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Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations
Great assessment of the situation, but I must ask, do you really think at this time or in the near future the u.s. could spare itself to send troops to georgia if the situation which you discribed occurs?
I happen to think it can not especially in light of that fact that u.s. forces will be in iraq for the foreseeable future, not to mention afghanistan.
This article recently published shows that even top american military analysts both tied to the pentagon and those not, agree that the military is "stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight."
Also, the article touches upon, but does not go in detail about the infighting found between the various cliques within the pentagon/DoD.
The U.S. Military Index
In an exclusive new index, Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security surveyed more than 3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command about the state of the U.S. military. They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight.
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.
What is the actual state of America’s military? How healthy are the armed forces? How prepared are they for future conflicts? And what impact are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really having on them? To find out, Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security teamed up to conduct a groundbreaking survey of current and former military officers. Recognizing that the military is far from a monolith, our goal was to find out what America’s highest-ranking military people—the very officers who have run the military during the past half century—collectively think about the state of the force, the health of the military, the course of the war in Iraq, and the challenges that lie ahead. It is one of the few comprehensive surveys of the U.S. military community to be conducted in the past 50 years.
In all, more than 3,400 officers holding the rank of major or lieutenant commander and above were surveyed from across the services, active duty and retired, general officers and field-grade officers. About 35 percent of the participants hailed from the Army, 33 percent from the Air Force, 23 percent from the Navy, and 8 percent from the Marine Corps. Several hundred are flag officers, elite generals and admirals who have served at the highest levels of command. Approximately one third are colonels or captains—officers commanding thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines—and 37 percent hold the rank of lieutenant colonel or commander. Eighty-one percent have more than 20 years of service in the military. Twelve percent graduated from one of America’s exclusive military academies. And more than two thirds have combat experience, with roughly 10 percent having served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both.
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.”
The health of the Army and Marine Corps, the services that have borne the brunt of the fighting in Iraq, are of greatest concern to the index’s officers. Asked to grade the health of each service on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning the officers have no concern about the health of the service and 10 meaning they are extremely concerned, the officers reported an average score of 7.9 for the Army and 7.0 for the Marine Corps. The health of the Air Force fared the best, with a score of 5.7. The average score across the four services was 6.6. More than 80 percent of the officers say that, given the stress of current deployments, it is unreasonable to ask the military to wage another major war today. Nor did the officers express high confidence in the military’s preparedness to do so. For instance, the officers said that the United States is not fully prepared to successfully execute such a mission against Iran or North Korea.
A majority of the officers also say that some of the policy decisions made during the course of the Iraq war hindered the prospects for success there. These include shortening the time units spend at home between deployments and accepting more recruits who do not meet the military’s standards. Even the military’s ability to care for some of its own—mentally wounded soldiers and veterans—was judged by most officers to be substandard.
These negative perceptions, however, do not necessarily translate into a disillusioned or disgruntled force. Sixty-four percent of the officers report that they believe morale within the military is high. Still, they are not without concern for the future. Five years into the war in Iraq, for example, a majority of the officers report that either China or Iran, not the United States, is emerging as the strategic victor in that fight. In an era when the U.S. military is stretched dangerously thin, it’s a sign that the greatest challenges may still lie ahead.
When it comes to addressing threats such as the nuclear ambitions of Iran or North Korea, American officials are fond of saying that “all options are on the table.” But given the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, how credible is it to assume that the United States could successfully conduct another major military operation somewhere else in the world today? According to the index’s officers, not very.
Asked whether it was reasonable or unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to successfully wage another major war at this time, 80 percent of the officers say that it is unreasonable. The officers were also asked about four specific hot spots—Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Taiwan Strait—and how prepared they believe the United States is to successfully fight a major combat operation there, were a war to break out today. Using a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning that the United States is fully prepared and 1 meaning that the United States is unable to execute such a mission, the officers put America’s preparedness for war against Iran at just 4.5. The average readiness score for America’s armed forces to go to war in those four hot spots was 4.8.
