In the comments to my post below, uber-commenter Chris raises a simple and direct question:
I’ll play your game, AL: what metrics would you find acceptable in determining that the war in Iraq has failed? Do we have to stay in country for 20 years, as allahthatjazz suggests above? or is there any set of conditions that could take place within the calendar year that might make you reconsider your position?
I replied:
What’s the metric? Militarily, ongoing, organized, large-scale fighting between militias. Politically, the renunciation – and not just a theatrical renunciation – by significant blocs from the political process.
The real metric is the willingness of the US public to support the war, and what frustrates me (and I’m not yet articulating it) is the circular nature of the argument, which goes “we can’t support the war because the American people aren’t supporting the war enough to win”.
So let’s go to today’s newspapers…in today’s Washington Post:
In the days that followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine, Iraq seemed within a hair’s breadth of civil war. But an aggressive U.S. and Kurdish diplomatic campaign appears for now to have coaxed the country back from open conflict between Sunni Arabs and Shiites, according to Iraqi politicians and Western diplomats speaking in interviews on Monday.
…
Among those most upset by the Sunni boycott threat was Talabani, an ethnic Kurd who was able to take a central role in the negotiations because he was perceived as a neutral party.Ironically, the Kurds stood to gain the most from a civil conflict. They have long wanted an independent state, and revolted against Saddam Hussein in 1991 only to be brutally repressed. But Talabani was deeply troubled by the Samarra crisis, said Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat who was in contact with Talabani throughout the crisis.
“I’ve known President Jalal Talabani for over 20 years,” Galbraith said. “It is the most pessimistic I’ve seen him, and that includes being in Iraq the night the uprising collapsed and we were fleeing for our lives. Here, he was profoundly disturbed about the future of Iraq.”
Here’s a central figure in the population that flat-out wins when the nation of Iraq collapses – depressed by the risk of collapse, in a position to profit from that collapse, and stepping up to keep it from happening.
I don’t recall any parallels to that in Lebanon in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. And while the risk of collapse is obviously there, no I don’t think we’re near it yet and I still believe that we can avoid it. The question is – will we?
Oddly, AL, although I opposed the invasion for just that reason (unusual at the time), I now find myself in an equally unusual position: I believe the geopolitical consequences of our failing in Iraq are sufficiently bad that we need to be seen as having succeeded there (whatever that may mean) and need to find the political will somehow to do whatever is required to ensure that.
How we do that I have no idea.
AL, I don’t think the Post has it completely right. Yes, there was work going on between the US, the Kurds, and Talabani but, to me, most of the calming effect came from two areas:
The Iraqi government presence and the influence of the clerics.
ITM talks about how the Iraqi military had a calming, albiet perhaps threatening presence, but still brought some of the craziness to heel.
The influence of the clerics is a two-edged sword. On one hand they did plead for peace – and seemed to get it for the most part. On the other, they still have more influence than the Iraqi government. That’s not distressing, though, especially when the Iraqi bloggers seem to think the government did step in, finally, with some authority.
The Post is usually more reasonable but like ITM says, (paraphrasing) ‘why does the MSM (antique media) push so hard to read civil war into everything we do?’ I have to think that the notion of Civil War is the only metric Antique Media needs to justify failure in Iraq. Not real Arab/Islamic “Civil War” – any Civil War will do.
My perspective is that history is long. Nothing is accomplished in four years or even eight. Comments like: “Do we have to stay in country for 20 years?” annoy me. Let us look at what we need to do in Iraq.
We need to build an Iraqi Army. How long will that take. Knowledgeable observers say that the soul, the heart of an Army is its Non-commissioned officers, in US Army parlance — sergeants. How long does it take to groom a truly good NCO? They say 15 to 20 years. How long will it be before we are done creating the Iraqi Army?
We have to defeat an insurgency. How long will that take? History suggests 10 to 15 years. The US in the Philippines and the British in Malaysia took that kind of time. the US pulled the plug on Vietnam after 11 years. That was not long enough.
Our great successes were the restructuring of Germany and Japan after WWII and South Korea after the Korean War. We have large numbers of troops in each of those countries to this very day, 60 years after WWII ended and 50 years after the end of the Korean war. Could we have pulled our troops out of those countries earlier and left them as viable democracies? A bit, but Korea was not a stable republic until the 90s and until the cold war ended leaving Germany would have been very dicey.
What does history teach us about Iraq. We will need to be closely involved (i.e. joint military operations) for another 5 to 10 years, we will need to be substantially involved (i.e. troop training, air support, scaring off the Iranians) for another 10 to 20 years after that, and we will leave Iraq in two generations.
