Centerfield

The number of soldiers needed to fight a war keeps going down. But the number needed for an occupation is, at the very best, going down much much more slowly.

That's where we have gotten burned in Iraq, I think. Our military is built for fighting a war. We are not built, and do not have the boots on the ground that we need, for an occupation. Do not, comes to that, have the numbers in the whole military to cope with running an occupation. We may be able, even so, to pull something off. But it ain't being pretty.

WW II was a lot different that the Gulf War or Iraq because we were facing basically peer competitors in a war of attrtion. You would expect casualties in recent wars to be much lower because the wars are much different that if we had fought the Red Army. And, obviously, there are fewer combatants involved so casulties have to be less.

It's certainly true that the chance of death has gone down because of better treatment, but the chance of permanent impairment is still very significant. So, while deaths in Iraq are relatively low compared to other wars, we are seeing more people survive with crippling wounds that would previously have killed them. That's why I think it's very misleading to talk about the "low" number of military deaths in Iraq. Lots of people are coming home with missing parts and, especially, debilitating head wounds.

Politically, the change in the composition of the military is significant as is obvious by the difference between the climate today and in Viet Nam. If kids were being drafted for Iraq, you would probably be seeing huge anti-war rallies instead of the relatively minor events you see today. The vast majority of Americans simply are not connected to the war. This makes it much easier for a president to engage in military actions without having to worry as much about adverse public reaction, although obviously the public has largely turned against Iraq.

And, while the all-volunteer army obviously has benefits for the military, the Iraq experience is going to make it much more difficult to recruit higher-quality soldiers. Let's face it, a lot of kids joined up in recent years for the economic opportunities not expecting to have to actually fight. Logically, people will be much more wary about joining if they think the chances of seeing action is significant. Inevitably, I think, the military is going to have to rely even more on technology and fire power to carry out future missions (not necessarily "wars"). That seems to me to be problematic because there are limits to what technology and firepower can accomplish and these go hand-in-hand with an increase in collateral damage.

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Of course, one reason why colleteral damage is higher in some areas of conflict is that our enemies hide among civilians. Death from friendly fire is way down. Nation building and peacekeeping IS an effort in attrition. Our stragey in the recent past was to put NATO or others in that role. Perhaps the biggest question will be whether we pick up that slack.

Better armor, IED protection, anti-sniper technology and WMD protection will help entice more to enlist. Although not often discussed, short range missiles, cruise missiles, drones and UAVs need to be defended against as adversaries sport mobile systems that can surprise clandestinely. Note that India and Pakistan have made mini nukes and neutron bombs part of their tactical strategy. Perhaps the greatest dangers continue to be potential proliferation. Mr. Khan is now allowed to see family and friends. What friends?

Maybe Khan's "friends" are his customers. And potential customers.

Yeah, Pakistan is a ticking time bomb. I guess Bush doesn't have much problem with Musharaf building a third plutonium plant. Most Americans don't understand the significance of Russian missile tests or numerous nations' neutron building. I think the tactical doctrines now being promoted by others represent some strategic concerns to our military. Meanwhile, Democrats are VERY opposed to any modernizing of our nuclear deterrent. They would rather we not add "clean" nukes to a bunker buster and instead consider Iranian nukes an inevitability. And doesn't our missile defense play a huge role in the future wars we envision? Boeing is getting ready for a laser test soon (early next year). Wonder what Bush and Putin really talked about.

Max,

You are saying that more people will enlist because of better technology that might protect them against bombs? You don't think that might be stretching it a little? I find it a little hard to believe that people will be enticed to enlist by the prospect of having better armour available, especially if there are other opportunities that don't involve getting shot at.

I think you have it backwards. Less people may enlist than usual, if they think force protection is taking a back seat. You make it sound like those that enlist will do so only when there is little risk. You have a greater chance of dying of negligence in a hospital than in an M 1.

With modern munitions the battlefield has become far more lethal, but we have to exercise restraint to minimize civilian casualties, a fact that the insurgents take full advantage of. Obviously most of our opponents know that they will loose a standup fight against the US, so they have modified their tactics to avoid our technological advantage. One thing we are learning that it is not necessarily raw numbers of troops on the ground that make a difference, what is really important is the ability to sort out the insurgents from the civilians that gives you the ability to bring overwhelming firepower against them. In this type of war it is Intelligence operations and the cooperation of civilians who, sometimes at great risk, give out information on suspected insurgents that wins battles. The future of warfare is in robotics or remote controlled weaponry like the Predator. By sending machines into the most lethal environments you save lives, but unfortunately that also makes it easier to go to war if few troops are at risk. One interesting fact on casualties and warfare, the USSR lost 19,900 soldiers a day in World War Two, just to put a perspective on the level of fighting that we did in that war and the number of casualties so far in this war.

max,

Clearly, people don't (or shouldn't) enlist expecting no risk. But it's pretty obvious that the war has made it more difficult to recruit because some portion (I don't know how much) join for the educational and financial benefits and are less likely to join if they think those benefits will entail fighting a war. As for an M1 being safer than being in a hospital, that's essentially the same argument that, why are we concerned about terrorism since a lot more people die in auto accidents than on 9/11. It's probably true that fewer people die in an M1 than die in household accidents; does that mean that we are safer in an M1 than at home?

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