How to Set Troop Levels - An Ongoing Problem

Ackerman's recent column over at Danger Room highlights the challenge of balancing troop commitment levels in Iraq...

In the first case, 50,000 soldiers — troops that mostly stay on their bases — aren’t going to be enough to beat back a revived insurgency. In the second, 50,000 troops seems like way too many for a training mission. That’s why strategists are having a hard time finding the military logic behind a force that’s simultaneously too large and too small.

The thing is, we've heard the same discussions before, as the ever-cranky Carlton Meyer pointed out about force levels in Korea.

In the end, it all seems to be summed up in this little witicism...

“To be perfectly honest,” Biddle says, “I think the most important function the troops are serving is more psychological than technically, concretely military.”

If they need a self-esteem boost, just send them R Lee Ermey



By: Brant