We cannot afford to fail. We must stay the course.
Well, it’s not too late to hand the whole Cradle of Civilization back to Saddam Hussein, is it?
While he hacks and maims Iraq back into that stability that we’re all so nostalgic for, the left can celebate one of its patented Vietnam-style anti-victories, and lecture us for years to come on how they saved the world from having American democracy “imposed” on it. And the new Democratic majority in Congress can pass laws to make sure we never raise a muzzle again unless it’s under a UN flag.
Everybody had better hurry up and make up their minds, though, because the Iraqis are liable to hang that bastard any day now.
This “article”:http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85201-p0/stephen-biddle/seeing-baghdad-thinking-saigon.html
from Foreign Affairs suggests that the right mental model for Iraq’s conflict is a Three Way Sectarian Civil War ala Bosnia, not Vietnam.
And that the Vietnam counter-insurgency tactics like Democracy promotion and building up Iraqi forces are counterproductive and make things worse.
That Washington should play the “I’ll Leave” and “I’ll arm your enemies” cards as needed to force a grand bargain that sticks between the three communities.
I’m hard pressed to find holes in it.
“We need to build an Iraqi Army. How long will that take. Knowledgeable observers say that the soul, the heart of an Army is its Non-commissioned officers, in US Army parlance — sergeants. How long does it take to groom a truly good NCO? They say 15 to 20 years. How long will it be before we are done creating the Iraqi Army?”
Yes..ish. It takes that long to create an outstanding Western style NCO in peacetime. Then again we built an astoundingly good army from basically the ground up during WW2 in about 5 years- a very bottom up army with perhaps the best NCOs this country has ever known. Same could be said about the Civil War. War has the real advantage of focusing the concentration. There are already some very good Iraqi units out there and every year they get more experienced and more of them. The Iraqi Army’s affect on the stability of the nation shouldnt be viewed as a linear progression. It started off small and slow and is growing bigger and more capable much more quickly now.
“We have to defeat an insurgency. How long will that take? History suggests 10 to 15 years. The US in the Philippines and the British in Malaysia took that kind of time. the US pulled the plug on Vietnam after 11 years. That was not long enough.”
Agreed but all those years neednt be equally bloody. There will be ups and downs and once the end is in site for the insurgents things get ‘normal’ though the shooting goes on in remote provinces.
“What does history teach us about Iraq. We will need to be closely involved (i.e. joint military operations) for another 5 to 10 years, we will need to be substantially involved (i.e. troop training, air support, scaring off the Iranians) for another 10 to 20 years after that, and we will leave Iraq in two generations.”
But troop levels are really the only thing America pays attention to. The bigger and better the IA gets, the less troops we need to do the things only we can do. Iraq will likely look more like Afghanistan in troop level by the end of Bush’s term.
The next question for Chris et al is what are _your_ metrics for victory?
AL-
bq. Here’s a central figure in the population that flat-out wins when the nation of Iraq collapses – depressed by the risk of collapse, in a position to profit from that collapse, and stepping up to keep it from happening.
bq. I don’t recall any parallels to that in Lebanon in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. And while the risk of collapse is obviously there, no I don’t think we’re near it yet and I still believe that we can avoid it. The question is – will we?
Two fallacies here: the first is that Talabani at this point is, or should be, more interrested in what’s good for his ethnic group than what’s good for him personally. The guy’s president of Iraq – weak position or no, he has far more invested in being a big fish in a big pond than just another citizen of an independent Kurdistan.
Second, the idea that we’re not in a civil war unless we closely match what happened to Lebanon 30 years ago. Iraq is not Lebanon – it’s a far larger country, and even if Bagdhad falls into utter chaos, there’ll still be big chunks of the country (in the Kurdish area, for example) that’ll still be peaceful and prosperous. That doesn’t mean that the idea of a unified Iraq – which is what we’ve been fighting for all this time – wouldn’t be dead if Bagdhad tears itself apart.
In other words, AL, let’s start looking at the real problems we’re dealing with now, rather than saying that the problems we’ve got now aren’t the problems somebody else once had, and that therefore they’re not really bad problems at all.
Glen-
bq. Well, it’s not too late to hand the whole Cradle of Civilization back to Saddam Hussein, is it?
Pathetic. If this is what passes for argument around hawkish circles these days, then y’all are failing even faster than I thought.
Mark-
bq. The next question for Chris et al is what are your metrics for victory?
