Gates told reporters that he is recommending an overall increase in the military of 92,000 soldiers and Marines over the next five years, bringing the overall total to 202,000 in Marines and 547,000 in the Army worldwide.
I'd wondered how Strategypage could assume an increase of 100,000 troops for the Army would only mean nine more brigades. This explains it. I think our baseline strength is 480,000 and is temporarily up to 510,000. At this level we've added ten brigades. Not from the increase, which bascially filled up gaps in the structure, but from the whole rebalancing effort of converting units and and moving some jobs to civilians.
So adding about 35,000 more troops could get us nine brigades at 3,500 each plus the remainder for other purposes. I'm probably a little off on my numbers since that seems pretty efficient for adding brigades without support units or institutional forces. Or maybe further rebalancing is assumed.
I think we are at 37 Army brigades now on the path to 43. Add 9 more for 52 combat brigades in the active component. Subtracting one in South Korea that is needed there would give us 51 that would support 17 brigades in the field and allow 17 to be recovering while 17 prepare to deploy--one year on and two years off.
And as I'm writing this, I see a well-timed press release from the DOD:
Today the Secretary of Defense announced he has recommended to the President a permanent increase to the end strength of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps. His proposal is for an increase of 92,000 personnel over the next five years: 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.
The proposal would make permanent the temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers and 5,000 Marines. Furthermore, it recommends an annual increase of 7,000 soldiers and 5,000 Marines until the Army reaches a level of 547,000 and the Marine Corps reaches a level of 202,000.
There you go. The Army gets 35,000 more and the Marines get 22,000 more. My memory was right on the Army and this adds information on the Martines that I did not know. The extra troops will be added gradually and without adding to our training capacity. We'll just run the existing structure at full capacity, I assume.
And does the Marine strength mean an entire new Marine Expeditionary Force including an air wing? I don't think that is enough troops for this step. Or just the ground division? Or separate regimental combat teams or Marine expeditionary brigades?
But we have five years to see this to the end of this path. If Congress approves it, of course.