Of course, any future conflict could strain some parts of the military more than others. How burdensome any war is for a particular service depends on the adversary, the geography of the conflict, the strategy U.S. commanders adopt, and a host of other factors. One is the level of readiness of the services today. When asked to grade the readiness of each of the military services, again on a 10-point scale, the officers judged the Army’s readiness to be the worst, with an average score of just 4.7. The Navy and Air Force fared the best, with scores of 6.8 and 6.6, respectively. The Marine Corps, which along with the Army shares the bulk of the burden in Iraq and Afghanistan, scored just above an average level of readiness, at 5.7. It’s a reminder that, in war, it is easier to talk tough than it is to deliver.
One of the cornerstones of modern democracies is that civilian, not military, leaders make the strategic decisions regarding both war and peace. But that doesn’t mean military commanders always agree with or have confidence in those decisions.
When asked how much confidence they have in other U.S. government institutions and departments, the index’s officers report low levels of trust nearly across the board. For instance, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means the officers have a great deal of confidence in the department or institution and 1 means they have none, the officers put their level of confidence in the presidency at 5.5. Some 16 percent express no confidence at all in the president. The index’s officers gave the CIA an average confidence rating of 4.7 and the Department of State, 4.1. The Department of Veterans Affairs received a confidence rating of just 4.5 and the Department of Defense, 5.6. The officers say their level of confidence in the U.S. Congress is the lowest, at an average of just 2.7.
These negative perceptions of U.S. agencies and officials may stem in part from the fact that a majority of the officers polled for the index do not believe that the United States’ elected leaders are very well informed about the military they oversee. Sixty-six percent of the officers say they believe America’s elected leaders are either somewhat or very uninformed about the U.S. military.
How can the military’s perception of elected leaders be improved? In part, the officers say, by electing people who have served in uniform. Nearly 9 in 10 officers agree that, all other things being equal, the military will respect a president of the United States who has served in the military more than one who has not. The people we trust most are often the ones who remind us of ourselves.
For many, it is the most convincing argument against the use of controversial interrogation techniques in the war on terror: If the United States tortures the suspects it captures, it’s all the more likely that U.S. soldiers will be tortured by America’s enemies. Similar logic underpinned the signing of the Geneva Conventions after World War II. But the index’s officers suggest the situation today may be more complex.
When the officers were asked if they agree or disagree with the statement “Torture is never acceptable,” opinions were split. Fifty-three percent agreed, and 44 percent disagree. Nineteen percent, nearly 1 in 5 officers, say they “strongly disagree” with the notion that torture is never acceptable. Asked if they believe waterboarding is torture, opinions were similarly divided. About 46 percent of the officers say they agree with the statement “Waterboarding is torture,” and about 43 percent say they disagree.
These results suggest that the military itself may be of two minds about the use of torture and what constitutes it. It also suggests that, in the fog of war, even the most emotional and controversial arguments are never cut and dried.
Five years into the war in Iraq, the index’s officers have an overwhelmingly negative view of many of the most important early decisions that have shaped the war’s course. They believe more troops were needed on the ground at the start of the fighting. They believe disbanding the Iraqi military was a mistake.
In fact, asked to grade a set of the war’s most prominent command decisions on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning the decision had a positive impact and 1 meaning the decision had a negative impact, the officers give troop levels at the start of the war a 3.3 and judge the order to disband the Iraqi military at 3.1, lower than any other policy decision measured. Asked more generally whether the civilian leadership set reasonable or unreasonable goals for the military to accomplish in post-Saddam Iraq, almost three quarters of the officers say the goals were unreasonable.
The officers do not, however, necessarily believe that victory is beyond reach. Nearly 9 in 10, for instance, say that the counterinsurgency strategy and surge of additional troops into Baghdad pursued by Gen. David Petraeus, the chief U.S. commander in Iraq, is raising the U.S. military’s chance for success there.
