For the past two days I have been blogging about what we will be facing in this new century, i.e., constant small wars such as the ones we have now. The Islamic Terror groups and other such America haters will not be going away anytime soon. The war of "have nots" versus "haves" will occupy much of this new century. As long as we are allied with Israel, there is no way the Islamic world will accept us completely, and our relationship with Israel, despite being rocky at times, will hopefully never reach a breaking point. We have some Islamic nations that are our "friends," or so it seems. But even within their populations, there are those who hate us, envy us, and blame us for all their short comings! But even if it wasn't just the Islamic terrorists, there would have been and are others. Despite the demise of the Soviet Union and the rest of the Communist or Eastern Bloc, there are still those who believe that communism is the answer to everything, at least to their problems. I don't mean Cuba and North Korea, the two remaining true communist countries (China and Vietnam are sort of a hybrid communist/capitalists!), I mean various groups that are unhappy with their lot in Latin America and other parts who blame us for all their ills.
Venezuela has a large population of poor who think we are to blame for all their problems and their politicians capitalize on this when they want to be elected! Just about all of the Latin American countries have the poor, the disenfranchised, who believe that "Yankees" are responsible for all their troubles. Think about it! A friendly country to U.S. (compared to Venezuela!) such as Ecuador has a huge mural on the wall of their Congress which depicts U.S. as the Darth Vader! What kind of a signal do you think they are sending to their people! So, even if there were no Islamic Terror groups, there would be others in Latin America and other parts of the world where governments are corrupt and the population is poor! There is no shortage of America haters.
So, with the world divided as it is between the "haves" and "have nots," with the majority being the "have nots," these small "brushfire wars" as JFK called them, will be taking place around the globe. Right now it is in the Middle East, but it could just as easily be in Latin America, where we have had "brushfire wars" already (El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama) and some ongoing in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, etc. Africa is ripe for such conflict, and there have been numerous wars, some horrible genocidal wars in Africa already! Asia is the only one that seems safe, except for Philippines and possibly Indonesia which have Islamic fundamentalists! Asia is relatively peaceful mainly thanks to the economic success of countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and in the last couple of decades, China. But we must be prepared to engage in these "brushfire wars" in other parts of the world if we are to remain the super power. If we are going to engage in these conflicts, then we must maintain an army, a fighting force that is bigger than it is currently. But rather than increasing the size of our fighting force, it seems some of our leaders are bound and determined to decrease its size! It is very strange reasoning!
The Army is always the largest component of our fighting force. At the peak of our involvement in Aghanistan and Iraq, we had 546,057 active duty and 559,244 reserve and national guard troops for a total of 1,105,301 army personnel (active and reserve). We discovered that this number was not sufficient to handle both wars. The reserve and National Guard troops were being deployed as much, and in some cases more, than the regular Army troops. Some regular army troops like the Special Forces and units like the 82nd Airborne, 101st, 10th Mountain, etc., were deployed multiple times, spent more time in Afghanistan or Iraq than back at home! The Marine Corps, which deployed fighting units to those same countries are made up of 182,000 active and 40,000 reserve. The Marines too were stretched to the limit and reserve Marines were being deployed multiple times. The role of reserve or National Guard troops is not supposed to be quite like the way they have been used so far! That is neither the purpose or the reason for having the reserve Marines and reserve and National Guard Army troops. They are for emergency use, to be deployed when situation is desperate for the nation like it was during World War Two! They were not meant to be used like regular Marines and Army troops, that is not their role or purpose. Yet, that is what we have been doing because of poor planning and some hair-brained cost cutting moves.
During previous wars we had the Selective Service or draft system which brought in a fresh influx of men into the Army. During extreme shortages of manpower like during World War Two, some of the draftees were assigned to the Marine Corps. The Air Force at the time was part of the Army so it drafted enlisted personnel as well. But since the abolishment of the draft, the all volunteer military service is truly stressed trying to fill its new role! To make things worst, the government announced that Pentagon will be cutting the number of Army personnel almost in half, to below post World War Two numbers! Already the numbers are down from around 559,244 active duty just three years ago to around 400,000 active duty in 2014! The numbers for 2015 have not been released but they are lower than the previous year and by 2016 it is supposed to be down to about 250,000! It is absolutely mind-boggling why Pentagon would agree to that!
Part of the problem lies in that there are many in Pentagon, beginning with the Secretary of Defense, who believe that technology can replace manpower. All those drones and smart bombs are supposed to replace the boots on the ground. That is one of the reasons why there is such resistance to putting more boots on the ground in the Middle East. There are those in our government who truly believe that we can carry out a "push button" war and defeat enemies such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. The fact that they weren't able to do it thus far doesn't seem to faze them. Some, perhaps realize that we need bodies, but recruitment is down and it is very difficult to attract new recruits.
