Pentagon study on "the thin green line"
A.P. via CNN:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.
Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.
posted by Bravo 2-1 at 9:42 AM
4 Comments:
oh the cut and run finds a place...check this out
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/archive/s_414074.html
Not cut and run, no no no no...redeployment because Iraq is stable enough to handle it's own problems, and besides we have the urgent threat of Iran to deal with.
Is there anything in history about a nation at war fighting on multiple fronts, alienating allies and being over-extended? Hmmmm, perhaps German history?
thanks for the link, it is very interesting to see that now we can pin the medals on our chest.
i would not leap toward anything German. but, war diminishes the military. it makes the sword dull, as Sun Tzu would say.
Ahh good...but check this out. Robbed from TCR's comments section...food for thought on the German analogy, and what I was eluding to. Lessons for all to see.
"But let me say bluntly: to attack Iran at this juncture would be nothing short of sheer madness. Madness.
If folks want to toss around Hitler analogies, how bout this one: In early summer 1941, the Nazis, flush with the glow of earlier victories & obsessed with reaching the "core" of both Communism & European Jewry, ordered the Wermacht to invade a huge nation it was ill-equipped to hold. Considerations of supply-lines, weather-appropriate gear, and morale were left by the wayside.
More importantly, the German military was already bogged down, unable to suppress an enemy it had attacked in a tactically-incorrect manner one year earlier. That other enemy showed no signs of weakening, and in fact was contributing heavy losses on the Luftwaffe.
No one knew it at the time, but the worm had turned for good on the morning of June 22, 1941.
Further foolishness came in the days following an equally foolish attack by one of Germany's allies that December. Already bogged down in two battles now, Hitler deciced to declare war on the sleeping giant across the ocean, just woken from its slumber by that ally.
The tale I just outlined is a fortunate one for those of us not of the Nazi or Greater East-Asia Co0Prosperity Sphere persuasions. But the lessons are nonetheless there for all to see.
Madness."
any military action against Iran now is madness.
1. it is not sustainable, unless we just want to blow everything to peaces. Tacitus would bemoan that.
2. it will raise the notion that we are engaged in a new crusade, and we'd be in trouble if that sentiment rose in any degree.
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