I’d suggest we need to look at this in two stages: metrics for staying on right now, and metrics for actually winning so we can bring the majority of our troops home. With regard to the former, we need to have some signs of actually making a dent in the insurgency (as opposed to now, where we kill lots of them and there are momentary fluxuations in violence, but the aggregate level of resistance stays the same or rises) we need to have some signs that the infrastructure rebuilding is happening (as opposed to now, where the vast majority of the money we put in to the country vanishes or gets destroyed). If we can do this by the end of the summer, then I’d argue for staying in Iraq as long as needed – if we’re still where we are now, with no end in sight and no substantive reasons other than blind hope that things will ever get better, then I’d want us out by this time next year, because we’re just throwing more lives and money down the hole.
And victory in Iraq will be achieved when we can leave (with the exception of a few residual forces) a peaceful, stable society that Americans and Iraqis can walk around in, unarmed, without substantial fear of being kidnapped, blown up, or beheaded. We also need to convince the world that we did what we set out to do and ended things on our own terms. But all this is so far away from being achievable (and both the Bush administration and blogs like this one seem utterly bankrupt of concrete ideas to get us there) that it’s pretty much academic.
“We have to defeat an insurgency. How long will that take? History suggests 10 to 15 years. The US in the Philippines and the British in Malaysia took that kind of time. the US pulled the plug on Vietnam after 11 years. That was not long enough.”
The question I’ve been asking for awhile now is how many years of ‘low-level’ conflict can we afford. We are lucky in that casualties have been low, but injuries have been higher. Especially brain injuries which have been greater than normal becuase of the IED’s.
My prediction is that if the insurgency continues at this level, military recruitment will begin to fall, as can be seen in the army and national guard. As a result, the army is now accepting lower recruiting standards than ever before. This can only hurt the effectiveness of our troops.
The second problem is funding: we are going to be in a severe financial crisis in the next 5-10 years if we do not: 1)reduce spending 2) increase taxes or 3)stop funding the Iraqi goverment. We are basically spending debt at this point, the question is how much we can borrow before the bottom falls out. And I don’t think anyone really knows when that will be, which is why it’s a bad idea to keep running a massive debt.
Again; if the insurgency dies down *soon*, it may help take care of both of these problems. But I don’t see that happeneing.
And we still haven’t started really spending money on reconstruction.
“Two fallacies here: the first is that Talabani at this point is, or should be, more interrested in what’s good for his ethnic group than what’s good for him personally. The guy’s president of Iraq – weak position or no, he has far more invested in being a big fish in a big pond than just another citizen of an independent Kurdistan.”
AFAICT, Talabanis stake in a united Iraq has more to do with his belief (supported by most the Kurdish political class, if not the petition signing man on the street) that the Kurds are far worse off if Iraq collapses than with his personal desire to keep a figurehead presidency.
“And victory in Iraq will be achieved when we can leave (with the exception of a few residual forces) a peaceful, stable society that Americans and Iraqis can walk around in, unarmed, without substantial fear of being kidnapped, blown up, or beheaded.”
First, lets recognize what you noted above, that perhaps 2/3rds of Iraq is already peaceful where at least Iraqis do walk around in peace. Some parts Americans can walk around (Kurdistan), but that is a strange metric considering the vast majority of the Middle East (not to mention Southwest Asia) is not safe for Americans to walk around outside of their ‘green zone’ type tourist areas. Many nations arent even that safe.
Personally i dont like this metric. There have been many times in Israel where people didnt feel safe in public, yet Israel isnt a basketcase of a nation. I think this is a popular metric, especially with the media, but it is bad for another reason: Al Qaeda knows about it and it is very easy for them to upset that apple cart. It is simply unrealistic for us to keep every corner of Iraq safe if Al Qaeda can win a victory by randomly setting off a bomb anywhere. The _only_ reason that offers any utility to AQ is because we make it so, because of exactly the victory condition you just outlayed. It plays into AQ’s modis operendi: terror. Are people afraid?
The important question is can the continuing violence, assuming it is at similar and hopefully lower levels, derail an Iraqi unity government? It is in the service of that goal that the condition of the army and ability of the government to protect itself from intimidation comes into play.
Pragmatically, please convince me that my ability to sight-see in Fallujah means anything to the situation on the ground much less our national security. Now the ability of IA units to patrol and the people to elect governors and federal offices- those it is easy to see are critical.
“We are lucky in that casualties have been low, but injuries have been higher. Especially brain injuries which have been greater than normal becuase of the IED’s. ”
Actually more than 50% of those reported wounded report back to duty within 72 hours. Injuries are also low compared to historically. Consider: 2298 US fatalities since wars beginning, 7777 wounded not returned to duty within 72 hours. Historical casualty figures are at a 3:1 ratio wounded to killed. 7777/2298=3.38
Note these figures include noncombat fatalities found “here”:http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx and originally generated by the DOD.