The draft will not be reinstituted, despite mumblings about having women register for draft! That was just a ploy to get some folks excited, perhaps try to find a way to increase recruitment for all volunteer army. The fact is very simple, it is no rocket science, we need more bodies in the Army and Marines, period. One easy solution would be to dramatically increase the pay and benefits of the uniformed service. I believe our military service personnel are grossly underpaid, considering what they are asked to do! It is criminal when someone working as a manager at a fast food restaurant makes more money than an infantry platoon Sergeant in the Army or Marines! The platoon Sergeant is responsible for the lives of around two dozen soldiers or Marines, depending on the size of the platoon. The fast food manager is responsible for....well, fast food! I don't mean to denigrate the importance or responsibilities of a fast food manager, but I think you know what I am getting at. But unfortunately, despite the fact that everyone realizes that the pay in the military is too low, it is doubtful if there will be any significant increase in the future.
To increase the number of enlistments in the Army, I think a modified form of the old Lodge Act can be instituted. The Lodge Act, as you may recall from my previous blogs, was enforced in 1951 for the purpose of recruiting Eastern European volunteers for service in the U.S. Army. Initially it met a lot of resistance from some. The most common opposition was, "we don't want a Foreign Legion!" Even Dwight Eisenhower made a comment that: "When Rome went out and hired mercenary soldiers, Rome fell." I have the deepest respect and admiration for old Ike, but in this case, he was wrong, Rome did not fall because it had mercenaries, Rome fell for other reasons. Roman Legions were always made up of different nationalities! The opponents of the Lodge Act misunderstood its purpose. Fortunately, the act passed and at least the Special Forces was able to take advantage of the act!
The old Lodge Act was initially meant to allow 2,500 volunteers and it was later expanded to 12,500. The volunteers were to serve a five year enlistment (same as the French Foreign Legion) at the end of which, if their service was honorable, they would be eligible for U.S. citizenship. It was primarily designed to fill some needed slots in the new Army Special Forces. But, the rest of the Army, especially the Intelligence Service, was supposed to take advantage of this act, that is why the numbers were increased to 12,500 from the initial 2,500. The Army Special Forces ended up with several hundred Eastern European volunteers who, as far as I know, all served honorably, some becoming legends in the Special Forces for their outstanding service, especially in Vietnam. Lodge Act expired in 1959, and its primary purpose was to recruit Eastern European country language speakers. To that end, Special Forces accomplished its goal. However, since we never did go to war in Europe against the Soviet Bloc, these warriors ended up serving far away from Eastern Europe ..... in Vietnam and Latin America! But still, although they were not used for the original purpose, they proved to be valuable assets to the United States, to the U.S. Army.
I think a new Lodge Act, not confined to Eastern European countries but open world wide like the French Foreign Legion, would draw a lot of volunteers who could become great assets to our country. They would be vetted, of course, and enlisted for a five year period. This will give more continuity rather than losing the soldier after a two or three year hitch! There would be no special unit created for this, the volunteers would simply be assigned to various units and integrated, become a part of the U.S. Army, not some special unit composed of "foreigners" like the French Foreign Legion. Even with the original Lodge Act, the volunteers may have been in a special unit, the Special Forces, but they served alongside American soldiers who were the majority! The fear that the U.S. Army will turn into a "foreign" army is unfounded. We would never be able to recruit that many foreign volunteers! We would have requirements such as at least a high school education and ability to speak and read and write English. That alone would eliminate a lot prospective volunteers and those simply seeking an easy way into the U.S. and U.S. citizenship. I think it will work.
There are currently several countries that will enlist foreigners in their armed forces and integrate them, no foreign legion. France has its Foreign Legion, has had it for a long time. Spain also has its foreign legion called Terciode Extranjeros or Legion Espanola. However, the Spanish legion is open not only to foreigners but to Spaniards as well and it is made up mostly of Spanish nationals! The reason for its existence is that the Spanish Legion is the one that Spain deploys overseas! Both Spain and France deployed their foreign legions to Afghanistan and Iraq, not their regular troops. Last year Vladimir Putin signed into law allowing foreigners to enlist in the Russian Army. Russia has had problems maintaining a large army although it still has the national draft! Since it became a non-communist nation, many young men have become draft dodgers and enlistment of volunteers has dropped dramatically. So, Putin did what he was advised to do, open enlistment to foreigners who want to serve in the Russian Army, thereby becoming Russian citizens. He is getting a lot of volunteers from the former Soviet Republics, the smaller ones that are not doing well economically.
I believe a new Lodge Act would solve our problem of shortages in the Army. The education requirement and language ability would eliminate a lot of less qualified individuals. We would get a lot of volunteers from not just Eastern European countries but from Western as well. We would also get volunteers from Latin America, of course, and Asia as well. Both the French and the Spanish legion have volunteers from China, Japan, and Mongolia! Adventurous young men are not restricted to certain countries, they come from all over!
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