For my column this week, I chose to rip into Bush’s speech on how brilliantly he’s leading us to victory, and McCain’s enthusiasm for keeping the war going. So my backup column idea—things we’ve learned from the war—is going here. Which is good, actually, because I have more space, though I’ll still be breaking it up into parts.

The first thing we’ve learned: Boots on the ground matter.

To occupy and pacify a foreign country takes manpower—unfortunately, a lot more than we were willing to commit at the start of this venture (though I’ve heard it argued that given Iraq’s underlying instabilities, we still might not have been able to pull it off). So one question our military planners need to consider is where we’re going to find the men for the future.

The last time this subject came up, one conservative informed me that he didn’t see much chance of another occupation any time soon (this was well before Bush had put Iran on his hit list, or I imagine I’d have gotten a different response). The trouble is, that’s not something we can predict: Did anyone foresee America’s first war of the 21st century would be with Afghanistan?

Much as I oppose the Iraq war, I do believe taking out the Taliban was justified (though Bush’s decision to pull out and attack Saddam has allowed the Taliban to resurrect since). It may not be the last time we need to occupy a foreign country, and while I’d prefer that be a last resort, it’s an option that should be on the table. So how do we maintain an army big enough to occupy a country without breaking under the burden as we seem to be doing in Iraq?

Recruit more people? Extremely expensive, not just in what it takes to convince people to sign up, but in the potential costs of benefits if they stay in.

Use mercenaries—er, private contractors? Also expensive, though I’ve been told the higher rate of pay for Blackwater agents is balanced out in the long-term by our government not having to shell out for benefits, and we simply don’t have enough control over them. If we’re fighting a war, the people in the field need to be directly answerable to their superiors, not sheltered by the legal maze that seems to surround the security contractors and protect them from liability.

Can we increase the size of the reserves, so we have the manpower ready when we need it? Military veteran/writer Phillip Carter (of the excellent site Intel Dump has argued that while it seems logical, it won’t work: It would require massive changes in the way the military equips its reserves, and probably higher pay, enlistment bonuses, etc.—and those run into the problem that the full-time Army is supposed to receive a better deal than one-weekend-a-month reservists (note: I have no first-hand experience, so if I’m misreading Carter’s depiction of the reserves—in the pro-draft article mentioned below—feel free to point it out).

Revive the draft? I’m strongly opposed to this myself, but Carter, in a Washington Monthly article makes a good case. I’m still opposed, but I have enough respect for his analysis that it deserves mentioning.

The current approach—prolonging deployments, the use of stop/loss—isn’t sustainable, and I think it’s also immoral and unfair to the troops, the equivalent of a draft but falling on people who’ve voluntarily committed themselves to the service.

So what’s the best solution? Any suggestions?

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 7:23 am and is filed under Questions, War/military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.