Posted on 03/21/2005 3:27:09 PM PST by Crackingham
Hard service in Iraq is wearing out some of the US military's core weapons. Tanks, armored vehicles, and aircraft are being run at rates two to six times greater than in peacetime, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Congress earlier this month.
The bad news here is they may need to be replaced. But there's good news too, according to Secretary Rumsfeld: It's possible they can be replaced with something better.
The need to refurbish equipment "is providing an opportunity to adjust the capabilities of the force earlier than otherwise might have been the case," Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee on March 10.
Perhaps the same might be said of the military as a whole. Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the tough work of helping rebuild a nation while fighting an insurgency has profoundly affected the organization and deployment of United States forces. Whatever Iraq becomes, the American way of war may never be the same.
Throughout the services there's a new emphasis on mobility, guerrilla-fighting skills, and special forces. These changes might have occurred whether President Bush ordered the toppling of Saddam Hussein or not. But the urgency created by war may be making it easier for Secretary Rumsfeld to pursue a long-sought transformation of the Pentagon.
"I see not so much a direct response as an accelerated implementation of a plan Bush advisers already had in place," says Loren Thompson, a defense expert at the Lexington Institute.
On one level the effect of Iraq on the structure of the US armed forces is clear, and saddening. Over 1,500 Americans have been killed, and thousands more wounded, by the fighting.
US units stormed over the border from Kuwait prepared to fight conventional battles, and that aspect of the war they handily won. It took some time for commanders in the field and in Washington to realize that in fact their mission had not been accomplished. The depth and ferocity of the insurgent resistance took many by surprise - as a shortage of armor for vehicles showed.
It's now a Washington truism that the biggest mistake made in the Iraqi operation was the lack of preparation for stability operations in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam. This may have involved more than a paucity of troops to police the streets, or unpreparedness for the dangers of roadside bombs.
Dov Zakhein, Pentagon comptroller during the first Bush administration, complained at a recent Washington seminar that at first during the occupation the military financing system didn't work. He could start money moving in Washington, but it wouldn't get to Iraq, or wouldn't get to the right place.
"It's obvious Iraq has hugely taxed the US military," says Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution.
ping
"A military expert at the Brookings Institute"...? Yeah right! Oy!
As long as we have not "learned" that women belong in combat. This hasn't been a Bastonge or Pusan Perimeter.
Actually the truth is that unless we are willing to wage total war no matter what the liberal press says we will have problems controlling the population that no other nation in history? has ever had to worry about.
A military that does not learn from the last war ends up re-fighting it under worse circumstances. One thing that was learned was that certain "improvements" weren't - the planned retirement of the A-10, for example. Another was that embedded reporters can't be edited in realtime. The important changes to the U.S. military will be the little ones.
I would add, that the troops are also being worn out and will need replacement in coming years. War is a very expensive affair.
More important, a new generation of junior officers and enlisted combat veterans emerges from all the branches. In the last Gulf War, it ended in 100 hours, where only the front line combat soldiers did most of the fighting while logistical units saw very little. In this war, rear echelon units became targets. They had to conduct local patrols just like the combat units to insure area security. The experience level of our soldiers are now Army wide. This will impact training and the types of field grade officers that will shape the Army of tomorrow. Hopefully they will end the social experimentation and PC crap when they become the senior leaders/NCO's.
At least that military equipment is getting used.
It beats leaving them to rot like the nuclear missiles do in thier silos.
I would rather see military equipment that is getting used than unused stuff being thrown away.
While we have the most combat hardened military in the world right now, it is also the most studied and dissected. The world has our playbook and interested parties are working out how to neutralize our advantages. China does not need to defeat our army to take Tiawan, they just need to solve the problem of our air power and we have given them the technology and manufacturing base to do it.
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