The Magical Bigger Army

Some retired and currennt generals are blathering about the Magical Bigger Army again.

US Census

The 2000 Census lists
22.4 Million aged 40-44(1980 prime recruiting pool)
22.7 Million aged 35-39 (1985 prime recruiting pool)
20.5 million aged 30-34 (1990 prime recruiting pool)
19.3 million aged 25-29 (1995 prime recruiting pool)
18.9 million aged 20-24 (2000 prime recruiting pool)

in 1985 there were 22.7 million in the prime recruiting pool. In 2000, there were only 18.9 Million in the prime recruiting pool.

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_QTP1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U

Some Good News...

...from Iraq, via Haider Ajina. (One of the stories I referenced in an earlier post.)

Smile, Senator

The Washington Times:

The Pentagon has relented somewhat to persistent requests from Senate Republicans who want timely notification of military medals for bravery in the war on terror so they can share the heroic achievements with the American people and counter negative press coverage.
<...>
The Pentagon now will notify lawmakers of a person's name, rank and address, as well as the award, but in just three categories: the Medal of Honor, the services' individual crosses such as the Army's Distinguished Service Cross, and the Silver Star. The military has awarded 400 of those medals for heroism in Afghanistan and Iraq, as of the spring. But Congress will not be informed of medals such as the Bronze Star or Purple Heart.
<...>
Mr. Santorum a year ago won approval of a nonbinding sense of the Senate resolution in the defense authorization bill to urge the Pentagon to publicize awards via Congress. But the measure failed to remain in the final bill negotiated with the House. A Senate staffer said the military services objected.

"The upside is to celebrate heroism, and that has a definite benefit for our society," Mr. Carr said. "The downside would be that facts shared in celebrating would increase the likelihood of the person or family being targeted."

Friday News o' Afghanistan

We both urge you to read the News

Re: All This Thinking

This is the most sober discussion I've seen on this subject on the Internet.

Which, unfortunately, ain't saying much...

More Re: Ya Think?

That linked article includes an anti-Rumsfeld quote from General Batiste, who has become the media go-to guy for anti-Rumsfeld quotes. The man is obsessed.

Case in point, the Washington Post just ran an article regarding a soldier who was under Batiste's command in Iraq, who shot a flex-cuffed civilian in the custody of another soldier. He was court-martialed, found guilty, sentenced, and dishonorably discharged, but now his father is trying to clear his son's name.

The Post interviewed Batiste. Here's what he had to say about the case:

The general who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq and convened Edward's court-martial, retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, said he has faith in the military justice system. "If I were Dad, I would be focused on Donald Rumsfeld and his leadership, which took our great military to war without a strategy, with insufficient troops on the ground, which allowed chaos to rein in early 2004," Batiste said.

RE: What do you Think

Let's get this fact on the table right up front: the presence of 150,000-odd US troops in Iraq has not deterred an al Qaeda invasion.

But...

I doubt 500,000 would have either. Suicidal jihaddis, fueled by religious fervor, simply aren't concerned with the numbers. Their goal is victory in the long term, and many are quite willing to die in the short term. Most probably have no idea of the number of "Zionist Crusaders" in Iraq - and probably wouldn't believe the number if they did. Note that their recruiting tapes, videos, sermons, and internet diatribes never mention the "small" number of coalition troops in Iraq as part of the incentive to join the cause.

In short, we simply aren't fighting a numbers war - the enemy ain't got the numbers to hit our smallest outposts with any degree of success. They do have enough people to launch mortars and run like hell back into the mosque, or plant IEDs along convoy routes during the night. None of these folks would be doing anything different if they had three times the current number of US troops to target. In fact given those circumstances I'd say it's likely the numbers of insurgents might in fact be larger - with a higher percentage of involvement by actual Iraqis. (I grant that the half-million shooters solution might have stopped Sunnis from killing Shiites - and vice versa - but only by uniting them against us.) I submit this is all at least as valid (and provable) a hypothesis as any claim to the opposite effect.

What we'd have - had we put those half million shooters in early on - would be a half million shooters there today. And the same folks crying loudly about "not enough troops" would be crying loudly that Shinseki was a Rumsfeld stooge who didn't have the 'nads to point out that we were following the same recipe for disaster we used in Vietnam, or that the Russians used in Afghanistan. And the "trying to wage war on the cheap" claim would be replaced by "making huge profits for defense industry cronies".

At some point - hopefully in the not-too-distant future, we'll have the Iraqi forces trained and equipped to the best of our ability - at least to a point of diminishing returns. At this time we'll depart (a more complex process than most understand) or yours truly becomes anti-war right quick. But the "last plane out" will be fired upon, and Saddam (from his cell) , al Sadr, al Qaeda, John Murtha, and a host of others will declare victory. (This last bit bothers me not at all. Recall that Saddam declared victory after Desert Storm.)

One could argue that "we didn't have a plan" - but that's demonstrably false. We had a plan that like all previous war plans in the history of the world did not survive first contact with the enemy. But that's another debate altogether, and infinitely more valid then the shudda cudda woulda, too few troops blah blah.

There are some signs of hope - most not reported in American media (at least in election season). More on that later, as it's quite late, and I'm quite busy these days preparing to return to Iraq.

Re: Do Ya Think?

I gotta admit that during my time in DC in '02-'03 I didn't hear anyone say "the army will disappear and a dedicated insurgency campaign will show up with splodeydopes". None. The closest was guys like Michael O'Hanlon, who said we needed people for WMD destruction and security.

I still can't figure out what the unprintable happened for the Garner group. One datum: I casually mentioned (I was an LT at the time) the Garner organization to a different service's three star who was Plugged In right before this, during the World's Longest Rush To War. That three star didn't know anything about it and I wound up doing a little presentation, impromptu, for the man and his boss. This seems to me to be indicative of a Problem--but not one that Rumsfeld himself would have known about.

I still like Jason van Steenwyk's take on the not-enough-troops thing.

The Russian Aircraft Carrier is back (soon)

As noted here:

The Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia's only aircraft carrier, will join the Northern Fleet by the end of the year after modernization, the Navy's chief said Wednesday.
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The Navy commander also said that several Su-33 Flanker-D fighters assigned to the aircraft carrier would return to the ship after a brief technical overhaul. The vessel is capable of carrying up to 26 fixed-wing fighters and 24 helicopters.
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"The Russian Navy will operate several aircraft carriers in future," Masorin said in February, adding that Admiral Kuznetsov would probably remain in service until 2030.