via SLDInfo.
In early 1916 “Big Army” was not so big, it had around 110,000 solders, eventually America mobilized close to 4 Million members in uniform with 2 million arriving in France to fight and win. The peacetime “Big Army” of 1940 on the eve of WW II had 269,000 in uniform and was mobilized to over 8.3 million solders by1945.The US Army is in the fight of its life and acts as if it doesn't even know it. All the talk about "jointness" has been tossed aside, first by think tanks, then by the AF Chief of Staff and now by SLDInfo.
So it is not a cliché to sing, “we did it before and we can do it again.”
The one thing Grant and Sherman did not anticipate however is the airplane, and the need for a Navy/Marine/Air Force team for combat in the expanse of the Pacific.
They also had no way to anticipate nuclear weapons, subs and ICBMs. It was just not in their scope of knowledge or concern because they had a country to save and they did just that.
In today’s world the USN, USMC and the USAF are the core elements for military power as the foundation for global reach. If a large army is needed, mobilization can be done. History has shown that.
The long knives are out for the Army.
I hope Army leadership pulls its head out and starts fighting back. I tease and love the rivalry with the Big Green but more importantly I believe in having strong ground forces. Unfortunately many don't. The Army's enemies are out for blood and the battlefield is Washington.
Read the entire article here.
***American Mercenary had a FANTASTIC response to SLDInfo that sums things up nicely...
You know what the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam had that we no longer have?WELL SAID AM! Well said! These "military theorist" are twisting history and in doing so are failing to understand where we are today. They are literally putting our nation in danger by cutting the Army.
The draft.
Good luck cutting the Army down to nothing then creating a great big Army based solely on recruiting volunteers in wartime.
You know what the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam had that we no longer have?
ReplyDeleteThe draft.
Good luck cutting the Army down to nothing then creating a great big Army based solely on recruiting volunteers in wartime.
OUTSTANDING POINT!!!!!! its going up to the article!
DeleteWe don't have a draft law anymore? Do tell.
DeletePeople who spout the the draft will never come back are the same tropes who spout that we will never fight a large conventional war again. Both assertions are fantasy.
Patrick even if we wanted to institute a draft again, Americas youth are so fat and flabby that they couldn't stand up to the rigors of boot camp. consider this. during ww2 most of the young people lived in rural america where they had to work long hard days taking care of the farm. waking up at four thirty am was nothing new. working all day was nothing new. then flash forward to today. pe classes get criticized for being too rigorous and thats less than an hour every school day. additionally most kids spend time either on the couch or playing grab ass at the mall.
Deleteso yeah. thinking a draft could come back is a fantasy. the kids just can't hack it.
"They are literally putting our nation in danger by cutting the Army."
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. The nation itself is in no danger that a ground force lessens. In fact the presence of a large ground force has led to imperialistic foreign millitary activities which have increased the danger to our nation., besides being costly in people and resources.
you don't understand. the "imperialistic" military activities are going to happen regardless of the size of the force. the only thing you're doing is pushing more responsibilitiy and work on fewer people adding to the strain on that force. additionally the lust for airpower is just a desire by some to fight wars from the air without putting boots on the ground. what will that lead to? more failed wars a loss of america's prestige and an even greater reluctance to act in america's interest in the future.
Deletea citizen army as we have constructed it will best perform the functions desired if its properly sourced. it needs to be used sparingly and it needs to be big enough to win the wars that it faced with.
we are about as small as we can reasonably go as far as size is concerned.
The elective wars have failed with boots on the ground, and not having the boots would discourage the wars because as you indicate wars can't be won from the air.
DeleteNot having boots was a key factor in keeping the US out of Syria, besides the public disdain for it, which is another reason to cut the Army. Hell, I say eliminate it. There is no danger as I said above.
totally disagree. the war in Syria was going to be an all air affair with Special Ops doing its thing. the american people are just tired of elective combat. but what happens when we have to go to war because direct US interests are at stake. not because one man has an agenda but because its important for the nation.
DeleteSo, if we aren't responsible enough to have a large standing Army because we might mis-use and abuse, we shouldn't have one?
DeleteI'll be the first to agree that we are too willing to use our military and engage in the mistaken belief that we can fix so many of our problems abroad by using force as if it were a sort of panacea for what ails America, but that is a societal and policy question that needs to be addressed within our society and political institutions.