Chris:
As long as you’re having an academic discussion with bankrupt people, I have a couple of ideas for you.
There’s a simple metric for victory in any conflict: You are victorious if a) you are better off after the conflict than before it or b) you suffer less than you would have if you had not fought.
I’m sure you approve of that, because it makes any prospect of a purely US victory look pretty dim indeed. In the short run at least (which is all some people ever cared about) we would be better off sitting over here on our pile of money and letting the unpleasant parts of the world go to hell. He have little to fear from it, and even less to gain from interfering with it. It is precisely that sort of materialistic and self-interested logic that many critics use to gauge the war.
The Iraqis, on the other hand, have already won a staggering victory by that metric. The only real victory Iraq has ever won.
So one’s views on “victory” depend on whether the Iraqis count or not.
A friend once gave me a modern proverb about vegas that applies here:
“Never count your winning or your debt until after you cross te Nevada state line”
“In the short run at least (which is all some people ever cared about) we would be better off sitting over here on our pile of money and letting the unpleasant parts of the world go to hell.”
You forgot the part about pretensiously handwringing about how its our fault the world is going to hell in a handbasket and if only we’d embrace the electric car and a vegan diet all the genocide would surely end. Nothing worse than having your navel gazing interrupted with a war for liberation.
All this talk of 15 or 20 years is absurd. War with Iran will come long before that and it will reshape the course of the entire ME and possibly the world, depending on whether or not WMD are employed. We are in the phony war phase of the conflict between the West and clerical fascism. The left’s hysterics over Iraq will be seen as nothing more than the tantrums of school children as soon as things really heat up.
Glen-
bq. So one’s views on “victory” depend on whether the Iraqis count or not.
Crazy idea #3,487: while the benefit to the Iraqis “counts”, it has to be balanced against the effort, blood, and money we spent on the war.
If the war had been as quick and painless as the Bush admin initially suggested, you could probably make an argument that it was worth it to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
If all the stuff we’ve done up until now (heck, many times the stuff we’ve done up until now) really had had the transformative effect on the entire middle east that many on this blog said would happen, you could certainly make an argument that it was worth it.
But at the end of the day, was 2000+ US dead, 15000+ US wounded, long-term damage to our military capability and about half a trillion dollars worth it for the mess we’ve got in Iraq right now?
Seems like most Americans are answering “no” on that one. And I’ll be a coldhearted bastard and say that’s certainly my position on the matter.
Where’s the long term damage to our military capability. You could only say that if you mean that by strutting around on parade and not actually using our military is the way to project power.
There is a movement towards democracy in the Middle East. You may not like the results but to suggest that the US in Iraq has nothing to do with it is a simplistic idea.
It is the same logic that the left used when suggesting that the Russians decided to stop fighting the cold war and that Reagan’s policies had nothing to do with the decision.
IMO the conflict in the ME must always be seen in the context of the obscene intimacy that over the last 60 years has always existed between the US government and the Saudi Royal family of Sunnis. Without this relationship, one that Iraqi Sunnis can take to the bank, the post war chaos in Iraq might never have risen above the serious nuisance level.
George Jr. has only taken things one step further than his UN-loving, pussy daddy, still showing the same absurd, groveling deference to Sunni interests in Iraq and elswhere. THe fact that the DEMS never make an issue over this, ignoring the mountains of political points they could make, shows how deeply imbedded the Saudi relationship is within succeeding US administrations.
I am always amazed how rarely this issue is discussed on pro war, realistic, honest websites such as this one.
Davod-
bq. Where’s the long term damage to our military capability. You could only say that if you mean that by strutting around on parade and not actually using our military is the way to project power.
Actually, I’m referrring to the Army having real problems making its recruiting goals, hanging on to experienced NCOs and junior officers, and lowering its recruiting standards way, way down. All those things have real, long-term effects on the functional capability of the military, and thus, on the “projecting of power” that you seem so concerned with.
“Actually, I’m referrring to the Army having real problems making its recruiting goals, hanging on to experienced NCOs and junior officers, and lowering its recruiting standards way, way down. ”
Yet reenlistment rates are at record highs, particularly among those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. How does that jive with your thesis? Secondly, we now have perhaps half a million US troops with extensive battle experience, specializing in urban warfare. And not just classically front line troops with combat MOSs. Every soldier, marine, sailor, and airman in Iraq is a front line troop. This level of experience is irreplaceable. Quality beats quantity. The military we have today is far superior to what we had in 2002, and it was excellent then. The fact that we are tied down with a limited number of troops is a political consequence of not increasing our number of division after 911. But if we had to pick up the military we have now and throw it somewhere else in the world, man for man (and woman for woman) they are a better more experienced force than had we not gone into Iraq. Vitally, more expirienced in the kind of low level war we are likely to encounter.
