The Death Spiral of the Volunteer Army (NYT editorial)

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld likes to talk about transforming America's military. But the main transformation he may leave behind is a catastrophic falloff in recruitment for the country's vital ground fighting forces: the Army and the Marine Corps. <SNIP> Army recruitment is now regularly falling short of the necessary targets. Recruiters are having even more trouble persuading people to sign up for Army National Guard and Reserve units. The Marine Corps has been missing its much smaller monthly quotas as well. Unless there is a sharp change later this year, both forces will soon start feeling the pinch as too few trainees are processed to meet both forces' operational needs.

Why this is happening is no mystery. Two years of hearing about too few troops on the ground, inadequate armor, extended tours of duty and accelerated rotations back into combat have taken their toll, discouraging potential enlistees and their parents. The citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserves have suddenly become full-time warriors. Nor has it helped that when abuse scandals have erupted, the Pentagon has seemed quicker to punish lower-ranking soldiers than top commanders and policy makers. This negative cycle now threatens to feed on itself. Fewer recruits will mean more stress on those now in uniform and more grim reports reaching hometowns across America. <SNIP>

Things might have been different if Mr. Rumsfeld had heeded the judgment of Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, in the months before the United States invaded Iraq and planned for a substantially larger occupation force. A larger force might have kept the insurgency smaller and more manageable. It would have been better able to defend itself without resorting to the kind of indiscriminate firepower that kills civilians, destroys homes and inflames Iraqi opinion. Individual combat brigades would not have been under such constant operational stress. But Mr. Rumsfeld rejected General Shinseki's sound advice. The Pentagon now says it gives field commanders as many troops as they ask for. But those commanders are aware of Mr. Rumsfeld's doctrinaire commitment to holding down troop numbers and of the diminished career prospects that could result from challenging him.

The Pentagon now hopes that next month's high school graduations will help it catch up to its recruiting goals. Besides crossing its fingers, the military should open more combat roles to women, end its senseless discrimination against gays and reach out to immigrants with promises of citizenship after completion of service. There should be no thought of reinstating the draft, which would be militarily foolish and politically explosive. But expanding the potential recruiting pool can be only a partial answer. Young people and their parents are reacting rationally to a regrettable and unnecessary transformation in how the United States government treats its ground troops. That is what needs to be changed.

More at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/opinion/29sun1.html?
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Finally the mainstream media's taking notice.
Tho' it would have been nice if they'd also mentioned that nobody in their right mind will enlist to help Bu$h and Halliburton steal Iraq's oil.

does not work for wars with no front lines and he is too foolish to admit it.

Bush the rookie dude who never was successful in real life unless helped along by dad and friends, is our foolish leader. His advisors are mostly rookies in real life, out of touch with common sense and Reason. The rich and Powerful dally into politics and Viola.,.,. we got Dummy and Dummyier.....etc, who are ruining our American Dream.

Unless they start bribing our kids with $200K bonuses...very few kids will sign up.

Wha happened to the Peace everyone loves at Xmas? All BS guys, Its all about GREED and SELFISHNESS gone beserk. What we got is a DEVIANT
ADMINISTRATION Drunk with POWER.

the military is how to get a deferment run a war.

The Pentagon now hopes that next month's high school graduations will help it catch up to its recruiting goals.

Its simple, just keep cutting back on Pell Grants,and support for higher education, pretty soon only the elite will ever be able to afford to put their kids in college. So those paltry government grants you get for joining will be your only hope.

Link to


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=128477&mesg_id=128489

And this is IMPORTANT, as those of us here well know. It is the damn elephant in the room, shitting in the corner, while everyone passes the Chee-tos and pretends not to notice.

It is my belief that chimpCo would prefer to vote on a draft the day AFTER the 06 midterm elections, but this 'death spiral' is twirling far faster than they anticipated, and I can't see how they will be able to ride it out that long. There are NOT ENOUGH REPLACEMENTS in the pipeline, the Iraqis do not seem to want to get it done themselves, the army and USMC, especially, are approaching crisis mode at this point, with no relief in sight. Even stoplossing won't do it, there just aren't enough bodies (perversely, there are TOO MANY bodies, actually) to make it work. They are missing the "butts on the bus" goal again and again, and they are going to come up short for total numbers this year, both in delayed entry and activated. They have already pulled a lot of the kids doing security work stateside off their posts, and replaced them with private contractors in many locations. They are getting to the point where they are scrabbling through the ranks, and there are no more shifts and realignments that will stem the tide anymore.

Absent a targeted draft, they are very close to the point where they are going to have to start pulling in the reserves on a wholesale basis, both regular reserves and IRR types, as well as commissioned retirees (that pension, AKA deferred compensation, comes with an ugly caveat). When that starts happening, and they are calling up underwater basket weavers and skivvie stackers to go to a quick refresher course and learn how to handle a weapon, watch out--the draft will come swiftly on the heels of that effort, if it comes to that. Another sign will be when they pull all the recruiters out to backfill overseas, and put retirees in their places (you don't need a sales team when service is mandated).

The forces are stretched so thin, it isn't even funny anymore. This is what happens when a clown who never served on active service, and does not understand the professional mindset of the AVF, presumes to know what is best.

I expect you could get US-ians to defend the US if it was
actually invaded.

run a war. Those who forget to learn from history are doomed to repeat those mistakes, hence this time of Deja Vietnam all over again.