Two More Army Divisions?

[Army Fencer]

John Kerry repeated tonight that he wanted to raise two active duty army divisions in order to relieve the stress on the National Guard. As far as I can tell, he has not said a word on how he was going to go about doing this. Can anyone help me out here?

I can see three possible alternatives:

1. Reorganize active duty troops to "create" two divisions, without increasing the total number of troops. This doesn't sound reasonable because this really doesn't solve the problem at hand: not enough people are fighting in Iraq.

2. Push recruitment harder. But wouldn't that mean that he would go along with what Fahrenheit 9/11 attacked so heavily? I really don't think that the Army recruiters can push much harder than they already are, anyway. Perhaps he means to throw money at Army recruiting. Perhaps that will make a difference, but I doubt it. And where would he get that money?

3. Instate a draft. It's political suicide, but I really don't see another way to make it happen. I can hear the argument: "we want to temporarily increase the troops in Iraq so that we can get out of there sooner."

[CvilleFencer]

Hire the French Foriegn Legion? Cheaper than raising/training/equiping out our own and no dirty hands when they start cutting off ears and such. A win/win!

[Maeve_Mari]

John Kerry repeated tonight that he wanted to raise two active duty army divisions in order to relieve the stress on the National Guard. As far as I can tell, he has not said a word on how he was going to go about doing this. Can anyone help me out here?

I can see three possible alternatives:

1. Reorganize active duty troops to "create" two divisions, without increasing the total number of troops. This doesn't sound reasonable because this really doesn't solve the problem at hand: not enough people are fighting in Iraq.

I believe the proposal is to reoganize the active duty troops to accomplish the plan. But sending in MORE troops to Iraq is not the intention, but to send in different skill sets, strategically different approach to bring this to a successful conclusion.

My personal belief still remains, however, that either/both candidates are going to be forced into reinstituting a draft within the next four years. I would like to think that a Kerry foreign policy plan could make strides in uniting us with our allies again, improving our intel agencies, and managing the raging terror network down to only a roar, but I am not sure that even his plans could overcome the worldwide damage caused by the current administration.

[Soldier]

You don't think it would be best to leave it to the Army to decide which skill sets to have over there, what organization? That should not be something for a president to run.

I believe the military should be like a police dog - when you need to bring somebody down, give it a target and let it go. When it's done, bring it back in. But don't try to stick your hand in the fray in the meantime.

[darius]

...and you shouldn't just go sic'cing it on the neighbors just because they're funny-looking and beat their kids.

darius

[CvilleFencer]

I really don't see the draft as a viable alternative short of a major fully declared land war where the US or a strong ally is attacked. I have several reasons for thinking this:

Part of what makes our forces so effective is that they are very highly trained on advanced tools and techniques of war fighting. To train new recruits up to the same standards it takes a year plus and for more specialized fields, even longer.

I think any draft would have to include women this time around (if for not other reason to avoid AA and discrimination challenges) and would have to do away with the college deferments. Since colleges are a major source of business/money/workforces for their states and most people do not want to send their daughters off to war (even more than their sons) I do not see this happening.

The power of a volunteer army is that people are highly motivated (in theory) and energetic about their jobs. A draft for an unpopular war (such as the one in Iraq) would destroy morale and greatly decrease the ability of our forces to fight effectively. It would require much more effort by NCO's and Officers to keep reluctant troops in line and motivated, which would decrease their effectiveness. Also it would most likely cause an increase in prisoner abuse/war crimes type incidents since many of the people in the field would come to see the people around them as the cause of their troubles and take out their frustrations on them.

The National Guard and the Ready Reserve have not been fully called up, not even buy a quarter IIRC. Before we had a draft we would activate the full National Guard and Ready Reserve and that would be about a 30-50% increase in the number of combat ready troops as it would allow us to deploy active combat forces to the areas of interest from rear areas in the US and abroad.

The draft is a big boogieman that a lot of people are worrying about, but it is not something that I see happening short of a major land war in Asia (for example)! Now if the PRC ever goes after Taiwan or the Philippines or if North Korea moves against the ROK's then things will change a bit, but since the US has declared an effective end to the war in Iraq, you can make a case that the war was illegal to begin with, and their is no real force or country to go to war with facing us at the moment, I just can't see a draft anytime in the near future short of the exceptions mentioned above. However, if Draft fears help get Bush out of office before he can start another real shooting war, then I am all for worrying about it! Why should Repulicraps have a monopoly on the politics of fear?

[Soldier]

...and you shouldn't just go sic'cing it on the neighbors just because they're funny-looking and beat their kids.

darius

I'd be happy to sic it on a neighbor that beat his kids.

[CvilleFencer]

I believe the military should be like a police dog - when you need to bring somebody down, give it a target and let it go. When it's done, bring it back in. But don't try to stick your hand in the fray in the meantime.

Well said. I have a pretty big problem with trying to have soldiers act as local police. It was the wrong answer in Somolia and is the wrong answer in Iraq.

[noodle]

imho, he may make the military something more appealing in some form in order to get people to join.

[Army Fencer]

I believe the proposal is to reoganize the active duty troops to accomplish the plan. But sending in MORE troops to Iraq is not the intention, but to send in different skill sets, strategically different approach to bring this to a successful conclusion.

This seems to be the most reasonable manner of increasing division.

I'm still skeptical about the efficacy. This course of action would result in a smaller sum of forces in Iraq. More specialized skill sets won't really improve matters. Iraq is more police action than anything else right now, which requires mass over technical ability.

