Our military’s current state of decline

This is the unfinished essay for a class I am taking.

The military force of the United States has been one that other countries have looked to for inspiration the two hundred plus years that we have been in existence. We have always tried to be at the forefront of technology, and have worked hard to have the strongest military force and continued to work much harder to keep the reputation of our might alive.

Perhaps that was all in the past though; will we be able to stay a superpower for much longer? That is the question we must ask ourselves.

As with other superpowers of the world, problems do arise. You begin to alienate yourselves from the world around, disregarding problems that will work to bring you down from within. When the mind frame of “might makes right” continues to blur judgment, then, the causes and the effects they produce are seen as small and meager. They continue to be seen as meaningless until they build up enough force to topple. Then a nation’s response is with foresight; this should have been seen.

During our short time as a country, we have never fought in any battles such as those being fought now. As the U.S. military drags into year seven of the war in Afghanistan, and year five of the campaign in Iraq, we face unprecedented manpower problems.

With two wars being fought simultaneously, our military force is being strained to the point of not being able to react in a timely and professional manner to emergencies in and out of our country. General Peter Pace said, “There is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis.” (CBS News)

This isn’t just any soldier saying this; Pace is one of our nations most decorated and highest ranking military members. Pace’s report states that our military is not ready for a new threat. With that in mind, think about how far we are beginning to stretch our forces. Bush is already making threats against Iran; we are not on good terms with Cuba, Russia, and the majority of Middle Eastern countries.

We have what one might refer to, as all our eggs in one basket, these eggs are now starting to overflow and break.

In regard to the might makes right adage, when the U.S. Military headed into Iraq and Afghanistan, forces were not prepared for what we would receive. Going into these theaters, we did not have an overall plan laid out. There was no idea formulated on how we were going to pay for it; or what our exit strategy would be. Donald Rumsfeld was expecting a draw down of troops three months after the fall of Baghdad (Galloway); take a look at the quagmire that we are in. Instead of troop reduction, we are continually increasing the amount of lives in peril.

“Go into a war only when your goals and exit strategy are clear. Take all the troops you think you might need, and then some extra just in case; and get out as soon as you have achieved what you set out to do,” Wrote Former Joint Chief Colin Powell. (Galloway) Each point Powell makes is one that our Government has missed, points that are leading to the decline of our military force.

Without a plan that is thoroughly conceived, then truly no idea of the preparations, and personnel required for the basic mission, much less the extra troops that could be used can be had. This lack of planning leads to the myriad of problems that the military is faced with.

There was a report published by Nancy Pelosi and her underlings that had a lot of valid points to it. No matter how I feel about her as a politician I think she is heading in the right direction. This report was on the readiness of the U.S. military, something I believe I have tried to layout so far. Her report says that there are 19.5 to twenty brigades devoted to both theaters of operations. Army doctrine states that there should be two brigades conducting reset operations for every brigade that is in countries overseas. This is not the current case; the military is stretched to the point where it is a one for one swap unit wise (Defense Tech), units go home for a short time and then prepare to go back again.

This process I think is one that is defeating itself. Member of the military cannot be put in a continuous state of deployment without allowing them the time back on continental soil to train and reset. With two wars being waged wars at the same time, is creating adverse effects that the military will be feeling for the next 20 plus years.

The passing of the Orderly and Responsible Redeployment Appropriations Act is proof of Nancy Pelosi taking steps down the right path. One part of it states, “The bill prohibits deployment of U.S. troops to Iraq who are not fully trained and fully equipped…” Now something like this puts measures in place that will safeguard the discipline, morale and welfare of our soldiers. These are aspects that tend to decline when soldiers begin to feel that they are unprepared to be in combat.

For example, equipment that units have available for training at home station, is most often that which they won’t be seeing in Iraq, thus forcing troops to not be fully mission capable when they get into country. More often then not, they leave CONUS (Continental United States) ill equipped, in hope that the unit that they replace has the equipment hoped for. The continual use of the equipment does not necessarily mean it is in working order, constant use gives you constant breakdown.

While in Iraq you will be given new equipment to test out, to run with per se. As soon as you leave one of the Middle Eastern theaters and head back to the states you then take a step backward into equipment that comes from the late eighties to early nineties. With this happening, you don’t have the measures to ensure our military force is trained in the most modern warfare available.

The onset of prolonged war creates factors in service members that might not have come about otherwise. Lack of discipline is something that rears its head, and the disappearance of moral compass arises. For proof of that look at our war in Vietnam, or engagement, we don’t call that a war anymore.

Putting troops in situations where they don’t know if they will be coming back, or even if after their time is us if they will be given that “ride” home, puts you in a place where all sense of morality is thrown out. In Vietnam acts of random killing of civilians, acts of torture, rape and other things were seen as necessities, as commonplace. In no way am I justifying any of these actions, I only want to point out what goes into tearing apart our military apart.

These factors of not being trained, of not knowing whether you will come home in 12 months, 15 months, 18 months or whatever the Government sees fit at the time are what cause us to have situations such as the debacle that we had in the Abu Ghraib prison. These move soldiers to torture or other acts of extended, psychotic violence that has been taken by military members against insurgents and civilians. Putting a soldier in an extended high stress environment, week after week, month after month, year after year, will only lead to a soldier creating his own moral sense of what is right and what is wrong. As I have heard many people say, “What we do over here doesn’t matter, we need to survive here, and I will do whatever it takes to make it home.” These are the words, the thoughts that lead to soldiers making the wrong decisions.

Vietnam was not so long ago that we would not heed the words of Vietnamese Communist Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap who said in reference to the French, "The enemy will pass slowly from the offensive to the defensive. The blitzkrieg will transform itself into a war of long duration. Thus the enemy will be caught in a dilemma: He has to drag out the war in order to win it and does not possess, on the other hand, the psychological and political means to fight a long drawn-out war ..."

I don’t believe any person has ever had words such as those that describe that bog in which the United States Military is in so eloquently.

A double edged sword in which we are facing right now is the coming of better protective equipment. Attacks that occurred in both theaters that would have been catastrophic in 2001 or 2003 are now allowing members to keep their lives. What is the cost to the military when the wounded soldiers begin to amass thirty thousand? (Knickerbocker)

These military members are dealing with a multitude of various wounds. From physical to mental, with the mental ones being some of the most tragic. These soldiers that we are trying to forcibly keep in, with things such as stop loss, and stop movement are the ones who suffer from what we don’t see.

The manpower problems that all branches of the military are facing are composed of so many different aspects. It is not just a case of military members getting out when their contracts are up, but it also one of the mental states that this prolonged war puts them in.

What does an incessant war due to people? That is the question that has an answer no one wants to face. Manpower problems would surely be on the path to eradication if the country actually knew there was an end in sight for these two campaigns in the Middle East.

Let us begin to track this. Veterans make up one out of four homeless people, (Rourke), and out of those people there are already 1,500 reported homeless veterans from the current wars. This is only the amount of those who have been found and reported.

Could the fate of these 1,500 veterans have been changed? I truly believe that it could have, had our current administration chosen to acknowledge the severity of the main problem facing returning veterans, PTSD.

Putting military members in the situations where their lives are threatened everyday, where they go from one harrowing ordeal into the next does not allow for the greatest mental state of mind. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the anxiety disorder that develops from these things, this is also known as “Shell Shock.”

Blog would not accept the works cited parameters, but if you want my sources just ask and ill send you the page.

-- M r. E.
Keep in mind this is not the finished product.