Bigger military: inevitable

[Jason McCullough]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea...03.carter.html

Interesting article in the Washington Monthly analyzing why the Army can't deploy enough troops to occupy & pacify countries anymore - partly due to intentional force structure changes by the military to limit the kinds of actions they are asked to do, and partly demographics -, and the options for resolving it. The only choices that seem even remotely feasible:

* Much bigger active duty military. Only problem is no one would want to pay for it, as it'd sit idle virtually all the time.
* Much bigger & well-trained reserves. Only problem here is that the military would fight doing it properly tooth & nail; they have no interest in this model.
* A draft of some sort; a few interesting options are gone over. Problem is public opposition.

What's going to happen? I haven't the faintest idea. Anyone?

[Anders Hallin]

What's going to happen? I haven't the faintest idea. Anyone?

Blackwater will make so much money it's ridiculous.

[MikeSofaer]

The problems with a draft go well beyond public opposition. Only a volunteer army can maintain morale in a situation where their mission is more idealogical and geopolitical than short-term strategic. Nothing would end the Neocon dream faster than a draft, and they know it.

[Jason McCullough]

Yeah, that's a whole other thing; I don't think the public really supports these invasions as much as it keeps getting tricked into them.. I mean, really, we must save some third-world backwater from a rebellion? But mention "communists" and everyone's in line, no mater how unfeasible, or how little relevance to the national interest. Ditto for terrorism, apparnetly.

[MikeSofaer]

I actually think that the people who support the war in Iraq do so mostly because they believe that with the ability to remove dictators and spark democracy comes the responsibility.

I don't think most people who still support the war were tricked. They and Bush both had the same unstated reasons.

[Lizard_King]

I actually think that the people who support the war in Iraq do so mostly because they believe that with the ability to remove dictators and spark democracy comes the responsibility.

I don't think most people who still support the war were tricked. They and Bush both had the same unstated reasons.

Well said.

The military is opposed to changes other than increased funding and manpower because the guiding force in a bureaucratic mess like that is inertia. There will not be a draft without a radical rethinking of American war doctrine because the job is far too complex and initiative-driven as it stands; it is hard enough to get volunteers to do it properly, and all signs point to even more demands in that direction being made as command at progressively lower levels becomes more and more central to the sorts of wars we fight today.
The concept of the strategic Lance Corporal is never more apparently true than it is now...a draft or any sort of rapid expansion (ie <20 years) would make the situation worse exponentially, and would only symbolically serve current policy demands.

The answer will be what it always has been: do more with less. I. Can't. Wait.

[Jason McCullough]

I actually think that the people who support the war in Iraq do so mostly because they believe that with the ability to remove dictators and spark democracy comes the responsibility.

I don't think most people who still support the war were tricked. They and Bush both had the same unstated reasons.

I dunno; that "Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11" poll number sure makes me think there was some serious false impressions there. Throw in the non-existent WMDs, and there wouldn't have been crap support for an accurately described war.

[Lizard_King]

I dunno; that "Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11" poll number sure makes me think there was some serious false impressions there. Throw in the non-existent WMDs, and there wouldn't have been crap support for an accurately described war.

...in Seattle.

[Jason McCullough]

So your claim is that actually there was massive support for the war, when it barely cracked 50%? That some absurd number of people thought Saddam was related to 9/11 had no influence on the war? That all the lying/misinformation on WMD was a good-faith accurate portrayal of the situation to the public, and doesn't count as tricking? This article is just wrong?

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/6918226.htm

WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans have held at least one of three mistaken impressions about the U.S.-led war in Iraq, according to a new study released Thursday, and those misperceptions contributed to much of the popular support for the war.


The three common mistaken impressions are that:


-U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.


-There's clear evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein worked closely with the Sept. 11 terrorists.


-People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it.


Overall, 60 percent of Americans held at least one of those views in polls reported between January and September by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, based at the University of Maryland in College Park, and the polling firm, Knowledge Networks based in Menlo Park, Calif.


"While we cannot assert that these misperceptions created the support for going to war with Iraq, it does appear likely that support for the war would be substantially lower if fewer members of the public had these misperceptions," said Steven Kull, who directs Maryland's program.

Among those with one of the three misconceptions, 53 percent supported the war. Among those with two, 78 percent supported it. Among those with three, 86 percent backed it. By contrast, less than a quarter of those polled who had none of the misconceptions backed the war.