I’m sure reenlistment is very good, but apparently not good enough for the military which, as pointed out before, drastically dropped recruiting requirements. Explain why this would happen if there was not a troop shortage?
“I’m sure reenlistment is very good, but apparently not good enough for the military which, as pointed out before, drastically dropped recruiting requirements. Explain why this would happen if there was not a troop shortage?”
First off- there is a difference between not meeting your goals and a crisis. Secondly, im not sure what ‘drastically dropped’ means, sounds like a loaded term. Finally, it is clear that first time enlistment rates are down exactly the opposite of reenlistment rates. The obvious conclusion is that the people already in the military know something the average American does not. One might speculate that 3 years anti-war, defeatist spin by the media might account for that disconnect.
Either way, there is no ‘crisis’ aside from having a military that has for years been structured with too few active divisions to fufill our global responsibilities. But as Rummy said, you fight with what you got. If we had to pull our army out of Iraq tomorrow and send it to country X, it would fight more effectively as it is than if it had never been to Iraq to begin with. Thats the point. Would the consequences of abandoning Iraq be disasterous? Yes, certainly. Thats why the _correct_ argument is that going into Iraq tied down our troops there. Not that going into Iraq in any way ‘wrecked’ our army, which if 2500 fatalities and 7500 wounded could do we were and are in terrible trouble on a much larger scale. That argument is alarmist and silly, whereas the strategic argument is impossible to dismiss.
Try this report from the boston globe….
But in a country where the rate of teenage obesity climbed from 5 percent to 16 percent over the last 30 years, perhaps the most significant revision is a loophole that allows recruits who are too heavy to meet weight or body fat limits to take the fitness test anyway…
[In the fitness test] subjects march up and down on a platform — 18 inches high for men, 12 inches for women — and keep pace with a metronome that ticks off a brisk 30 steps per minute. After 5 minutes, they sit and rest for 60 seconds. To pass, their pulse needs to be under 180 — and that’s not saying much, according to Gary Skrinar, a professor of exercise physiology at Boston University. ”Even if you’re at 170, you’re in pretty bad shape,” he said.
After the step test, male recruits have to do 15 pushups in a minute. Women must do four….[Additionally], an 18-year-old male like Kimball must be able to run 2 miles in 15 minutes, 54 seconds. He also must be able to bang out 53 situps and 42 pushups in 2 minutes each
The test is not open to everybody. Overweight men must measure below 30 percent body fat. Female recruits must have a body fat measurement of between 32 percent and 36 percent…
Also helpful in recruiting has been the more lenient drug-testing policy. Before last year, a recruit who tested positive for marijuana had to wait six months to retake the test. Last year, that waiting time was knocked down to 45 days, Spear said….
So some of this stuff isn’t horrible, but it does strike me as settling for whatever you can get.
You can read the whole article “here”:http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/20/struggling_for_recruits_army_relaxes_its_rules/?page=1/
Keep in mind, this is a much different army than, and a much different goal, than wars like WW2 (or vietnam) and we’re seeing very different kinds of wear and tear. Course, I could be wrong, we’ll see in a few years.
Mark-
bq. First off- there is a difference between not meeting your goals and a crisis. Secondly, im not sure what ‘drastically dropped’ means, sounds like a loaded term. Finally, it is clear that first time enlistment rates are down exactly the opposite of reenlistment rates. The obvious conclusion is that the people already in the military know something the average American does not. One might speculate that 3 years anti-war, defeatist spin by the media might account for that disconnect.
“Drastically dropped” in this case refers to this article, where Kaplan discusses the falling intelligence requirements the army’s using to vet new recruits. It can also refer to the article alchemist quoted about physical health requirements, or perhaps this one, quoted by John Cole, about how the army seems to be promoting just about everybody it can, to keep its mid-level ranks shored up.
If you don’t mind my asking, do you have any specific references for the claim you’re making about reenlistment rates? You’re right in that there is a discrepency between what alchemist and I are saying about the strain on the military, and what you’re saying about these sky-high reenlistment rates. This is an interesting point, and one worthy of deeper exploration.