We might avoid unnecessary wars of our choosing, but we run the risk of attracting an adversary who is willing to bet he can strike us because we are unable to respond.
We need a large standing force not in spite of modern technology and capabilities but because of them. Not only do we not have the draft but we have selfish comfortable population that largely wouldn't volunteer to keep enemies out of the lower 48 much less any other important places in the world. Modern weapons and vehicle mean that those two oceans aren't going to buy us as much time as we need to mobilize a large ground force so we need to be able to hit hard And Stay in the first round. Are the people shaping policy really this stupid or are they willfully projecting ignorance in the name of politics?
ReplyDeleteSo I got about halfway through the article and had to quit....the author is a well educated idiot. What a frigging moron. I found little merit in the print.
ReplyDeleteI understand the importance of having a proper navy and air force and don't contest that however....
the author and anyone that agrees with his side of the debate fails to understand the essence of human aggression.
War is the superlative expression of human anger sanctioned by society.
That essence doesn't come in the form of boats and airplanes, it comes from 160 pound humans that are willing to kill some one.
Contrary to the good times opinion of some, as long as you have a central government, you will always have a draft. And when it comes to the wars the author seems all to eager to engage in the standing military is not responsible enforcing our opinion overseas, it is the vessel through which america mobilizes its general population's aggressive capability.
You cant pack 50 million troops into fighter jets and submarines America doesn't have the money or manufacturing capacity for it. They get in the back of a truck. And that truck is a US Army truck if our society has the wisdom to buy it.
The air-sea battle concept is fine and dandy if they can win and keep things over there and all. But that stuff is awful fancy and takes a long time to build. The US Navy is on a 25 year capitalization cycle.Same goes for the Air Force. Not only do those things take a long time to build but they are highly sophisticated systems that require smooth running complex logistical chain of inter working electronic components to make them work. In a full scale war ICBMs will inevitably destroy some of these component sources, never mind the effects of E1 high altitude electromagnetic pulse.
Keeping it real the USAF and USN can most likely put the down boy on who ever they want but they will take some pretty severe damage doing it and when that happens having to defend CONUS against paratroopers, enemy bombers and missile attacks becomes far more likely.
Those are army duties. A patriot missile cost about 800% less than a standard missile. In fact if you want to compare it in terms of missile platforms versus destroyer/cruisers the US ground forces have about 2100 anti air launcher platforms and compared to 100 surface combatants and since we all believe in standing forces won't bother with how much cheaper or easier to manufacture they are.
When it comes to mass militarization affordability, simplicity and numerical superiority are the order of the day. The army is the branch with the low center of gravity that can deliver this militarization but they need the equipment and professional end strength to forge this instrument of destruction.
I kind of wonder if the author has ever actually looked at the society and military composition of the PRC. A few more boats and airplanes wont cut it, Prevention is the best policy. Nuclear and MAD are the tools of greatest efficacy for prevention and if prevention fails. That is one big china ya'll.
How anyone gets hawkish, calls for more expeditionary forces, and also wishes for cuts to the standing army at a military cemetery is absolutely beyond me. I've been to a few of those and when I was looking at the rolling hills covered in a sea of white crosses, starting wars on the other side of the world was not high on my to do list.
If you start lobbing ICBMs, the biggest army in the world is vaporized in an hour.
DeleteNot to mention millions dead and million more dying of starvation and disease as the civilized world collapses.
You don't 'win" a nuclear war, you try and survive it.
Dave, this was stated time and time again after world war two and along came Korea, Vietnam, and a whole host of wars that did not rate nuclear extermination.
DeleteYou can nuke a place till it glows but there are always tunnels, bunkers and nuke proof civilian areas to hide and continue the fight.
Had they Nuked Iwo Jima the Japanese would have still been there and ready to fight.
I recall the Air Force saying with the advent of Missiles a gun on an aircraft was useless and along came the F4F Phantom which were dead meat feet wet and over downtown Hanoi for every hotshot MiG 15/17 19/21 which still carried those obsolete guns.
Boots on the ground wins wars.
Have you seen the vids of the units nuked in training? Those units went to ground and after the blast got up and assaulted ground zero also The five Military personnel who had a nuke detonated directly above them high enough so they suffered no ill effects?
Over 200 nuclear weapons have been detonated in test across the south west yet we are all here and not growing tentacles as we speak.
Dig in deep and there is survivable nuclear war. Whether it's worth surviving is the question.
