A Strained Military

Via this from Reuters, I found this at Foreign Policy magazine.

More collateral damage from dubya's bloody war. The Foreign Policy article begins:

Today, the U.S. military is engaged in a campaign that is more demanding and intense than anything it has witnessed in a generation. Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now entering their fifth and seventh years respectively, have lasted longer than any U.S. military engagements of the past century, with the exception of Vietnam. More than 25,000 American servicemen and women have been wounded and over 4,000 killed. Additional deployments in the Balkans, on the Korean Peninsula, and elsewhere are putting further pressure on the military’s finite resources. And, at any time, U.S. forces could be called into action in one of the world’s many simmering hot spots—from Iran or Syria, to North Korea or the Taiwan Strait. Yet, even as the U.S. military is being asked to sustain an unprecedented pace of operations across the globe, many Americans continue to know shockingly little about the forces responsible for protecting them. Nearly 70 percent of Americans report that they have a high level of confidence in the military, yet fewer than 1 in 10 has ever served. Politicians often speak favorably about people in uniform, but less than one quarter of the U.S. Congress has donned a uniform. It is not clear whether the speeches and sound bites we hear from politicians and experts actually reflect the concerns of those who protect our nation.

And after a brief description of the methods of the survey, they drop this into the mix:

These officers see a military apparatus severely strained by the grinding demands of war. Sixty percent say the U.S. military is weaker today than it was five years ago. Asked why, more than half cite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the pace of troop deployments those conflicts require. More than half the officers say the military is weaker than it was either 10 or 15 years ago. But asked whether “the demands of the war in Iraq have broken the U.S. military,” 56 percent of the officers say they disagree. That is not to say, however, that they are without concern. Nearly 90 percent say that they believe the demands of the war in Iraq have “stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.”

You can find the data here.

Some highlights.

When asked to about this statement:

The demands of the war in Iraq have stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.

88% said they either "strongly" agreed (52%) or somewhat agreed (36%) and only 10 disagreed - 7% somewhat and 3% strongly.

When asked:

Which of the following statements best reflects your personal and professional view?

74% said that The civilian leadership (that would be dubya and his crew) set unreasonable goals for the U.S. military to accomplish in post-Saddam Iraq.

When asked:

In your view, is the equipment and protection (e.g., body armor, up-armored HMMVs, etc.) provided to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan adequate or inadequate?

45% said inadequate. Only 34% said adequate.

And so on.