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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (129053)	4/13/2004 10:27:02 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

One of the facts about our modern military that a lot of people don't realize is that it has a huge "tooth to tail" ratio. Yes Carl.. you're absolutely right on this point. And it's a big plus when fighting large scale battles between military formations. But it's of little use in LIC operations (low intensity conflict). Which is one of the reasons I believe we're seeing more and more contractors (normally prior military) being hired to replace the support units and free up "trigger pullers". As you might recall, many non-infantry units, like artillery, have been "re-structured" and personnel re-trained as light infantry. It's a real deficiency in the US army force structure. But for the Marines, everyone of them is trained as an infantryman first, and then re-trained in their other specialty. I personally believe we need to increase the Army's force structure to at least 750,000, which would be a 50% increase. But that's hard to sell on Capitol Hill. And I understand your perspective on casualties, Carl.. But once again... Would you rather we have hundreds of thousands of them 5-10 years from now? Certainly the militants are willing to suffer even far greater casualties, as they try to dominate and fill the current power vacuum in Iraq. Just as they are willing to suffer casualties to eventually bring down all of the governments in the region so that they can control both economic and human resources they need to advance their agenda. So nothing you state changes my opinion that it's imperative that the American people understand that this fight has to be taken to the region. If we're unwilling to advance the cause of democratic and modernist values, forcefully confronting those who would oppose them, then we'll find ourselves facing a far greater threat in the near future. All you have to do is read the hand-writing on the wall and be willing to accept it. Hawk