Have We Run Out of Troops?

In an op-ed appearing in the Washington Post this week William Kristol and Rich Lowery called on the White House to send more troops to Iraq. Calling for a return to the show of overwhelming force that has been a trademark of the US military since the Whiskey Rebellion (Washington personally lead 13,000 troops, a force nearly the size of the entire Revolutionary Army) would seem like common sense. We can't leave Iraq unstable, but we can't stabilize it with current troop levels. So whats the catch?

According to in-house assessments, fully two-thirds of the Army's operating force, both active and reserve, is now reporting in as "unready"—that is, they lack the equipment, people, or training they need to execute their assigned missions. Not a single one of the Army's Brigade Combat Teams—its core fighting units—currently in the United States is ready to deploy. In short, the Army has no strategic reserve to speak of.

The White House's reaction?

One remarkable aspect of the current disarray is how the administration has refused to face up to the problem. The military's funding requests to improve readiness were reduced by the Office of the Secretary of Defense when the Pentagon was putting together its budget request because of the costs of operations in Iraq and, to a much lesser degree, in Afghanistan. (Those costs are the major reason why the current national defense spending of $562 billion is higher in dollar terms than in any other year since World War II except 1952, the height of the Korean War buildup.) On top of that, the Office of Management and Budget cut nearly $5 billion more from the budget submission that emerged from the Pentagon.

So in a world where Afghanistan isn't yet stable, Iran wants the bomb, and North Korea has it, we're tapped out. Is this supposed to be how we make the US safer from terrorist? Do we really believe that our current strategy is going to defeat terrorism?