In Iraq, there are 18 Army brigades, each with about 3,500 soldiers. At least 13 more brigades are scheduled to rotate in. Two others are in Afghanistan and two additional ones are set to rotate in there. Also, several other brigades either are set for a future deployment or are scattered around the globe.
We need more troops, troops in Iraq longer than 15 months, or troops at home less than 12 months. The latter two are hopefully not under consideration. Though breaking the Army to win the war is preferable to losing the war in a mistaken belief we won't break the Army by breaking its spirit with a defeat.
But the only readily available supply of more troops is our National Guard:
One Guard official said this past week that the Army is pushing to give Guard units four years or less at home in order to get access to those combat brigades sooner.
Last April the Pentagon notified National Guard brigades in four states that they should be prepared to deploy to Iraq later this year. But documents obtained by the AP show that Guard units in five states — Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma and Minnesota — are scheduled to deploy to Iraq before the end of the year. A New York Guard unit is set to go to Afghanistan.
The shortage of combat units will be remedied over time. The Pentagon slowly is increasing the size of the active-duty Army by 65,000 members to 547,000 by 2012. The 38 combat brigades currently available for war will expand to 48 by 2013.
I assume that the story specifies 38 units "available for war" by subracting our South Korea-based brigade and a strategic reserve ready brigade. (And perhaps another, because I thought we had 41 total Army brigades right now. Or I could be off by one.) But perhaps not, since 48 is supposed to be our total end force after expansion is completed.
With the Army basically fielding half its units in Iraq or Afghanistan, we could also scrape another Marine regiment or two up out of the close to nine regiments of Marines we have on active duty, and still not have the Marines quite as stressed as the Army.
But with the need for deploying MEUs at sea, this may not be possible with that rotation base locked up.
So unless we can crank new units out faster than I think, if we want to extend the surge we need the Guard.
Or, if we're lucky, we won't need to extend the surge. You never can tell.
It would be nice if some of our allies would step up to volunteer several brigades for areas cleared of enemies in order to conduct the hold mission and support Iraqi security forces. We won't be that lucky, I dare say.
