WASHINGTON - The US military is "severely strained" by two large-scale
occupations in the Middle East, other troop deployments, and recruiting
problems, according to a new survey of military officers published by Foreign
Policy magazine and the centrist think-tank Center for a New American Strategy.
"They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the
next fight," said the report, "The US Military Index", which polled 3,400
current and former high-level military officers.
Sixty percent of the officers surveyed said that the military is weaker now
than it was five years ago, often citing the number of troops deployed to the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We ought to pay more attention to quality," said retired
Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, who retired from the Joint Chiefs of Staff
in part over objections to the invasion of Iraq, at a panel during a conference
to release the data.
From Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain to President George W
Bush, politicians regularly speak on the military from a position of authority.
They know, they contend, that despite the two ongoing wars, the US is ready to
deal with new threats militarily if need be.
"I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars," said McCain at a
campaign stop last month. "We will never surrender but there will be other
wars."
But the officers surveyed implied that military options against future threats
may not be - as politicians from across the spectrum have intimated - "on the
table".
"Asked whether it was reasonable or unreasonable to expect the US military to
successfully wage another war at this time," said the report, "80 percent of
the officers say that it is unreasonable."
When asked to grade the preparedness of the military to deal with the threat of
Iran - on which McCain's rhetoric has been especially hawkish - respondents
gave an average score of 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 representing fully
prepared.
The difference in which civilian and military leadership are viewed also made
its way into the survey results. The level of confidence in the presidency
among officers averaged just 5.5 out of 10, with 16% having "no confidence at
all in the president".
The US Congress scored lowest of the institutions surveyed, with an average
score of just 2.7.
The low regard for politicians could arise from the officers' notion that
elected officials know little about the workings of the military - 66% of
officers responded that elected leaders are "either somewhat or very uninformed
about the US military".
Those views are likely informed by survey respondents' opinions about the way
the civilian leadership handled the war in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of
the fall of Saddam Hussein. Nearly three quarters of the officers said that the
goals of the civilian leadership for the military were "unreasonable".
Furthermore, it appears that many officers find that the efforts of US forces
have sometimes been counterproductive. Asked what country had gained the
"greatest strategic advantage" from the war in Iraq, 37% said Iran while 22%
answered China. Just one in five of the officers answered that the US had
gained the most.
Though many of the results of the survey were negative, the officers were not
pessimistic about the forces themselves. Sixty-four percent of the officers
said that they believe morale is high in the military, and nearly 9 in 10
believe that the "surge" escalation was having a positive effect on the war
effort.
"The Army is not broken," said Major Robert Scales. Fifty-six percent of those
polled agreed, though nearly 90% said that the war in Iraq has "stretched the
US military dangerously thin", with just over half agreeing strongly.
A problem for the military, said Scales, could arise if the forces become
"hollowed out" as they were after the Vietnam War. Degraded equipment and a
loss of some of the fighting force - particularly mid-level officers - could
adversely affect the future health of the military.
Thirty-eight percent of the officers advocated increasing the total number of
US ground forces to face future challenges, and the same percentage called for
the reinstatement of the draft.
By far the most common answer to the question of how to best win the "Global
War on Terror" was to improve intelligence - which nearly three quarters of the
officers supported. Thirty-eight percent said that the size of Special
Operations Forces should be increased.
One of the most interesting splits in survey came on the question of what
constitutes torture and whether torture is acceptable as an interrogation
method. Prompted with the statement "torture is never acceptable", 53% of the
officers agreed and 44% disagreed.
On the subject of "waterboarding" - a harsh interrogation technique that
simulates drowning - there was also an even split with 46% saying
"waterboarding" is torture and 43% disagreeing.
The report - a rare public look into the thoughts of the military higher-ups -
terms itself one of "the few comprehensive surveys of the US military community
to be conducted in the past 50 years".
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