Reorientation

The military is pulling ground forces from Korea and Germany. This is something which has been under discussion for some years, and marks a realization of the end of the Cold War. Most importantly in terms of our warfighting ability, it means that we have more easily-deployable forces, because we no longer have to worry (once the move is complete) about tensions in Korea or Europe fixing those troops in place when we need them elsewhere.

All in all, this is a very good move to make, and should alleviate some of the overstretch we've been experiencing particularly since the start of the Iraq War. Remaining steps to take to truly reorient US military forces to the Terror Wars will include:

• Continuing to upgrade expendables production capacity. The issues particularly arise with class V (ammunition) and IX (repair parts) supplies, though the shortage of body armor in Iraq got more press.
  
• Continuing to turn less useful units (like air defense, some artillery and the like) into infantry, MP or Civil Affairs units. Really, this needs to be done by disbanding the old units and creating new ones; the repurposing of units being done in Iraq is field-expedient. (This includes reductions in the number of REMFs in Washington - the bureaucracy of the military needs to be cut to put more teeth in.)
  
• Creation of a nation-building force structure. Some experiments are ongoing in Iraq towards such a structure, with political warfare as an explicit mission.
  
• Additional units may well have to be raised. Certainly, it would be to our advantage to be at the force levels of 1991 at least.
  
• Purchasing additional transport assets - particularly KC-10s, C-17s and fast sea transports - in order to deploy units more quickly when troubles arise.
  
• Creating permanent basing in Iraq for some units, both land and air, to give permanent access to the Middle East theater. Really, instead of moving units to the US from Germany and Korea, moving them here would be more useful.

There are many other things to be done, certainly, but I see all of the above items as vital to enabling us to outpace our enemies. By raising the OPTEMPO and keeping a constant pressure on all parts of the enemy's organization, we can do a lot to collapse his will to fight and, more importantly, his support and standing among the majority of the Arab/Muslim populations, and it is to this end that we must orient the military in order to win the military fight.

Reorienting the press and the legislature will be harder.

Posted by Jeff at June 8, 2004 09:27 AM | Link Cosmos