The Burdens of War

Thanks, jr, for the instant analysis of my political philosophy and policy positions. Some day I hope to do the same for you.

That aside, your second paragraph is a non-sequitur when juxtaposed against the quote you pulled from me. If we're going broke, we certainly can't afford the large conscript army that Col. Yingling proposes. Instead, we'll have to do a lot more within the budget we have now. That means optimizing the forces to fight the kinds of conflicts we are most likely to face, because only in that way can we deter them. Si vis pacem, preparet bellum.

Now, looking around the globe, there is only one potential peer competitor on the horizon, which is, of course, China. A quick look at China's geopolitical position reveals it to be a cul-de-sac: with significant geographical barriers in all directions, China cannot expand through overland invasion. If it wishes to control the resource-rich South China Sea and the choke points out of the region, it must do so by the sea and by the air. China cannot project meaningful ground combat power out of the area. Conversely, the U.S. cannot project meaningful ground combat power onto the Asian mainland. Any conflict between the U.S. and China, therefore, will mainly involve air and sea power.

Thus, we face two distinct threats into the future: potential high intensity air and ground combat against China; and low-intensity, asymmetrical conflict almost everywhere else. U.S. dominance in high intensity combat has ensured that nobody in his right mind will challenge us in that manner, and those crazy enough to try will be flattened in a matter of days. Our success has caused our enemies to adapt.

Low intensity combat is manpower intensive, but for the most part it requires relatively low-tech and low cost solutions. The main requirement for success is well trained special operations forces, light infantry and civil affairs units. My suggestion for restructuring the Army will provide the kind of ground forces we really need, and at a substantially lower cost, too. That, in turn, will free up funds for the Navy and the Air Force to maintain a credible deterrent against the peer competitor state. By the same token, a robust low intensity conflict capability will act as a deterrent against potential terrorist and insurgency movements. Full spectrum deterrence combined with a strong and consistent foreign policy, will actually reduce the likelihood that the U.S. will have to engage in combat operations.

So, too, paradoxically, will non-military preemptive stabilization operations--the dreaded "nation building". So, we spend a few billion here and there strengthening civil institutions, building infrastructure and stabilizing governments in strategic areas. That's dirt cheap as compared to what we would need to do if one of those states actually fails. A few billion in subsidies and bribes beats a billion a day for combat operations.

I don't advocate "endless war"--I simply recognize that this is the normal state of the human condition, and always has been. Peace is a condition whose existence we deduce because there have been intervals between wars. As soon as one adversary is subdued, another one arises to take its place. A wise country finds ways to play one off against another, to buy the loyalty of potential adversaries, to adapt its military forces to the threats at hand, and to husband military resources as a veiled threat, and if necessary, the ultimate argument.

But, should military force be employed, the wise state also does not seek the total annihilation of the enemy, but rather to subdue him and convert him to a potential asset (if not necessarily an ally). With the end of the Cold War, and the weakening of the nation-state system, our strategic thinking must focus more on the examples prior to the Treaty of Westphalia.

"I do not believe that the military--the Army in particular--is seriously under strength for its commitments."

After reading that sentence by Stuart Koehl, I had to google his name and find out where this guy is coming from on the political spectrum. Unsurprisingly, he's a believer in endless war, a Frontpage Magazine and Weekly Standard writer.

Stu, our country is tired and the coffers are empty. It's only a matter of time until we can't borrow any more money from China to finance our empire. It's coming to an end. Heck, NASA is taking a cut, our World Police team will be getting a cut in funds as well.

His article on the Russia/Georgia conflict is also a hoot.

To address Mr. Crawford first:

In regard to the "English Tradition", I was speaking historically about the legacy of the English Civil War and the Protectorate on the generation of the Founders. Suspicion of standing armies was profound, and their belief in the virtues of an armed citizenry as the first line of defense a reaction against that.

On regional recruiting, even as far back as the Seven Years War, the British army was recruiting heavily in Ireland. Indeed, without Irish and Scots recruits, England could not have met its troop requirements during the American Revolution. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, more than a third of the men in nominally English regiments were actually Irish.