As for your claim about the soldiers knowing something the rest of us don’t (because of the horrible media spin, of course), perhaps you might want to rethink that line of attack in view of stuff like this: nearly 3 out of 4 soldiers currently in Iraq think we should withdraw within the year, and 1 in 2 think we should be out in six months or less. Sounds pretty much like what the country as a whole is thinking (if not actually _less_ hawkish) to me.
bq. Either way, there is no ‘crisis’ aside from having a military that has for years been structured with too few active divisions to fufill our global responsibilities. But as Rummy said, you fight with what you got. If we had to pull our army out of Iraq tomorrow and send it to country X, it would fight more effectively as it is than if it had never been to Iraq to begin with. Thats the point. Would the consequences of abandoning Iraq be disasterous? Yes, certainly. Thats why the correct argument is that going into Iraq tied down our troops there. Not that going into Iraq in any way ‘wrecked’ our army, which if 2500 fatalities and 7500 wounded could do we were and are in terrible trouble on a much larger scale. That argument is alarmist and silly, whereas the strategic argument is impossible to dismiss.
No, the deaths and wounded aren’t what’s damaging the army, and I never claimed that. And the idea that our army is _stronger_ because of non-stop fighting in Iraq with too few personel is a novel one, I’ll certainly grant you that. I think you’d be hard pressed to find many military folks who’d actually agree with you on that one, but perhaps I’m just being ignorant here: if you can find some references to back that up, I’d love to see them.
“Here”:http://citysquare.typepad.com/online_conversion_beyond/2005/12/conversion_amon.html for reenlistment rates.
“As for your claim about the soldiers knowing something the rest of us don’t (because of the horrible media spin, of course), perhaps you might want to rethink that line of attack in view of stuff like this: ”
I dont trust a Zogby poll unless i see every detail. Guy could make a dog admit to being a cat, and he would if it would screw George Bush. If anybody’s paid for the report i’d love to see it.
“And the idea that our army is stronger because of non-stop fighting in Iraq with too few personel is a novel one, I’ll certainly grant you that”
Its novel to think veterans fight significantly better than green troops? Im not sure what to site you, there may be ‘Warfare for Dummies’. I imagine Clausewitz addressed it, try On War.
Here, “this”:http://www.cleburnenews.com/news/2004/as-iraq-1109-0-4k09a5408.htm ought to give you some idea. or “this”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/international/middleeast/07TACT.html?ei=5007&en=b502ae4c549da2f4&ex=1386133200&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=
Your article on reenlistment rates is, um, a little thin for some of the claims you’re making – six percent higher than the goal? How does that translate to “record highs”? And it seems at least as likely that military re-ups are motivated by “large cash bonuses” as a sense of commitment to the war. Disbelive the Zogby poll all you like, but I’m seeing very little here to support your “the troops know the real story, and that’s why they keep fighting” line.
bq. Its novel to think veterans fight significantly better than green troops? Im not sure what to site you, there may be ‘Warfare for Dummies’. I imagine Clausewitz addressed it, try On War.
Y’know, somehow I think Clausewitz might have agreed that there’s more than one factor that determines the effectiveness of an army. Try reading what I wrote, Mark: the question is not whether veterens fight better than non-vets, the question is whether whatever bonus we’ve gained in troop experience offsets the substantive loss of NCOs and mid-grade officers we’ve seen over the past three years, and the introduction of new recruits who’re sub-par, compared to what we’ve seen in the past.
“Your article on reenlistment rates is, um, a little thin for some of the claims you’re making – six percent higher than the goal?”
Ah. I see. Army misses its enlistment goals by 6% and its a catastrophy. Army surpasses its reenlistment goals by 6% and its to be scoffed at. Thats fair.
“And it seems at least as likely that military re-ups are motivated by “large cash bonuses” as a sense of commitment to the war.”
I’ll ignore that little bit of slander against our troops’ motivations.
“Disbelive the Zogby poll all you like, but I’m seeing very little here to support your “the troops know the real story, and that’s why they keep fighting” line”
Thats because you believe what is convenient for you to beleive. Zogby’s poll is at odds with every other poll ever taken, plus the vast majority of milblogs out there. And Zogby “refuses”:http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2006/03/zogby_troop_pol_2.html to discuss his methodology, which is being questioned. Unsurprising if you know anything about Zogby and his politics.
“Y’know, somehow I think Clausewitz might have agreed that there’s more than one factor that determines the effectiveness of an army.”
Amen. Examine your own advice.
“Try reading what I wrote, Mark: the question is not whether veterens fight better than non-vets, the question is whether whatever bonus we’ve gained in troop experience offsets the substantive loss of NCOs and mid-grade officers we’ve seen over the past three years, and the introduction of new recruits who’re sub-par, compared to what we’ve seen in the past. ”
Try comprehending what we are talking about. We are retaining _more_ of our troops, NCOs, and officers than we were at peacetime. That means our battle tested force is hanging together better than our green force did. As far as lowering the standards, you seem to make such a big deal of this in theory yet you have provided zero data proving having candidates will significantly affect our readiness. You may note the average soldier remains better educated than the average American.
