The War Within the U.S. Army
The War Within the U.S. Army by Mark Thompson, Time Magazine. (Excerpt, subscription required for full article.)
… As Washington winds down two long and expensive wars (one, in Afghanistan, now entering its 13th year), unpleasant choices are the order of the day at the Pentagon, where the 10% cut required by sequestration is already inflicting budgetary pain.
But nowhere is the challenge as desperate — or the bureaucracy so resistant to change — as it is in the Army. It has 534,000 active-duty troops today and is trying to hang on to 490,000 by 2015. But deeper cuts look likely, and many experts believe the service could shrink to 390,000 by 2023. The Army's core mission is anyone's guess in an era of pilotless drones and spooky commandos. But its generals are slow to face the new reality…
I recall having to do a debate as an rotc cadet on the subject of tanks or no tanks. Now, this is before OIF, but the argument seems to have advanced .005% after two, supposedly modern, wars. The Military’s obligation to the nation is to master warfare, not chase fads. Mastering warfare means not sucking at either Low intensity or high intensity. The Delta raid was great. But at the end of the day they were used because it was too dangerous for anyone else to go, not because catching a dude or assassinating him is an element of mastering warfare. I will now make an accusation…anyone pretending that SOF is the answer to mastering warfare at the expense of the other types of war 1. Misses the point of a standing army 2. Probably has a degree in a STEM field and is utterly uneducated in the history of human conflict and especially warfare (social sciences rock 🙂 ).