The United States was not unusual in that regard, either: during the Civil War, possibly as many as a fourth of the troops in the Union Army were non-citizen immigrants, mainly from Ireland and Germany. Indeed, recruiting agents were quite active in Ireland, promising men free passage to the States in return for signing on the dotted line. Quite a few, apparently, were unaware of what they had signed. That the draft riots were largely focused on the Irish immigrant community of New York is no accident. The post-Civil War army continued to recruit among immigrants, with Italians and Slavs added to the mix of Irish and Germans. Trooper Martini, who carried Custer's last order to Benteen at Little Big Horn, had trouble explaining the tactical situation to Benteen because his English was sketchy at best.

On linking Federal R&D funding to ROTC, an excellent idea. As to getting college-bound men to join the military, as a bachelor's degree is merely the new high school diploma, I don't see much benefit from it. I'd much prefer the military get hold of high school dropouts, help them finish secondary education as a condition of service (i.e., if you don't have a diploma or GED, the Army puts you through the remainder of high school on a minimal salary, as part of basic training), which would answer Yingling's complaint about the decline in the proportion of high school grads being inducted. The Army can do a better job of training such people than it can with over-educated and under-motivated college grads. It is my experience dealing with college students that those who come to college AFTER military service do much better than those who have not.

To Mr. Pyruz,

I concur to some extent. I do not believe that the military--the Army in particular--is seriously under strength for its commitments. Rather, the armed forces are badly configured for the commitments it has and is most likely to face in the future. With low intensity conflict the most likely scenario for the next fifty years or so, the Army has too many heavy units, and not enough light units. Moreover, too much CS and CSS, both essential for long-term LIC missions, are located in the reserve components.

I would advocate a reallocation of heavy forces to the reserve component, and the transformation of the active forces into a light force configured for special operations and neo-colonial constabulary missions. Paradoxically, these require more highly trained and disciplined troops than high-intensity operations, because they involve the complex integration of civil and military activities, as well as an extraordinary degree of forbearance on the part of the troops.

A residual heavy capability would remain with the active component, but this would serve as the nucleus for round-out units from the Reserve and National Guard. As the Total Force concept has proven itself over the past decade, I have every confidence that the reserve components can be relied upon to backstop the smaller heavy component of the active force.

Moreover, since the likelihood of high intensity ground operations is relatively low, the reserve component could return to its original mission as a strategic (vs. operational) reserve, called upon in times of national emergency, and not merely as a part-time adjunct of the active force.

In return for converting the active component to a predominantly light force, the Army would gain a significant increase in rifle strength without any increase in the personnel top line. While a heavy division of 18,000-odd men has a dismount strength of about 2500, a Stryker medium brigade can generate almost as many dismounts from a force of 3500-4000 men; and a truly light brigade would have close to 3000 riflemen for the same total strength.

As light forces have a greatly reduced logistic footprint, support slots could be converted to riflemen, allowing the formation of more light brigade combat teams within the Army's total personnel limit.

Finally, I think we should give serious consideration to cutting the size of the Army's officer corps by 50%. At 15%, the U.S. Army has the highest ratio of officers to enlisted men (excluding aviation and medical services) of any major army (most of which average 7%). This was the result of a deliberate policy initiated after World War II, when it was decided NOT to rely on the National Guard for rapid mobilization. Having discovered it could raise new divisions faster than it could shake out National Guard divisions, provided officer cadres were available, the Army simply doubled the size of the officer corps relative to its top line, in effect creating a shadow cadre for mobilization purposes.

This would have been fine, had the surplus officers simply been put on half pay and recalled periodically for proficiency training, but the Army retained all of them in the active force, hence had to find meaningful employment for them. The result was the creation of a large bureaucratic establishment manned by officers, each of whom required a staff of enlisted personnel, constantly scrambling to justify their positions by creating work.

Reducing the size of the officer corps by half would require the Army to review the various administrative activities it supports, decide which ones are critical and which are superfluous, as well as finding ways to outsource as much non-essential activity as possible to the civilian sector--by which I mean every job that does not require a soldier in uniform carrying weapon or supporting a weapon system. If I could reduce the officer/enlisted ratio to 5%, I would.

The result would be the creation of at least 35,000 additional slots for combat infantrymen, as well as a leaner, flatter and more agile organization better able to meet emerging military challenges, and less interested in preserving entrenched bureaucratic interests.

Mr. Koehl,

I believe you'll find that differing attitudes towards conscription, as well as military engagement have tended to be very consistent in particular regions and sub-cultures in the U.S. and that very few parts of America possess the "English" opinion of military service... which is so severe that today, sans recruits from N. Ireland, Scotland and Wales, England would be unable to meet ANY of it's international Treaty obligations (in Europe or the Commonwealth).

