Top General: US Needs to Rethink How Much it Cuts the Army

I placed this at the thread "Whither Grand Strategy," but it would also seem to be worth considering here re: what size Army we need today, what job this Army would have and where this Army might need to be employed/deployed, etc.:

Throughout this excerpt, simply substitute "President Obama" for "Constantine" -- and "American" for "Roman" -- to, possibly, gain a contemporary perspective. (Note: The word "smaller," in parenthesis in the first paragraph, is mine.)

"The Emperor Constantine moved the legions from the frontiers to one (smaller?) consolidated roving army -- as a way to save money -- and as a way to protect the wealthier Roman citizens within their cities. This grand strategy, however, would have costly effects on the Roman empire -- by weakening the frontier defenses -- and allowing these to become susceptible to outside armies coming in."

"Also, after the Roman armies departed, people who lived near the Roman frontier would begin to look to the barbarians for protection."

"Thus, Constantine abolished frontier security by removing the greater part of the soldiery from the frontiers to the cities -- cities that needed no auxiliary forces. Thus, while he deprived of help the people who were harassed by the barbarians -- and burdened tranquil cities with the pest of the military -- such that several straightway were deserted."

"Moreover, he softened the soldiers, who treated themselves to shows and luxuries. Indeed, to speak plainly, he personally planted the first seeds of our present devastated state of affairs."

Zosimus, 5th-century CE, historian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_strategy (scroll down to "Roman Empire")

The recommendation to have a national security debate is exactly what is needed. I am having a hard time imagining why a 420,000 person army isn't large enough to manage "our" security concerns, but then again defining what those security interests are, and the means and ways we envision securing them remains a mystery, so force sizing shouldn't be determined based on my or anyone else's imagination.

There are a few real threats to our national security (not as many as the media would have us believe), and I believe we have embraced a few myths that could put our national security at risk. What I am calling myths, could be conscious or subconscious planning assumptions for force sizing, and they need to be debated.

Myths:

1. We can rely on allies and partners to burden share.

Fact: Very few of our allies have meaningful military capacity even if they're willing to employ it. Furthermore, they all too often lack the political will to engage in tough fights. That isn't a criticism, lacking political will to commit troops to combat is both a strength and weakness in a democratic country. The point is quite simple, just because a situation has crossed our redline does not mean it has crossed the redline our friends.

2. We can convince our adversaries to acquiesce to our will with a gradual and incremental increase in air strikes.

Fact: This approach has repeatedly failed, and yet we continue to underestimate the will of our adversaries. This approach gives our adversaries: time to adapt, a psychological victory, a recruiting narrative, and overall reduces America's ability to deter future adversaries. This makes it more likely we will have to engage in a future conflict. We should be very hesitant to draw redlines, but when we do, if they're violated we should be prepared to act decisively.

3. We can accomplish our objectives through, by and with surrogates (both state and non-state).

Fact: This assumes these surrogates share our interests, that they can be controlled, and that we can build effective capacity. Historically these assumptions have fallen short the majority of times, but that hasn't prevented us from embracing this hubristic belief that we can shape the world through others acting as our surrogates. That doesn't mean it isn't an appropriate approach to try when we don't have critical interests at risk, but if this myth is an underlying assumption in how determining our force size we need to seriously reconsider.

At the end of the day, if military force is required to protect our critical national interests, we need the ability to apply it decisively. Technology (air power, long range missiles), relying on surrogates, assuming allies and partners will step up, if not myths, then they are at best weak assumptions to base our future force structure on.

I would still like to see the math on why a 420,000 man Army isn't sufficient, but that requires just what GEN Odierno said, a national security debate.