You’re asking me to prove a negative. Im telling you the simple truth, that a battle tested army is _vastly_ (not a little, not 6%) superior to an unbloodied one. You cant put a price on experience. The vast majority of our active duty and NG troops have seen combat, many of them extensively. That is incalcuably valuable to their combat effectiveness. I dont know how else to put it.
bq. “Your article on reenlistment rates is, um, a little thin for some of the claims you’re making – six percent higher than the goal?”
bq. Ah. I see. Army misses its enlistment goals by 6% and its a catastrophy. Army surpasses its reenlistment goals by 6% and its to be scoffed at. Thats fair.
I’m not scoffing, I’m just wondering where you got the “record highs” you were talking about. I also note that the article you cite admits that between the 6% boost in reenlistment rates and the *two-thirds* recruiting shortfall, the army’s down 12,000 troops for the year. That’s a pretty significant gap.
bq. “And it seems at least as likely that military re-ups are motivated by “large cash bonuses” as a sense of commitment to the war.”
bq. I’ll ignore that little bit of slander against our troops’ motivations.
That’s the stupidest piece of self-serving demagogery I’ve ever seen. The troops are rational, self-interested people like every other American – _of course_ the addition of cash incentives is gonna have an effect on reenlistment rates. Why would the government be offering the reenlistment bonuses in the first place if it can get all the troops it needs merely by appealing to their patriotic side?
bq. “Disbelive the Zogby poll all you like, but I’m seeing very little here to support your “the troops know the real story, and that’s why they keep fighting” line”
bq. Thats because you believe what is convenient for you to beleive. Zogby’s poll is at odds with every other poll ever taken, plus the vast majority of milblogs out there. And Zogby refuses to discuss his methodology, which is being questioned. Unsurprising if you know anything about Zogby and his politics.
Read what you just linked to – it’s _not_ that Zogby refuses to discuss his methodology, it’s that he refuses to publically disclose it. As MP said himself: “But I did come away convinced that Zogby has good reason to withhold the details of how he was able to interview U.S. troops the way he did. More disclosure could put the interviewers’ lives at risk.”
bq. Try comprehending what we are talking about. We are retaining more of our troops, NCOs, and officers than we were at peacetime. That means our battle tested force is hanging together better than our green force did. As far as lowering the standards, you seem to make such a big deal of this in theory yet you have provided zero data proving having candidates will significantly affect our readiness. You may note the average soldier remains better educated than the average American.
We are retaining a _small_ amount more troops than in peacetime, and failing to recruit a _large_ portion of the people we need to. There _is_ a net shortfall of several thousand men, and I can only link to that Slate article so many times, so just read the damned RAND Corp. report already – yes, an army composed of smarter people does better than an army composed of dumb ones. And regardless of whether the average soldier’s smarter than the average american, the point is the new guys we’re getting in now aren’t as smart as the guys we were getting just three or four years ago. That’s a problem.
bq. You’re asking me to prove a negative. Im telling you the simple truth, that a battle tested army is vastly (not a little, not 6%) superior to an unbloodied one. You cant put a price on experience. The vast majority of our active duty and NG troops have seen combat, many of them extensively. That is incalcuably valuable to their combat effectiveness. I dont know how else to put it.
I’m not asking you to prove a negative, I’m asking you to justify why retaining a small number of smart, experienced soldiers more than counteracts a huge influx of dumb ones. Unfortunately, you don’t seem interested in discussing detail or nuance – you think that if you take one legitimate point and yell about it loud enough, it’ll overwhelm all the complicating details. (Not unlike WoC’s overall approach to debating the war, actually…) Reality doesn’t work that way, pal.
“I’m not scoffing, I’m just wondering where you got the “record highs” you were talking about”
Ask “General Pace”:http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=June&x=20050614184848mbzemog0.346615&t=is/is-latest.html
_”Interestingly, those who serve in the Army today, who are currently on active duty, are reenlisting at historic numbers. We have had the goals for reenlistment exceeded, especially by those units who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq”._
“I’m not asking you to prove a negative, I’m asking you to justify why retaining a small number of smart, experienced soldiers more than counteracts a huge influx of dumb ones.”
You are completely turning the numbers on their head! First off, the ‘goals’ set by the army were made to _increase_ the army by 8-10,000 troops. So when recruiters arent meeting their goals that _doesnt_ mean the army is shrinking. The plan has been to add several new combat units. It is not growing at the projected rate.
