Call of Cthulhu

Stretching the Guard
(Some worrisome number crunching, and the Draft)

Reptile pointed out that there are currently 350,000 members in the Army National Guard, and was kind enough to provide links for further information: It seems as if the Guard can easily meet the manpower requirements of Iraq, making the return of The Draft superfluous.

So imagine my continued alarm when I read things like this:

Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday he could not rule out keeping soldiers from the 1st Armored Division in Iraq beyond a previously announced three-month extension.

A heavy armored division--already having served 12 months and extended for three additional months--is now looking at possibly serving another three months in Iraq. This isn't the sort of thing to consider lightly: The fatigue and abuse on men and machines is particularly hard on the sharp end of the spear. Turning a 6-month combat tour into 12 months, then 15 months, and then into a year-and-a-half is truly a desperate measure by any standard: The cost to morale alone can be staggering.

And then there is also this bit of news:

The United States has proposed removing 12,500 of the 37,500 U.S. troops based in South Korea, where for half a century they have guarded against aggression by communist North Korea, the Pentagon said on Monday.

That includes 3,600 men already redeploying to Iraq. This is largely a symbolic force, a way of telling Kim Jong-Il that there isn't any way south without a fight with the US, but it's a very important message. And while the message may be stated with less troops, there is a lower limit to the number of men that can state it: The units there have to be strong enough to survive until they can be reinforced. If they can't hold out, then not only are they consigned to a suicide mission, but they are also tempting Kim Jong-Il into trying the Pearl Harbor scenario: A quick and hard defeat, and maybe the US will sue for peace. I know that won't work for him any more than it did for Tojo, but that doesn't mean a whole lot of people won't die teaching Kim Jong-Il that same lesson (that stumpy little psycho constantly underwhelms me with his intelligence).

But what really sent my spidey-sense tingling was this from WaPo:

With almost 40,000 troops serving in the unexpectedly violent and difficult occupation of Iraq, the National Guard is beginning to show the strain of duty there, according to interviews and e-mail exchanges with 23 state Guard commanders from California to Maine.

That's when I busted out the calculator and did some digging.

The Army Reserve boasts 1,059,468 members. Numbers can be deceiving: Only 211,420 can be considered ready to be activated. Another 116,162 are people who have served some time in the last eight years (and have since moved on, raised families, built civilian careers, etc). The vast majority, 731,185 men and women, have retired and are receiving their pensions.

Furthermore, the Reserve has--get this--only one ground combat unit: The 100th Infantry Battalion, whose 400± soldiers are scattered across Hawaii, Guam, Saipan, and American Samoa. The Reserve also has the 244th Aviation Brigade, which is already in Iraq. In all, about 2,800 men. The rest of the Reserve is made up of training and support units (medics, field artillery, etc). With only 2,400 men to commit to Iraq, and those being in a helo brigade, someone has to be there to put boots on the ground, to kick in the doors and shoot at the bad guys. Guess who that is?

The Army National Guard does indeed have 350,000 men and women able to be activated if needed. However, combat formations make up only 52% of the Guard (182,000 men), with another 17% dedicated to combat support (military intelligence, mp's, etc, coming to 59,500 men and women). That means that 22% of the trigger-pullers are already in Iraq. If you want to relieve those men, you need an equivalent number standing by.

Think about that for a moment: At current levels of deployment, 44% of the National Guard's combat forces are gearing up to go, have just come back, or are currently fighting in Iraq.

40,000 Guardsmen in Iraq means that 40,000 more have to be activated, equipped, and trained to be ready to replace those that rotate back home. So now you have 80,000 men spoken for out of the 241,500 combat and combat support soldiers available. That's 80,000 men who are no longer in the civilian work force and contributing to the economy, men who are no longer able to support their families with their civilian incomes.

You could mobilize even more of the Guard, but every such mobilization adds a burden to the social and economic structure of the US. In short, one has to be very careful every time one thinks of that 350,000 number.

There is still a cushion available to the Guard, but that margin gets thinner every day. The whole purpose of having half your army in reserve is to have something on hand in time of crisis. At current levels, there is no way that the Guard could stop Kim Jong-Il (whose army has 1.2 million men) from acting up.

But war isn't their only duty. The National Guard doubles as the states' militia, and is leaned upon in times of local crisis. Forest fires, hurricanes, floods, tornados, all of the general mayhem that Nature can throw at local communities are all handled by the National Guard. Here in the West, our reliance on the Guard during fire season can't be overstated. Those men and women are needed here, now, and probably forever. Or at least until Nature gives us a break, and climbers stop getting stranded on mountains, and hikers stop getting lost in the forest...you get the idea.

The time to address a crisis is before it becomes one, and that is why HR 163 is moving forward rather than being laughed out of committee. The Draft isn't needed, yet, but it will be if things keep going the way that they are. The WaPo article pointed out that Guard recruiters are meeting resistance from parents because of Iraq, and the Army is losing experienced soldiers that might have otherwise reenlisted.

The men and women of the Army National Guard will do whatever is asked of them without thought to their personal political convictions. They will perform with the same bravery and distinction that they have displayed for over 200 years. But many, like Reptile, fear that draftees won't fight with the same dedication to their fellow soldiers that volunteers have shown. They fear the Draft will actually weaken the Guard, rather than strengthen it.

Unfortunately, the way the numbers are working out, the Guard may soon not have a choice in the matter.

Update: 060904
A large part of these numbers come from a DoD .pdf tally that can be found here. Sorry about the omission.