Military Ill Prepared For Other Conflicts

[cal04]

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.

More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.

The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises, whether the internal collapse of Pakistan, a conflict with Iran or an outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula. Air and naval power can only go so far in compensating for infantry, artillery and other land forces, they said. An immediate concern is that critical Army overseas equipment stocks for use in another conflict have been depleted by the recent troop increases in Iraq, they said.

"We have a strategy right now that is outstripping the means to execute it," Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801534.html

[whistle]

1. That is not good because it makes the possibility of resorting to WMDs

....particularily nuclear that mush more likely by a desperate military command and the politicians who are setting policy which the military will follow.

[Captain Hilts]

3. They don't want to use nukes for a lot of reasons. nt

[Cobalt-60]

2. Is a display of weakness part of the Republicon plan?

I know they're sucking the value out of out military equipment with the intent of dumping the replacement bill on Democrats.
But is there more to it?
Fascists can't survive in office without an external enemy.
Nothing is more attractive to a potential attacker than a display of weakness.
Is all of this pathetic mismanagement a deliberate invitation to attack?

[MGD]

4. An attack could be used to justify there hawkish positions

Another 9-11 under Democratic administration would be their dream come true.

[cal04]

5. MSNBC: Stretched thin

Stretched thin
WP: U.S. forces ill-prepared for other conflicts, officials say.


U.S. military ill-prepared for other conflicts
Officials cite 'stark' shortage of equipment, growing gaps in training
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17672350/

[Supersedeas]

6. Nothing to see here - feed them more vagaries from Condi and Hadley

[heatstreak]

7. kick

[tom_paine]

8. No shit.

It is almost as if Little Boots Bushler and Lying Dick have as their aim the destruction from within of the United States of America.

Almost as if that is what they were REALLY trying to accomplish here. They could scarcely have done a more thorough job if they HAD been trying to do so.

[High Plains]

9. Well, then, maybe we shouldn't be starting any. n/t

[Thor_MN]

10. read the headline wrong...

I thought for a brief second they were training the injured soldiers for Iran....