Furthermore, we are talking about enlistment which is a small portion of the army at any given time, dividing that into an even small subset up those ‘missing’ do to recruiting shortfalls, subtracting out the number offset by veteran reenlistments over projection. What kind of percentage is that of total military power? Compared to providing half a million troops with combat experience?
There are 492,000 active duty army troops, and 591,000 reserve army.
According to “this”:http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/03/051003234425.2ucltevk.html report the active army was 7000 troops short in its recruiting “goal”:http://www.nam.org/s_nam/308,2,FY05 of 80,000 in 05. This will partially prevent the _increase_ in manpower that was planned. Even so, the army will have 1000 more troops than we did in 04, which about balances out Iraq casualties.
Now subtract out the 4800 ‘additional’ re-enlistments (80,000 reenlistment goal x 6%)and you get 2200 less personel than planned. That is _.4% of active duty army_ (2200/492,000). And the army is _still_ ~4800 troops larger than it was in 04. Just not the 8000 more targetted.
The NG goal was 22,175 which would also increase its manpower over 04. It reach 95% of its mandated year end stregth by December according to “this”:http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2005/20051212_3616.html.
.4%. Thats what you’re basing your argument on. Meanwhile we have half a million troops with combat experience, including extensive urban/low intensity warfare. _You_ are the one making mountains out of molehills. Yes, the army has a short term recruitment problem (it has happened before during peacetime). But that is only a _very_ small percentage of army strength. It would take many years of this kind of minor degradation to have any meaningful impact on readiness. Meanwhile our army is a veteran force _now_.
bq. “I’m not scoffing, I’m just wondering where you got the “record highs” you were talking about”
bq. Ask General Pace
Psst. It says “historical numbers,” not “record highs”, and “historical numbers” is so vague as to be meaningless. 6% is 6%.
bq. You are completely turning the numbers on their head! First off, the ‘goals’ set by the army were made to increase the army by 8-10,000 troops. So when recruiters arent meeting their goals that doesnt mean the army is shrinking. The plan has been to add several new combat units. It is not growing at the projected rate.
Er, actually it does mean the Army is shrinking – even by a generous estimate, if they were trying to recruit an extra 10k but fell short by 12k, that’s 2k down, total. You do quote a different figure for recruiting shorfall down below, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
bq. There are 492,000 active duty army troops, and 591,000 reserve army. According to this report the active army was 7000 troops short in its recruiting goal of 80,000 in 05. This will partially prevent the increase in manpower that was planned. Even so, the army will have 1000 more troops than we did in 04, which about balances out Iraq casualties. Now subtract out the 4800 ‘additional’ re-enlistments (80,000 reenlistment goal x 6%)and you get 2200 less personel than planned. That is .4% of active duty army (2200/492,000). And the army is still ~4800 troops larger than it was in 04. Just not the 8000 more targetted.
Two things. The first article you cite is from October, and refers to the end of the Army’s _fiscal_ year for 2005. The earlier article you quoted was written in December, and gives a shortfall estimate of 12,000 for the _calendar_ year, so it’s probably more accurate to use that one. The second article you mention doesn’t work (and seems to link to the National Association of Manufacturers), so please update when you get a second.
Second, your math is suspect. The army was trying to recruit 80k for the fiscal year 2005, but the idea that it was trying to reenlist the same number of men comes out of nowhere, so the .4% thing is totally out of left field. And again, I’m not as concerned with casualty figures as the quality of the incoming troops. That being the case, a somewhat more straightforward and useful figure to consider is this: if the army was trying to recruit 80k soldiers, and increase its size by 10k, then that means 70k soldiers out of ~490k soldiers are new to the army, and, more importantly, recruited under the lowered quality standards I’ve been mentioning. 14% isn’t a terrible number in and of itself, but if this trend continues over the next few years, that would be pretty damn bad.
bq. .4%. Thats what you’re basing your argument on. Meanwhile we have half a million troops with combat experience, including extensive urban/low intensity warfare. You are the one making mountains out of molehills. Yes, the army has a short term recruitment problem (it has happened before during peacetime). But that is only a very small percentage of army strength. It would take many years of this kind of minor degradation to have any meaningful impact on readiness. Meanwhile our army is a veteran force now.
I’ve demonstrated that I’m _not_ talking about .4%, and I’ve repeatedly pointed out that I’m less concerned about casualty figures and more concerned with the quality of the new recruits we’re getting. It’s also worth considering that, in light of the stuff I mentioned above about the difficulty of holding on to NCOs and junior officers, a lot of the _leadership_ personel needed to run the army are leaving, along with their experience gained in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not a gap that retaining more experienced enlisted guys is gonna help to make up for. You can choose to engage with that or not, but I’m not gonna be slammed with bogus numbers related to a point I never made.