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There is high probability that what Washington is doing in Kosovo they will eventually attempt to do in Georgia as well. Washington may be currently looking for an excuse/pretext, perhaps Moscow's recognition of Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's independence. Recently there were reports in western media sources that more-or-less stated, Russia is in no position to do anything regarding Abkhazia and South Ossetia other than talk, clearly insinuating that the US will get directly involved on the side of Georgia in such a conflict. In my opinion, the scenario would be similar to what happened in Kosovo in 1999: Abkhazia/Ossetia proclaim independence, the West pushes Saakashvili to send in the army. In the ensuing clash of arms, using the pretext of protecting the "territorial integrity" of Georgia, Washington sends in significant military forces to protect Tbilisi from Russian "aggression." Thereafter, US forces will stay. In such a scenario, Russia will find itself in a serious strategic knot: escalate the war to a high intensity global level drawing the US fully into Georgia, or abandon the region and retreat? These types of situations may explain why Moscow has been so seriously concerned about recent developments such as the proposed missile defense system in eastern Europe, Kosovo's independence and Nato expansion into Ukraine and the Caucasus.
Great assessment of the situation, but I must ask, do you really think at this time or in the near future the u.s. could spare itself to send troops to georgia if the situation which you discribed occurs?
I happen to think it can not especially in light of that fact that u.s. forces will be in iraq for the foreseeable future, not to mention afghanistan.
This article recently published shows that even top american military analysts both tied to the pentagon and those not, agree that the military is "stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight."
Also, the article touches upon, but does not go in detail about the infighting found between the various cliques within the pentagon/DoD.
The U.S. Military Index
In an exclusive new index, Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security surveyed more than 3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command about the state of the U.S. military. They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight.
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.
What is the actual state of America’s military? How healthy are the armed forces? How prepared are they for future conflicts? And what impact are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really having on them? To find out, Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security teamed up to conduct a groundbreaking survey of current and former military officers. Recognizing that the military is far from a monolith, our goal was to find out what America’s highest-ranking military people—the very officers who have run the military during the past half century—collectively think about the state of the force, the health of the military, the course of the war in Iraq, and the challenges that lie ahead. It is one of the few comprehensive surveys of the U.S. military community to be conducted in the past 50 years.
In all, more than 3,400 officers holding the rank of major or lieutenant commander and above were surveyed from across the services, active duty and retired, general officers and field-grade officers. About 35 percent of the participants hailed from the Army, 33 percent from the Air Force, 23 percent from the Navy, and 8 percent from the Marine Corps. Several hundred are flag officers, elite generals and admirals who have served at the highest levels of command. Approximately one third are colonels or captains—officers commanding thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines—and 37 percent hold the rank of lieutenant colonel or commander. Eighty-one percent have more than 20 years of service in the military. Twelve percent graduated from one of America’s exclusive military academies. And more than two thirds have combat experience, with roughly 10 percent having served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both.
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.”
The health of the Army and Marine Corps, the services that have borne the brunt of the fighting in Iraq, are of greatest concern to the index’s officers. Asked to grade the health of each service on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning the officers have no concern about the health of the service and 10 meaning they are extremely concerned, the officers reported an average score of 7.9 for the Army and 7.0 for the Marine Corps. The health of the Air Force fared the best, with a score of 5.7. The average score across the four services was 6.6. More than 80 percent of the officers say that, given the stress of current deployments, it is unreasonable to ask the military to wage another major war today. Nor did the officers express high confidence in the military’s preparedness to do so. For instance, the officers said that the United States is not fully prepared to successfully execute such a mission against Iran or North Korea.
A majority of the officers also say that some of the policy decisions made during the course of the Iraq war hindered the prospects for success there. These include shortening the time units spend at home between deployments and accepting more recruits who do not meet the military’s standards. Even the military’s ability to care for some of its own—mentally wounded soldiers and veterans—was judged by most officers to be substandard.
These negative perceptions, however, do not necessarily translate into a disillusioned or disgruntled force. Sixty-four percent of the officers report that they believe morale within the military is high. Still, they are not without concern for the future. Five years into the war in Iraq, for example, a majority of the officers report that either China or Iran, not the United States, is emerging as the strategic victor in that fight. In an era when the U.S. military is stretched dangerously thin, it’s a sign that the greatest challenges may still lie ahead.
When it comes to addressing threats such as the nuclear ambitions of Iran or North Korea, American officials are fond of saying that “all options are on the table.” But given the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, how credible is it to assume that the United States could successfully conduct another major military operation somewhere else in the world today? According to the index’s officers, not very.