My personal belief still remains, however, that either/both candidates are going to be forced into reinstituting a draft within the next four years. I would like to think that a Kerry foreign policy plan could make strides in uniting us with our allies again, improving our intel agencies, and managing the raging terror network down to only a roar, but I am not sure that even his plans could overcome the worldwide damage caused by the current administration.

The manner of attacks in Iraq have turned off a lot of countries. The insurgents are doing an excellent job at dissuading populations to come to their support. Granted, improved diplomacy would have helped matters, but I think that even if we had UN ligitimacy going into this, we would still have countries pulling out at this point.

Response to draft in my next post:

[Army Fencer]

The draft is a big boogieman that a lot of people are worrying about, but it is not something that I see happening short of a major land war in Asia (for example)! Now if the PRC ever goes after Taiwan or the Philippines or if North Korea moves against the ROK's then things will change a bit, but since the US has declared an effective end to the war in Iraq, you can make a case that the war was illegal to begin with, and their is no real force or country to go to war with facing us at the moment, I just can't see a draft anytime in the near future short of the exceptions mentioned above.

The fear of starting a draft has seriously limited our ability to conduct long-range military opportunities to attack countries that present a credible threat to our country. Our hands are seriously tied. Let's pray that North Korea doesn't produce their nukes any time soon.

I think it's a possibility if we keep things as is in Iraq, albeit a long shot.

[Army Fencer]

imho, he may make the military something more appealing in some form in order to get people to join.

Like what? How in the world is Kerry going to make the military more appealing in a time of war?

[noodle]

i don't know. call him up and ask him. this is why i'm not running for president.
can you think of any other way to raise 40000 volunteer troops in a time of war? it probably involves $.

[Artisan]

Like what? How in the world is Kerry going to make the military more appealing in a time of war?

One way I can think of is to simply pay them more.

There are about 120 private companies with contracts to do work in Iraq.

All the work done by private contractors is being marked up and the margin goes to corporate profits (which are undertaxed, so don't help us here) Not only does an individual working for a contractor get paid 3x-5x more than a soldier, but they cost even more in insurance and benefits than a soldier - and these costs are marked up and passed on to ....You and me.

At this site:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/b...act=pro&fil=IQ

there is a list of the contractors and amounts spent in Iraq. Of that approx. 120 BILLION dollars spent, don't you think some of that work could have been done by a properly built-up and well paid military?

As far as recruiting goes: Here's a simple decision for someone - say a trained truck driver:
-- Go to Iraq working for Kellogg Brown & Root. Agree to some term of employment, get paid $72k /yr, work 40ish hour week, plus benefits, plus reasonable life insurance. Risk getting killed. Go home when you're done or break the contract when you've had enough.

-- Enlist in the Army, Reserves or National Guard. Either drive the same truck or ride next to the guy above, protecting him on his convoy route. Work long hours. Get paid $23k / year while your family gets food stamps and food subsidies to make ends meet. Think your gonna go home but you've been compelled to re-enlist. Maybe get killed and your family receives the measly GI death benefit.

Hmm.... which job should I take?

[mrbiggs]

John Kerry repeated tonight that he wanted to raise two active duty army divisions in order to relieve the stress on the National Guard. As far as I can tell, he has not said a word on how he was going to go about doing this.

Yes. I will admit that John Kerry does have alot of plans, and not alot of details. Which is definately a problem. But I still dislike Bush's plans more than Kerry's lack thereof.

Scary NPR show a couple weeks ago that said that basically Bush is planning on having a draft right after elections, and that they've doubled the number of draft boards in the last two weeks, etc., etc. Anyone else know about this?

I doubt there'll be a draft, too much anger left over from Vietnam. We need another generation for healing before it becomes a plausible situation.

But, if anyone cares, if I am drafted, I will join, even though I am against the draft.

[riptide]

Draft = Political Suicide

[Soldier]

Yes. I will admit that John Kerry does have alot of plans, and not alot of details. Which is definately a problem. But I still dislike Bush's plans more than Kerry's lack thereof.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't...

But, if anyone cares, if I am drafted, I will join, even though I am against the draft.

Sad that you would go out of your way to mention that you would, in fact, do your civil, legally required duty...as if it should be expected otherwise, just because you're against it...

[CvilleFencer]

Draft = Political Suicide

It is an unwritten rule that once you have been the pres you do not take any other political office. To my knowledge it has never been done, and once you no longer have to worry about re-election you are free to remake the world as you see fit without having to worry about political fallout. That is probably what scares me most about another four years of bush...

[Epee_Pox]

It is an unwritten rule that once you have been the pres you do not take any other political office. To my knowledge it has never been done, and once you no longer have to worry about re-election you are free to remake the world as you see fit without having to worry about political fallout. That is probably what scares me most about another four years of bush...

Taft was Chief Justice after he was President. Not an elected office, but certainly an important political office.

I doubt that anyone who has to bear the heavy burdens of the presidency is likely to futz up your world simply because they don't have to get re-elected any more. Clinton didn't, Reagan didn't, Nixon didn't, etc. etc. If you sincerely believe that Bush has made your future scary, it sounds like you need a perspective pill.

[mrbiggs]

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't...

Not necessarily. I would normally agree with you on that, but I really disagree with everything Bush says. But it appears that Kerry's intentions are good, and the worst he can realistically do with the situation in Iraq is keep a static number of troops, and beg our allies to help us.

Sad that you would go out of your way to mention that you would, in fact, do your civil, legally required duty...as if it should be expected otherwise, just because you're against it...

Yes.




Riptide, the draft has to be passed through the senate, so Bush can't do it by himself. But he can't be harmed by it unless Congress decides to impeach, which would be unlikely. That's the negative of the 2 term limit.