# Should the US Army be stripped down to special forces and reserves? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 12, 2011, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397 "2011-01-12T23:11:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/22 "2012-07-21T23:28:02Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Pakistan is a highly unstable democracy and I think so was Turkey and Cyprus at the time of their war (I mean with regular military coups and such). Does the American Civil War pass the true scotsman test for democracies going to war with each other? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/23 "2012-07-21T23:50:59Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Perhaps this (re) raises an interesting idea; we know that democracies don’t wage war on democracies (so far!) Relevant Straight Dope column: [Is it true there has never been a war between two democracies?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/799/is-it-true-there-has-never-been-a-war-between-two-democracies) ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/24 "2012-07-22T00:27:56Z")
I think the biggest point in this argument is that the world has moved beyond the idea of war for the purpose of territorial expansion. The parts of the military that are designed to seize and hold large amounts of territory are obsolete. We didn’t want to conquer Afghanistan. We wanted to kill particular people in Afghanistan. Being able to forge alliances with neighboring countries, make friends with people who we want to replace the current government, gathering intelligence to figure out exactly who we want to kill and where they are, and having an extremely large bank account to bribe the people we want to kill but cant, and having super-duper expensive weapons we can kill someone with from far away using a high tech camera and xbox controller; all those were way, way more important in Afghanistan than having a couple hundred thousand boots on the ground with guns showing everyone we’re not fucking around. I agree 100% with the idea presented in the original post. Cut the manpower of the military, which is not as important as the technological, diplomatic, and intelligence edge. Wars are won with technology, alliances, and intelligence, not the army. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/25 "2012-07-22T01:39:41Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > You’re well named. Likewise. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/26 "2012-07-22T02:10:43Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > I agree 100% with the idea presented in the original post. Cut the manpower of the military, which is not as important as the technological, diplomatic, and intelligence edge. Wars are won with technology, alliances, and intelligence, not the army. Unless you think playing _Call of Duty_ qualifies people to operate the technology and, as I said above, work smoothly as a team, we’re going to be in a world of hurt if we ever have to use the stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/27 "2012-07-22T02:17:40Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Relevant Straight Dope column: [Is it true there has never been a war between two democracies?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/799/is-it-true-there-has-never-been-a-war-between-two-democracies) Cecil left out one example: Imperial Japan was a democracy (although it might not meet a True Scotsman test). But Japan had a parliament, multiple political parties, and there was a general election held during the war in 1942 (the pro-war party won a resounding victory). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/28 "2012-07-22T02:31:20Z")
I’ve heard the United States may have gone too far in the opposite direction. In the last twenty years, we’ve gotten so focused on fighting against insurgents and small countries, we let our capacity to fight a large conventional war deteriorate. Our old problem was that we had military units that could fight an armored division but we didn’t have units that could fight a guerrilla band. Well, now we have units that can fight guerrilla bands but we don’t have very many units left that can fight an armored division. And some countries - like Russia and China - still have armored divisions and big conventional armies. A brigade combat team (which has become the Army’s de facto main combat unit) might be great for the missions it’s been called on to fight recently but it doesn’t have the depth to fight a major conventional battle. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/29 "2012-07-22T03:00:16Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > It’s now very obv. a country that spends comfortably over 50% of the entire planet’s military budget still cannot control a population of 35 million (Vietnam 1960), 25 million (Iraq 2001) or even a population largely still in the Stone Age (Afghanistan). > > If the occupied population don’t want you, there is nothing you can do - except bleed and keep looking for IEDs. > > What size population can you control with a budget exceeding 50% of total military expenditure – Luxemburg, maybe? The army is not a police force, their training traditionally was go in, kill pretty much everything that moves and garrison an area. If you want policing, it is entirely different training. Bleed and look for IEDs is less of an occurrence if the population is dead. Dead population also do not tend to make IEDs. Making the army a police force is what is inefficient. What is the line from 1776 - it is a war, you have to piss off somebody? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/30 "2012-07-22T03:14:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ve heard the United States may have gone too far in the opposite direction. . . . we don’t have very many units left that can fight an armored division. And some countries - like Russia and China - still have armored divisions and big conventional armies. . . . Another thing we don’t have is a populace that would stand for the casualties that such a war would produce. The sacrifice would be too great, given the likeliest theaters of operations. Would Americans accept 50,000 casualties…to free Tibet from China, or an hypothetical breakaway republic from Russia? Where are China and Russia likely to find a use for their own armored divisions? If it really comes down to it, the U.S. is willing to throw a full nuclear spasm and burn everyone dead. Unsporting, but convincing. You just don’t invade England in a nuclear world. However, it seems to me that we do need a fairly large military, to provide the raw personnel from which special forces are internally recruited. The regular forces do the first level of screening. Could special forces, as we know them, survive by recruiting directly from the populace? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/31 "2012-07-22T04:04:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Cecil left out one example: Imperial Japan was a democracy (although it might not meet a True Scotsman test). But Japan had a parliament, multiple political parties, and there was a general election held during the war in 1942 (the pro-war party won a resounding victory). In the minus column of the Scotsman test, the government could only exist on the whim of the Army and the Navy. In a legal sense, not in the threat of a coup sense. [From wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism): > [@](#): > > The Army and the Navy also had decisive say on the formation (and survival) of any civilian government. Since the law required that the posts of Army Minister and Navy Minister be filled by active duty officers nominated by their respective services, and since the law also required that a prime minister resign if he could not fill all of his cabinet posts, both the Army and the Navy had final say on the formation of a cabinet, and could bring down the cabinet at any time by withdrawing their minister and refusing to nominate a successor. In reality, while this tactic was used only one time (ironically to prevent a General, Kazushige Ugaki, from becoming Prime Minister in 1937), the threat always loomed high when the military made any demands on the civilian leadership. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/32 "2012-07-22T04:58:45Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > You’re well named. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Likewise. Both of you: personal insults are not allowed in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/33 "2012-07-22T05:50:17Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > In the minus column of the Scotsman test, the government could only exist on the whim of the Army and the Navy. In a legal sense, not in the threat of a coup sense. Another serious defect in the Japanese political system was the armed forces essentially were beyond civilian control. They pretty much set their own goals, acted on them, and then expected the civilian government to ratify their decision after the fact. This was true even when the military policy had significant political implications. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/34 "2012-07-22T13:58:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Another serious defect in the Japanese political system was the armed forces essentially were beyond civilian control. They pretty much set their own goals, acted on them, and then expected the civilian government to ratify their decision after the fact. This was true even when the military policy had significant political implications. This is actually fairly common in the modern world. Egypt, Pakistan, North Korea… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/35 "2012-07-22T16:10:26Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > This is actually fairly common in the modern world. Egypt, Pakistan, North Korea… North Korea? I’ve always thought the North Korea was the epitome of a country with a centralized government. Nobody in North Korea, including the military, dares step outside of the lines. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/36 "2012-07-23T19:12:13Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Since we aren’t willing to do anything like that and aren’t willing to just turn to economic/political/diplomatic means of getting our way, we instead behave in a way best described as half-assed. We act too brutal and aggressive to win people to our side, but not ruthlessly & brutally enough to terrorize and slaughter them into submission like an effective tyrant or conqueror would. Instead we inflict just enough misery, suffering and death to enrage people and manufacture enemies. Walk down middle of road, squashed like grape! Or, “I wish you were either hot or cold, but you are tepid, and so I spit you out of my mouth.” ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/37 "2012-07-23T19:21:16Z")
> [@biswabm](#): > > Dear all > > I think US Army should not be stripped down to special forces and reserves? > > becuase so many job aspirants will not be happy with this decision, they won’t be more interested in this > cheers Wow, this little spambot increased the size of the thread by an order of magnitude. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/38 "2012-07-23T19:47:52Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > North Korea? I’ve always thought the North Korea was the epitome of a country with a centralized government. Nobody in North Korea, including the military, dares step outside of the lines. The Military pretty much IS the Government. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/39 "2012-07-23T20:47:15Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > The Military pretty much IS the Government. Seems like the government consists a line of people named Kim Something-something. I assume you’re saying that the Kims are just puppets and the real power is held by the military. But just last week, General Ri Yong-ho, the Chief of General Staff of the Korean People’s Army was dismissed from all of his posts by Kim. Kim had previously dismissed Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok, the head of the army’s Political Department. Ri and Jo were both replaced by people from outside the military leadership. Kim has also assumed the rank of Marshal himself. So it’s certainly looking like Kim’s in charge of the military and not the reverse. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/40 "2012-07-23T21:05:45Z")
To address the OP: I think our army needs to be the biggest in the world, on defense. Defense of our strategic goals and our homeland. War used to be a "win at all costs’ scenario. What changed? Marketing? Conscience? Nuclear deterrence? Maybe any number of things, but I think war should still be a win at all costs type of thing. I think that would be it’s own deterrent. If war actually meant war, we’d almost never have one. ---
**Author:** ![Full\_Tilt\_Boogie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/2acd7d/32.png) [@Full\_Tilt\_Boogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Tilt_Boogie)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397/41 "2012-07-26T01:04:25Z")
Donald Rumsfeld was/_ **is** _ a congenital fuckwit with no feel, skill-set or capability for the cabinet portfolio he was given. He’s not fit to run a hot dog stand, let alone the US military. He argued vociferously with his Army commanders in the planning for 2003’s invasion of Iraq - telling them that the 2:1 man-for-man superiority the US would need to do the job properly (the commanders’ advice) was wrong and that he could do wit with a third of the forces requested. And what happened next? America announces a [cough] “surge” - which is just back-pedalling for “right-sizing the number of troops we should have had there in the first place”. Rumsfeld is a classic example of someone needing a neurosurgeon, and instead hiring a carpenter. Completely unfit for purpose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-army-be-stripped-down-to-special-forces-and-reserves/567397.md?page=3)