In 2004, in a little noted speech, General Richard A. Cody, who graduated West Point in 1972, described the Army efforts to adapt to its new commitments. (It was attempting to fight terrorism, quell the Taliban, invade and pacify Iraq, and at the same time, prepare for future strategic challenges whether in China, Korea, or Africa.) The endevevor was, Cody said, like building an airplane in flight.
In Mid- April of this year, the General appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and testified that this method of engineering has failed. “Today’s Army is out of balance,” Cody said. He continued:
The Current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply, and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies. . . . Soldiers, families, support systems and equipment are stretched and stressed. . . . Overall, our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it. If unaddressed, this lack of balance poses a significant risk to the all-volunteer force and degrades the Army’s ability to make a timely response to other contingencies.
In 2006, the Army granted eight thousand three hundred and thirty “moral waivers” to new recruits, meaning that it had accepted that number of volunteers with past criminal charges or convictions. The percentage of high-school graduates willing to serve is falling sharply from year to year; so are the aptitude-exam scores of new enlistees. To persuade soldiers and young officers to reënlist after overlong combat tours, the Army’s spending on retention bonuses increased almost ninefold from 2003 to 2006.
In normal times, when an active four-star general implies in public that the Army is under such strain that it might flounder if an unexpected war broke out, or might require a draft to muster adequate troop levels, he could expect to provoke concern and comment from, say, the President of the United States. Some time ago, however, George W. Bush absolved himself of responsibility for his Iraq policy and its consequences by turning the war over to General David H. Petraeus, Cody’s four-star peer, and the champion of the “surge” policy, who will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.
Please take some time this Memorial Day to read this article, to think about not only the great sacrifices of the the troops and their families and the fallen but of Military policy and Military history and the great mess of it all and ponder about what the future will bring.
No comments:
Post a Comment