A Proven Formula for How Many Troops We Need

Washington Post ^ | May 9, 2004 | Stephen Budiansky

[68skylark]

When Germany surrendered in May 1945, the U.S. Army had more than 1.6 million men within the borders of the defeated Nazi state. Overnight they became occupation troops: Their orders were to spread out over every square mile of German territory and demonstrate without a doubt that they were in charge. U.S. troops secured every road junction, bridge, border post, government building, factory, bank, warehouse; anything of the slightest conceivable importance had a guard of GIs around it, and so did a good many things of little or no importance, too.

Army plans called for an occupation force of some 400,000 in the American zone for the first 18 months -- or one U.S. soldier for every 40 Germans.

When NATO forces went into Kosovo in 1999, they followed the same proven formula: 50,000 troops for a population of 2 million, one soldier for every 40 inhabitants. A recent Rand Corp. study by military analyst James Quinlivan concluded that the bare minimum ratio to provide security for the inhabitants of an occupied territory, let alone deal with an active insurgency, is one to 50.

In Iraq today, coalition forces number about 160,000, or one for every 160 Iraqis. (Even adding in an estimated 20,000 civilian security contractors working in Iraq, that still translates to one for every 140 Iraqis.) In response to the unremitting attacks and continuing instability, U.S. commanders have now canceled plans to cut troop strength by some 20,000 this year. It is a significant about-face, and one that has unquestionably put a severe strain on both regular and reserve units whose deployments have been extended well beyond what they had originally been told.

But it is still a drop in the bucket compared with what's needed. "U.S. Troop Levels in Iraq to Remain High," read a headline in The Washington Post this past week. Yet these levels are "high" relative only to the fantastically optimistic plans that the Defense Department had doggedly clung to as recently as a month ago.

[68skylark]

Stephen Budiansky is the author of "Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, From Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II" (Viking).

The author seems to make some good points. I thought I read somewhere that an occupation force should equal about 1% of the population. This author argues for a ratio of 2.0% to 2.5%. Right now the coaltion is around 0.7%, and that may not be high enough.

[Desecrated]

Well, I'm not sure of the exact ratio, but I think it is beyond dispute that there is simply not enough boots on the ground at this stage. We had enough to defeat the traditional Iraqi army elements easily, but not nearly enough to handle the type of insurgency we now face. Well, we COULD handle it, but political correctness dictates that we fight compassionately. Fighting a PC war requires much more manpower, money, and casualties.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

If we can prevent civil war and establish a functioning government representing the various interest groups that want influence Iraqi policy then we can let them deal with the riffraff.

[68skylark]

I think it is beyond dispute that there is simply not enough boots on the ground at this stage.

Yes, that's a good point. I think we can all agree now that we should have had more troops there right from the get-go.

Reading about this prison fiasco, I get the impression that the number of MP's there was a fraction of how many we should have had -- that's partly what caused the problems.

[omega4412]

Suppose we had tried to occupy Japan after WWII and we had not killed large number of Japanese troops in various island battles, we had not strangled their economy by submarine warfare, we had not carried out massive bombing of their cities with conventional weapons, and we had not nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Wouldn't we have had problems?

[eeman]

This is a good article! Alas, it's too bad we can't post the whole thing. For those of you who do not want to register with the WA Post, copy the headline and paste it in to "google news" and you can pull up the whole article

[68skylark]

Yeah, we'd all love for the Iraqi people to run their own country in a civilized way. Even if they're only semi-successful, I think we could accept that and be happy. But from the time of the victory over Saddam until some time in the next 5-10 years, they'll need our help running the place. And we haven't done all that great. The troops on the ground seem to have performed magnificantly for the most part. But it seems there have been too few troops, and too many bureaucratic delays from military and civilian authorities back here at home.

[PFC]

I am afraid this guy is 100% correct.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

The help they will need from us from 1 to 5 years out is a military force strong enough to dissuade any attempt by one group to impose their will through military means.

[mrsmith]

There's about 5 million Sunni Arabs (the conquered people), so the ratio is about 2%.

The Shia area requires less, and the Kurdish much less.

[68skylark]

Well I think the Pentagon's math was pretty close to yours. And before the invation, I would have agreed with your math also. But now I'm ready to admit that the calculations weren't correct -- the Shia areas can be destabilized by a few trouble makers, plus money and agents from Iran (as we've seen). And even the Kurdish areas need protection from outside troubles.