[MikeSofaer]

I think the causality is backwards. People with those misconceptions have them because they're decided that removing Sadaam was right for moral reasons and will accept any evidence that supports that position.

[Jason McCullough]

Ignoring for a minute my laughing at the thought that Republican voters are motivated chiefly by moral outrage over Saddam's human rights abuses - if that's the case, how come human rights/etc. never showed up as an important justification for invading in the polls?

[Matthew Gallant]

I can tell you that down here in Texas, the invasion of Iraq is seen as an attack on Saddam Hussein. There's a billboard on a freeway for a talk radio station with pictures of Arafat, Hussein, and Bin Laden that says "Two down, one to go". Our continued presence there is nothing more than an obligation incurred by the perfectly acceptable removal of Hussein. Sure, they'll point to his human rights abuses and whatever when the issue is discussed, but the primary support for the war is from a desire to "git" an enemy. That's what it all boils down to, that's where the mistaken assumptions come from. Saddam is a bad guy, that's all some people need to be told.

[Qenan]

...the primary support for the war is from a desire to "git" an enemy. That's what it all boils down to, that's where the mistaken assumptions come from. Saddam is a bad guy, that's all some people need to be told.

I think you are right. Unfortunately, that is about as stupid a way to decide to fight a war as can be imagined.

[shift6]

So your claim is that actually there was massive support for the war, when it barely cracked 50%? That some absurd number of people thought Saddam was related to 9/11 had no influence on the war? That all the lying/misinformation on WMD was a good-faith accurate portrayal of the situation to the public, and doesn't count as tricking? This article is just wrong?

There are many people, even here on QT3, who have said that if they were initially told it was actually a war just to oust Saddam then they would have supported it (aka they agree the end result is "good" although the implementation and lying to get there was "bad"). Would that not add to the numbers?

[Jason McCullough]

This seems to keep coming up. QT3 is not a representative sample of anything.

If GOP voters just decided they want Saddam gone because they're pissed off and looking for a middle eastern punching ba - I can see that, it fits with the polling and ideology. But the human rights angle is absurd.

[shift6]

I don't know the numbers. What I am proposing is something like this (in broad, sweeping generalizations):

Currently, in broad sweeping terms, GOP people support the invasion and Liberals don't. The former will find whatever excuse they need to do so, the latter have many varied reasons for not doing so. However, consider if Iraq was entered without lies and the damn liars who tell them but with more honesty (ie "we are going to get rid of Saddam because he's a dirtbag, but they don't have WMDs"). Thus the former would still support the invasion (again, any reason will work) but perhaps a significant chunk of the latter would then agree with the invasion as well.

Thus, an increase in the overall support for the invasion. That's all I was wondering out loud; if this scenario may have happened. Someone do a "What If..." comic.

[Jason McCullough]

Oh, probably. In that case, where we were actually told the truth, liberals probably wouldn't have decided Bush was bonkers, and would have supported it in greater numbers, as would the rest of the world.

[Tim Partlett]

I have difficulty believing that the majority who supported (and still support) the war did so purely out of a beneficent feeling of liberating the Iraqis, when so many hold ignorant views on WMDs and Al Qaeda connections. I remember prior to the war that the news, blogs and forums were all hot with Saddam's WMDs and Al Qaeda connections, and the idea of liberating Iraqis was just a bonus that only came to the fore once the war hawks had nothing else to fall back on. If people were so keen on liberating a people plagued by a tyrant, and weren't all that concerned about WMDs and terrorist connections, why did they so fully back a war against a dictator that actually ranks quite low in terms of evilness (UNCHR had him pegged at about 18th, behind Coalition of the Willing members like Rwanda and Uzbekistan). Why not go after dictators who boil their political oponents alive and then jail their mothers when they complain (Uzbekistan) or those countries whom we have hard evidence of collaborating with Al Qaeda (Pakistan)? Why weren't people so willing to believe in exaggerated lies about these countries in order to get behind an invasion?

Face it, Bush used the genuine hurt felt by people in America after 9/11 and through their ugly, but very human, desire for vengeance he manipulated public opinion skillfully.

[Bren]

I actually think that the people who support the war in Iraq do so mostly because they believe that with the ability to remove dictators and spark democracy comes the responsibility.

I don't think most people who still support the war were tricked. They and Bush both had the same unstated reasons.

Well said.

Revisionism is soooo easy.