The Army--and the Marine Corps which has been the most significant ground force ally we have had in our post-World War II wars--are being gutted in the belief that we can choose not to fight a land war (tip to Instapundit):
History tells us that land wars simply can't be wished away. Remember: The United States gutted its Army before World War II, the Korean War, and the Berlin blockade. In all three instances, autocratic countries filled the void. In two cases, the strategic costs were grave. The third case nearly ended in a nuclear exchange. The desire to manufacture a "naval century" produces outrageous strategic risk; it could pose obscene human costs. The Kasserine Pass, the Pusan Perimeter, and the Iraq war all resulted from similar shortsightedness. Consider a Rand Corp. scatter plot of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan: The vast majority of Army personnel have 13 to 29 months of deployment experience. The other services cluster around four to nine months. Even though the United States planned its force in the 1990s assuming away ground campaigns, it stumbled into two. Soldiers paid the bill.
The simple fact is that excessively small ground forces invite war. Regenerating land power takes years. Predicted mobilization of reserves takes months, and unexpected mobilization takes much longer. During that time, we cede initiative to the enemy. Potential adversaries know this and ruthlessly exploit such opportunities. If we want to avoid fighting on the ground, we had best build an army that can win today.
The stunningly successful conventional take down of Saddam's military has no place being in a list of conventional warfighting debacles that Kasserine Pass and the Pusan Perimeter represent. Task Force Smith was not sent to Baghdad.
But yes, as I have noted, the Army always loses in the post war. The Air Force today is straining at the leash to break away from the grungy business of supporting ground forces.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was pilloried for his very obvious observation that you go to war with the Army you have and not the Army you wish you had.
Sadly, as I've written again and again (and again), right now we wish to have the Army (and Marine Corps) that we will have in a decade:
Ten years from now when our Army isn't the army we wish we had for some crisis, remember that in 2013 we wished to have that Army we find so insufficient for the missions at hand.
Are we incapable of learning? Or remembering?
