Redstate

Maybe I misunderstand your meaning, but aren't at least some of the factors you list as unraveling PART of the Army's combat strength?

While the ideas of "family friendliness" and "one-year tours" would not directly relate to "combat strength", the elimination of those ideas would almost certainly have SOME affect on troop retention (relative to what it would be even if we did maintain 1 year tours and acted "family friendly" while fighting this war). And if retention decreases relative to what it would otherwise be, this would seem to decrease our combat strength. Or maybe as a layman, I don't necessarily understand the situation.

There are a lot of people that we Would lose with the loss of these ideas, but they are a certain type of soldier that is unlikely to serve out more than 2 contracts (and typically only 1) regardless. It would not have a significant impact on initial enlistments, though it would have Some impact, nor would it have a significant impact on retention. As I have already stated, those soldiers don't retain very well to begin with...

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

our experience pre-All Volunteer Army shows just the opposite. In that era an enlisted man had to get permission from his commanding officer to marry. Quarters were scare. Benefits scarcer. There is no evidence that retention among those who enlisted suffered.

So if your premise was correct, I might buy it. But I don't agree with your premise. Moreover I don't agree that an Army that is extremely married is the best Army to have if it is going to actually fight wars.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

The previous cases of "unraveling" you mention that the army so handily absorbed were never in the context of a voluntary force. If we bring back the draft, we can fight every country in the world for as long as we want. Not that I'm suggesting we do either of those things...

The unraveling of our present volunteer force would be terrible. It would limit our ability to solve more serious problems elsewhere or to defend ourselves, or our allies, if actually attacked by a country or group we contemplated action against. Which raises the question of when we should enter wars of choice in the first place and at what threshold should we recognize a threat as warranting military action.

First, the Civil War army was not raised by a draft and if you would like to explain how the Vietnam-era Army didn't end with a volunteer force I'd really be all ears.

Second,

If we bring back the draft, we can fight every country in the world for as long as we want.

Really counterfactual. When you look at the French experience in Vietnam and the British experience in Malayia they both were able to sustain those fights over a decade precisely because they did not send conscripts to those wars.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

my point was that we can't wage unpopular wars without consequences; our leaders should probably exercise a bit more discretion, perhaps even nuance, in determining whether a country poses a threat to the United States. Now our President has the problem of having, unintentionally, cried "wolf" with respect to Saddam and limited our ability to pressure Iran and Pakistan, where I believe the real danger exists.

To engage your discussion of Vietnam and Malaysia: there will always be a core of unquestioning volunteers who for whatever reason will pursue their country's adventures in violence precisely because it's "their country." Nothing wrong with that; professional warriors are absolutely necessary for many missions, training, forming elite units, etc. But we can't expect to send a bunch of guard and reserve units to Iraq when nobody wants to be there or sees the utility of the conflict. I'm sure most reservists are proud to serve, but I doubt they signed up to fight in Iraq (they could have joined the regular army for that and gotten better training and equipment). It's a pity, and very much to the country's detriment, but the project just ran out of gas.

because if it isn't this is simply bonejarring.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

as the unfortunate development of those ungrateful Iraqi's deciding to shoot back...

reserve and guard just ain't the same thing as rangers.

Let me explain this to you, since you are clearly not aware of the situation: the man that you are conversing at is in fact one of those people who you just sneered at as being 'unquestioning volunteers' - and he neither particularly needed nor wanted your gracious permission to pursue his country's 'adventures in violence.' In fact, he is by any standard better at assessing the capabilities and motivations of the average American soldier than you are. I refrain from speculating on who, if anyone, would not be.

Now, I understand that your class upbringing leaves you ignorant of the elementary courtesies that should be extended our military personnel, but we have standards, and if you are incapable of meeting them, stay away from this site.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

But they are the reserve forces of the US. To say that they didn't sign up for this reduces their level of intelligence to barely above room temperature during the Carter era. Now you may very well believe this, based on the "unquestioning" description of soldiers in the regular Army I'm inclined to think this is the case, but I encourage you to look at their oath of enlistment and try to find the part where it says "I'll only go to really big wars."

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

I don't think they only signed up for "really big wars;" I think they signed up for wars that were important to the nation's security and to help out in cases of domestic emergency - at least that's what the ads I keep getting in my mailbox suggest. If I were a reservist, I'd want my government to only dispatch me to a conflict where the nation's interests were at stake and the active duty military wasn't big enough to complete the mission. Sure they signed up to go where sent, but it seems a breach of faith not to think about what happens if we keep them over there indefinitely and plan accordingly. The more I look at the current situation, the more it seems we went to Iraq to test someone's pet theory about spreading democracy at gunpoint. If they thought we were really in danger, why all the shenanigans about having to sell the war? They could have just told people about the disagreements within the intelligence community, maybe tried to avoid fixing the intel around the policy, or just treated us like citizens in a democracy instead of dolts who couldn't be trusted to support a reasonable policy if given accurate and balanced evidence.