Well lobbing them isn't the goal, presenting both sides unacceptable consequences to avoid the conflict in the first place is.
DeleteI find the proposition unacceptable, but for the sake of debate I'll discuss it from a purely mathematics standpoint. So don't hate lol.
Figures released from the pentagon in the 1990's stated that 40% of the military would survive a nuclear attack from Russia. This was when the world stockpiles were significantly larger and the BMDA didn't exist. I wouldn't guess the number has improved much since then because of infrastructure changes and the lack of volume in anti ballistic missiles, the probability of the US not being the initial aggressor use of penetration aids etc. The whole "post cold war mafia" really screws the military over in this scenario. But the concept that there isn't a follow on conflict is incorrect.
So if 60% of the forces "disappear" it would be reasonable to assume that 45-80% of the equipment has also "disappeared". In a follow on situation like this where the force has to be recapitalized and expanded to the maximum extent possible Domestic ground forces are what are actually obtainable with volume. To be sure the DOD would procure whatever it can get its hands on in air and sea assets but the most obtainable war materiel is the simplest and most affordable. So having professional forces that actually use that equipment and method of warfare is relevant.
The government is gonna play hell attempting to draft kids these days, they will simply stream across into Canada and travel to countries that are neutral, the draft evaders of Vietnam got off scott free and many are now elected leaders, if there is no punishment for evading why go fight and die or be maimed when it's plain as hell being a veteran doesn't mean squat to the government after the war is over without a win and your country simply walks away mid fight.
ReplyDeleteThe draftees of Vietnam got spit on, shit on and were hated also even though they had no choice about having to go fight the unpopular war started by JFK for reason unclear even now.
"Good luck cutting the Army down to nothing then creating a great big Army based solely on recruiting volunteers in wartime. "
ReplyDeleteIf there arent enough volunteers, maybe its a war not worth fighting?
I can't believe the short-sighted, misguided posts by too many in this thread who haven't learned from the painful lessons our past. This seems all too similar to the Eisenhower doctrine of massive-retaliation: we'll use small conventional forces as a trip-wire for massive nuclear counter-attack. Except this is even dumber because we don't have the threat of nuclear annihilation backing our forces up, we only have the magical panacea of 'technology' and 'Air-Sea doctrine' and pathetic platforms like the F35 and LCS to keep adversary's at bay.
ReplyDeleteAre the field and combat skills of any infantryman or armored crewman any less important or technical than those of a fighter pilot? Or missile officer on a sub? It is an insult to think that all you need for an Army is to draft a bunch of kids, sprinkle in some officers and *Presto-Chango* instant army unit are created. It took years, YEARS, before America's military in general and Army specifically was prepared for WWI and WWII. Equipment, weaponry, vehicles don't simply appear overnight and America's military doesn't have the capacity to simply retool or build up industrial capacity overnight.
Past examples rife with blood and treasure mistakes: Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea were all paid for in blood and treasure. Manassas, Kasserine Pass, Task Force Smith. There was a very steep, bloody learning curve for our Army in the beginning phases of American involvement. A quick read of Atkinson’s “An Army at Dawn” will inform all but the most thick-headed of the overall incompetence, poor training, inadequate equipment and poor leadership our Army suffered from in early WWII. Every war we’ve fought since the Civil War has suffered from the same incompetence and ineffectiveness at the early stage of the war. We should never need to pay such a heavy price for being unprepared nor should we assume we will have the time to make-up for our early mistakes.
WWI and WWII had world powers like France and UK as allies. We were their back-up and they held the line for years before we were able to train and field large enough forces. We don’t have anyone backing us up. Nobody is going to hold the line and wait for us to draft, train, equip and field larger ground forces.
Any Peer enemy that knows our weakness will design a strategy to strike, overwhelm and consolidate quickly to resist political, economic and military counterattacks. A peer adversary, e.g. China, is going to plan a war that can neutralize our air and sea assets, then wait out any counter attack by quickly consolidating its gains and making it too costly to try to reverse the gains. By the time an Army might be raised, it will be a year or two late.
once we decrease the size of our ground forces, hey will NEVER be as large as they are now. NEVER. If we loose the next war, our military will have even less relevance and power since people won't think the investment of national treasure and blood is worth it.
Another picture of a Stryker without the Mel Gibson road warrior cage. Doesn't look nice for PR.
ReplyDelete