Asked whether it was reasonable or unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to successfully wage another major war at this time, 80 percent of the officers say that it is unreasonable. The officers were also asked about four specific hot spots—Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Taiwan Strait—and how prepared they believe the United States is to successfully fight a major combat operation there, were a war to break out today. Using a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning that the United States is fully prepared and 1 meaning that the United States is unable to execute such a mission, the officers put America’s preparedness for war against Iran at just 4.5. The average readiness score for America’s armed forces to go to war in those four hot spots was 4.8.
Of course, any future conflict could strain some parts of the military more than others. How burdensome any war is for a particular service depends on the adversary, the geography of the conflict, the strategy U.S. commanders adopt, and a host of other factors. One is the level of readiness of the services today. When asked to grade the readiness of each of the military services, again on a 10-point scale, the officers judged the Army’s readiness to be the worst, with an average score of just 4.7. The Navy and Air Force fared the best, with scores of 6.8 and 6.6, respectively. The Marine Corps, which along with the Army shares the bulk of the burden in Iraq and Afghanistan, scored just above an average level of readiness, at 5.7. It’s a reminder that, in war, it is easier to talk tough than it is to deliver.
One of the cornerstones of modern democracies is that civilian, not military, leaders make the strategic decisions regarding both war and peace. But that doesn’t mean military commanders always agree with or have confidence in those decisions.
When asked how much confidence they have in other U.S. government institutions and departments, the index’s officers report low levels of trust nearly across the board. For instance, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means the officers have a great deal of confidence in the department or institution and 1 means they have none, the officers put their level of confidence in the presidency at 5.5. Some 16 percent express no confidence at all in the president. The index’s officers gave the CIA an average confidence rating of 4.7 and the Department of State, 4.1. The Department of Veterans Affairs received a confidence rating of just 4.5 and the Department of Defense, 5.6. The officers say their level of confidence in the U.S. Congress is the lowest, at an average of just 2.7.
These negative perceptions of U.S. agencies and officials may stem in part from the fact that a majority of the officers polled for the index do not believe that the United States’ elected leaders are very well informed about the military they oversee. Sixty-six percent of the officers say they believe America’s elected leaders are either somewhat or very uninformed about the U.S. military.
How can the military’s perception of elected leaders be improved? In part, the officers say, by electing people who have served in uniform. Nearly 9 in 10 officers agree that, all other things being equal, the military will respect a president of the United States who has served in the military more than one who has not. The people we trust most are often the ones who remind us of ourselves.
For many, it is the most convincing argument against the use of controversial interrogation techniques in the war on terror: If the United States tortures the suspects it captures, it’s all the more likely that U.S. soldiers will be tortured by America’s enemies. Similar logic underpinned the signing of the Geneva Conventions after World War II. But the index’s officers suggest the situation today may be more complex.
When the officers were asked if they agree or disagree with the statement “Torture is never acceptable,” opinions were split. Fifty-three percent agreed, and 44 percent disagree. Nineteen percent, nearly 1 in 5 officers, say they “strongly disagree” with the notion that torture is never acceptable. Asked if they believe waterboarding is torture, opinions were similarly divided. About 46 percent of the officers say they agree with the statement “Waterboarding is torture,” and about 43 percent say they disagree.
These results suggest that the military itself may be of two minds about the use of torture and what constitutes it. It also suggests that, in the fog of war, even the most emotional and controversial arguments are never cut and dried.
Five years into the war in Iraq, the index’s officers have an overwhelmingly negative view of many of the most important early decisions that have shaped the war’s course. They believe more troops were needed on the ground at the start of the fighting. They believe disbanding the Iraqi military was a mistake.
In fact, asked to grade a set of the war’s most prominent command decisions on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning the decision had a positive impact and 1 meaning the decision had a negative impact, the officers give troop levels at the start of the war a 3.3 and judge the order to disband the Iraqi military at 3.1, lower than any other policy decision measured. Asked more generally whether the civilian leadership set reasonable or unreasonable goals for the military to accomplish in post-Saddam Iraq, almost three quarters of the officers say the goals were unreasonable.
The officers do not, however, necessarily believe that victory is beyond reach. Nearly 9 in 10, for instance, say that the counterinsurgency strategy and surge of additional troops into Baghdad pursued by Gen. David Petraeus, the chief U.S. commander in Iraq, is raising the U.S. military’s chance for success there.
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