I also don't think everyone who joins the regular army is unquestioning. I conclude that some are unquestioning because if a person of reasonable education looked at the situation in Iraq, before the current war or presently, they would not view our direct involvement there as beneficial to American interests. They also probably wouldn't sign up to go. The vast majority of us were particularly unquestioning was we embarked on this war and I refuse to believe that we'd make the same mistake again. I remember my college roommate telling me that Cheney and Rumsfeld were full of it when they said we'd be "greeted as liberators;" I said I'd wait and see. Turns out they were full of it. We owe it to everyone in the military, but the reserves particularly (so long as they aren't getting the same training and equipment), to avoid having faith in people who are so clearly "full of it." I'd probably sleep better otherwise, but I can't trust that the policies of this ilk won't unravel the army and potentially leave us crippled for some period. The pie in the sky crowd has been wrong about everything else, so I won't trust them now. Here's hoping Fred Thompson gets in there so we can have a return to adult leadership.

I don't think they only signed up for "really big wars;" I think they signed up for wars that were important to the nation's security

They are fighting one of those wars in Iraq. Both the President and the Congress said so.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

See the Academy

We're very proud of the violence that we use. It is highly trained, extremely effective, massively high-tech and Completely unmatchable violence. Just because it's all of the above doesn't make it nonviolent.

As I have told others, the Army doesn't do that "Non-lethal thing."

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

See the Academy

But I am very proud of the violence/force I am trained to use effectively and I'm not even infantry and (were it not for outside training) couldn't match their skill in the violent acts of force... : P

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

"we can't wage unpopular wars without consequences;"

We can't wage wars, where one of the two major political parties in our country has most of their leadership over there, making propaganda films for the enemy we are supposed to be fighting.

"hey, wouldn't it be exhilirating to see if we can turn Iraq into a pro-American ally in the war on terror? We'll just bomb the heck out of downtown Baghdad, run a 100k of our boys in there real quick, set up some bases and they'll greet us with sweets and flowers because we're Americans and we love freedom and everybody loves freedom. What? You say that there might be civil war, that we'll need hundreds of thousands of troops, that the 'Shia' and 'Sunni' don't like each other? Well, I thought they were all Muslims over there!"

Sorry, but if this wasn't an "adventure," I'd like to know what you'd call it. Nothing wrong with an "adventure," you just better pray it doesn't go south. Otherwise we get stuck with elections like Nov. 2006 for supporting it. My disappointment with Iraq does not soften my personal resolve against Iran and Pakistan...but we'd do well to realize that hardly anyone in the rest of the world will trust us again and half the folks here will think they're being sold a bill of goods, even if Bush does happen to be right the second time around.

As you rightly point out, failing to wage wars also has consequence: what do you think would have happened had we not gone into Iraq? Hopefully 20 yrs from now we don't have historians talking about how America failed to rally the world against a resurgent Al Qaeda in Pakistan because of a misguided detour in Iraq. Time will tell.

(note: as pathetic as it sounds, by all accounts Bush really didn't know that there were unfriendly sectarian factions in Iraq called "Shia" and "Sunni" and responded that he'd thought they were all Muslims. One more reason why I've lost my faith)

This has gone on too long to be anything but trolling.

In Vino Veritas

Try the Balkans or Somalia or what Darfur would be.

It is a military action in a location where we have no legitimate national interest. We have that in Iraq and had one when we went in. Or have you forgotten that?

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to come to my office in [get with me offline for location] and speak with some of my recruits. I can assure you that the vast majority of them not only know EXACTLY what they are getting into (they all do), but are orders of magnitude more intelligent and more aware of what is going on in the world than yourself.

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

I'll even volunteer to help fill out paperwork as I'm sure you're swamped with folks who want to join the reserves and national guard for the privilege of driving around in Iraq. I'm sure they also have quite the handle on how we intend to pacify the Iraqi civil war and winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi public after unleashing said civil war. Maybe they'll also tell me why dying for any of the above is a particularly good idea.

Or the families of soldiers. We're the ones who make it possible for you to live in peace and spout this idiocy. The sad part is that you'll never understand and will go to your grave, perhaps not an early one as the result of an enemy attack, thinking you're superior to all of us who didn't study hard enought to wind up or have our sons and daughters wind up in Iraq.

In Vino Veritas

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

I'll give you the same practice ASVAB that I give all applicants, just so you can see where you stack up in that department versus the American Military.

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

Or, for that matter, if he ever responds at all.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

Be extra careful that he doesn't accidentally sign himself up for a tour.

get the American leftist terrorist supporters and their Democrat leaders to quit promising the terrorists that they can win if they only hold on until the Democrats get full control. Try it and see how it works. The whole world might be surprised.

...will be what turns your account back on. You've grown tiresome; perhaps this new experience will act as a positive step in your personal development.

Moe

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

And will if they repeal DNDT... : )

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

...little soapbox display here, cosmo...

But surely you realize that "Iraq" was and is about more than just Iraq. Whatever threat the Hussein government posed to the United States or the broader West c. 3/2003, there's a reason that the fight there has drawn the active interest of, among others, Syria, Iran, and al-Qaida. By "active interest" I mean that they're more than just bystanders.

There's a lesson there, if you're willing to hear it.

Iraq was a battle of choice in a broader war declared on us -- not "a war of choice." And history doesn't care whether it's popular or not. It will only care about what happens there and what the country looks like when the dust has settled.

Our enemies -- all of them (Sunni jihadists, Shiite jihadists, Baathists) -- obviously care very, very deeply about this. But you're telling us that we ought not care, that we have no reason to care.

Why the disconnect? If all of these militant Islamic radicals are working so hard and shedding so much blood to prevent an Iraq that is unfriendly to jihad, why is it that we shouldn't care about it?