Otherwise, your points about uneven application of deferments, exemptions and etc. relating to the dubious goal of "mirroring" some weird concept of "society" hits the trouble directly. In particular, the notion that women be required to register and participate in S. Service in the name of "societal representation" is very good (it's a wonder none of the female politicians who were calling for a Draft overlooked so obvious a flaw in the current system... heh).

To add at least something contributive: Were the DoD to stop sending all funds and research monies to Institutions that banned ROTC from campuses, for example, or lobbied Congress to require that ANY Federal loan or grant program that payed a majority of a students college tuition be given a ceiling of 75% of what the Military pays through it's various programs, wouldn't the result be more participation directly and indirectly of college bound citizens in Military service? My point being that it often seems like the DoD doesn't know which side of the Federal bread is buttered, as it regularly competes against it's own interests merely because there's such deep political cowardice in the Chain of Command (under the guise of neutrality) when it comes to standing down professional Politicians (who are overwhelmingly Lawyers ignorant of ANY military service). Just a thought.

Best,

A. Scott Crawford

Sirs,

From where does Col. Yingling get this notion of an "historic reliance on citizen-soldiers"? In all the 234 years since its inception, this country has relied on conscription for all of 32 years. The rest of the time, the country has depended on an all-volunteer--that is to say, a professional--force. In keeping with their English roots, the founders, and the country generally, has been suspicious of conscription and has been hostile to it when it has been in place.

Moreover--and also in keeping with its English heritage--the country has not, until quite recently, held the military in high esteem. Just as the English army was recruited (in Wellington's memorable words) "the scum of the earth, signed on for drink", so the U.S. Army from the end of War of 1812 through the beginning of the Civil War, and from the end of the Civil War through our entry into World War I, and then from the end of World War I through Pearl Harbor, was principally recruited from the bottom rungs of society. The army that fought the Indian Wars had a backbone of recent immigrants and ne'er-do-wells, as evidenced by the very high rates of both desertion and alcoholism. American soldiers, like his British cousin Tommy Atkins, was not welcome in polite society.

When the draft was re-instituted in 1940 (by one vote in Congress!) it was wildly unpopular with the American people (who here remembers OHIO--Over The Hill In October), and only Pearl Harbor legitimized it. When the war was over, the draft was discontinued, but was reinstituted on the outbreak of the Korean War, and continued because the Cold War and the increasing demands of the Vietnam War necessitated high force levels.

Even then, the draft could generate far more conscripts than the military needed, which led to a generous set of deferments and exemptions, the net result of which was the burden of service falling mainly on the lower classes. In other words, in comparison with the present volunteer force, the draft military was much less equitable and did not reflect the demographic makeup of the country as a whole.

Given that our military manpower needs are but a small percent of what they were at the height of the Cold War, the draft would be selecting an even smaller percentage of eligible men (and just men, or will women be drafted as well, in the name of "equality")? Again, the draft will bypass the upper classes and fall almost entirely on the lower classes, whereas the present force is demographically representative of all socioeconomic quintiles (See the Heritage Foundation studies, "Who Bears the Burden?").

Finally, there is the matter of competence. Unless draftees are inducted for a period of more than three years (and preferably four), a conscript force cannot match the level of technical and tactical competence found in the volunteer force.

Moreover, the predominant form of war the Army is likely to fight over the next fifty years--low intensity conflict--demands far more in the way of tactical prowess, discipline and self-restraint than can be expected of conscripts. Conscripts are interested in doing their time and getting out in one piece, Can one really expect them to successfully execute a population protection counter-insurgency strategy? No conscript force in history ever has, because self preservation is the conscript's primary motivation.

In the area of high intensity conventional warfare, COL Yinglng ought to recognize that the era of mass armies is over. Mass only creates a target rich environment for precision strike systems. Future high intensity combat will require smaller, more stealthy and more agile forces that will concentrate in time rather than in mass, and will use equipment and demand operational methods and tactics that can only be implemented by long-serving professional forces.

Conscripts are cannon fodder in the face of modern weapon systems. If nothing else, our enemies have learned that from the two Gulf Wars, which is why we now face asymmetrical threats on all sides--we are too good at what we do.

So, in the end, why this nostalgia for the draft? It is inexplicable to anyone who knows the history of the institution and has studied the trend lines in modern warfare.