[mrsmith]

Yeah, I think Iran made the difference.

But why Iran threw away the Sadr militia and much of their force of agents just to cause trouble is beyond me. They should have only had to lie low and their influence would grow, but I assume Iran saw something else that made them think that wouldn't work.

[Dick Vomer]

If we can prevent civil war and establish a functioning government representing the various interest groups that want influence Iraqi policy then we can let them deal with the riffraff.

When was the last time an outside force was able to put a "representative" or "democratic" government in place within a country with divided racial and religious components? I think it was, never.

I think you can rest assured that there will be a civil war.

The civil war will be blamed on Bush.

If oil is ever commercially sold to an American subsidiary, it will be linked to Bush, Cheney, or Halliburton.

The war will never by viewed as retribution for the deaths of 3000 American civilians to a government that aided the terrorists.

The war will be seen as photos of Iraqi prisoners being abused and some blather about the destruction of the "treasures" of the cradle of humanity and how the Muslims have a right to hate us due to our kicking thier a@#.

Just sit back and let Bush "strategerize". All your enemies are belong to us. /sarcasm

[genefromjersey]

I have an idea the Shi'a area will need MORE,not less.

Looking at Iran ( I may do a full post on this later ) the only thing keeping the Mad Mullahs on their side of the fence is the presence of heavily armed US troops.

Take away these troops and substitute blue-helmeted UN place-holders, and there's apt to be an anschuss attempt by Iran, in which Revolutionary Guards "volunteer" to "come to the aid of " the al-Sadr faction.

At this point, if there really ARE bio/chemical weapons in Iraq-or close by- the Sunnis are apt to produce them.The Iranians have much the same weaponry on hand-which makes for a nasty situation.

Iran is about $30 billion in debt,and has little to pay its debt with. If it could seize the Iraqi oil fields and pipelines, it would be in clover.It might even offer Syria-with whom it has long been cozy-a piece of the action,in exchange for an armed alliance.

Doing just about anything in the Middle East is like sticking your hand into a den full of assorted vipers. It's just a question of which one(s) will bite you first !

[68skylark]

Yeah, closed societies are a real mystery.

I can easily see why they don't want Iraq to be a nice, tolerant, free and stable country. Some of their own people are about to rebel, and giving them good examples of freedom will only increase the pressure on the tyrants who run the place now.

[mrsmith]

That's what I thought they would do, but they've now thrown away much of what they had in place to do it with IMO.

Time will tell.

[USNBandit]

Depends on what ratio is important, troops per capita or troops per square mile. Most of the people in Iraq are concentrated in a few population centers. Germany has people in the countryside and the cities. Germany also needed a lot more rebuilding since all the major cities were bombed into rubble.

As an aside, I would hardly hold up anything done in the way of peacekeeping in the Balkans as a success story.

[meenie]

The Germans were a civilized people. The Iraqis are not. With the number of troops we have and the tactics they are using, we are an irritating force instead of an occupying force. Too little, too late, with everything including the planning. Pace and Franks were the only planners with ground experience. Franks showed his intelligence by retiring immediately after we got to Baghdad. Pace is going for his thirty or he would probably be gone. Shock and awe has been replaced by awe shucks.

Any comparison between the German and Japanese occupations in relation to Iraq are completly misguided. They were severely damaged and wanted peace. The Iraqis employed the tactic of letting the military through and wait for an opportunity to hit them later. The events at Fallujah when the general showed up with three hundred of his followers showed they have a certain amount of organization left. It does not look like there any good alternatives left.

[PISANO]

I would say that the differences are obvious. Germany was at war for years and the Germans were tired and ready to capitualate. We fought WWII to WIN and MANY MANY CIVILIANS were killed, I assume they didn't wan to mess with us after that, at least not as much as we see here. Also, there was NOT a palpable FEAR that we would be looked at as OCCUPIERS as there is with IRAQ.

We CONTINUE try to maintain as low a profile as possible. According to this formula we would ned 3 to 4 times as many troops there and that my friends is between 480k and 640K, which IMHO is unsustainable with TODAYS MILITARY END STRENGTH.

[boris]

Who needs Iraq? Who cares what happens there?

Pull our troops out, nuke the cities, and move on to the next target, of which there is a plentitude.