point all bets are off and we’d probably be fucked.

-XT

9

Exactly the point there. Kicking their asses is one thing, running their country and making them love you is another. The US certainly had enough resources to destroy the Iraqi military quickly, with enough left over for the rest of the Axis of Evil. But that’s only the beginning of the commitment one takes on with a war, isn’t it? The problem comes from seeing war as simply an exercise in ass-kicking, not as an extension of diplomacy by other means - “if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

Even so, I would also take issue with the idea that even ass-kicking requires massive numbers of troops and machinery, that in turn require massive natural resources. Those days are long past, and the days of smart bombs, missiles and even nukes are here. A single warhead can now contain more explosive power than all of WW2. Even with conventional explosives, a single *fighter * can now contain more bombing capacity than a WW2 thousand-bomber raid.

10

I’m with rjung on this… the US has plenty of destruction power… but occupying and keeping Arab countries peaceful without a decent alliance certainly takes too much manpower.

Given that the US has a lot of stealth and high tech edge… they can basically bomb with small losses at will with impunity until the target are leveled. The problem is that ground troops are necessary for any complete victory.