Surging To A Broken Army?

By Steve Hynd

Yesterday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen told reporters that the Army isn't at a "tipping point" yet, even though the stress of repeated combat deployments has driven Army and Marine Corps suicides up to a record rate alongside cases of post-traumatic stress.

Today, Spencer Ackerman crunches the hard numbers and details just how little flexibility is left in the Army for any surge deployment to Afghanistan (all emphasis is mine):

If President Obama orders an additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, he will be deploying practically every available U.S. Army brigade to war, leaving few units in reserve in case of an unforeseen emergency and further stressing a force that has seen repeated combat deployments since 2002.

Spencer continues:

The 2007 troop surge in Iraq was a one-time increase of five combat brigades that ended with those brigades’ tours. By contrast, a troop increase to implement McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy is more likely to be a sustained escalation lasting beyond the tours of the initially deployed brigades. And the brigades themselves called upon to implement the troop increase will have already served numerous deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the 14 active-duty brigades that will be available for deployment in December, five have already served three tours abroad since 2002 and four have already served two. If either the 3rd brigade of the 101st Airborne Division or the 1st brigade of the 10th Mountain Division are asked to deploy to Afghanistan, it will be their fifth tour since 2002.

Krepinevich said the stress on soldiers called upon to serve repeated tours was a problem for a troop escalation. “You really have to start worrying about greater incidents of post-traumatic stress disorder, [and] that we’re already seeing in terms of the the NCO corps,” he said, referring to non-commissioned officers like sergeants who play crucial leadership roles in enforcing soldier discipline and standards. “Yes, they’re experienced but they’re just so worn out. And that has to be a concern.”

And he writes that neither Gen. McChrystal nor DefSec. Gates would respond to requests for comment on how McChrystal's proposals for an Afghan escalation might affect dwell times, the crucial rests between deployments that have been cut back as far as twelve months from an ideal of two years. For two of the brigades that might be deployed to Afghanistan as part of that surge it would be their fifth combat deployment since 2002.

Tim Fernholz at The American Prospect today points to the essential stupidity of the surge (again, all emphasis is mine):

there is one true similarity between Iraq and Afghanistan, which is that the ultimate solution is political and economic, not military. That means considering approaches that don't rely on major troop escalation. The question of whether or not the Karzai regime can be an effective partner is critical: without a legitimate partner on the ground, no strategy predicated on keeping the Taliban from coming back to power can work. Withholding additional forces that Karzai needs to prop up his government may be the only way to ensure that the Afghan leader makes real effort to fix his corrupt and ineffectual government, as Ambassador Karl Eikenberry reportedly argued to the president last week. That's one reason why escalation can't be a fait accompli, and troops need to be at the center of the debate.

Similarly, no amount of additional military force will work without commensurate efforts on the civilian and development side, but thus far it's not at all apparent that those efforts are forthcoming. Sending more troops without appropriate civilian resources, or at the expense of those resources, will likely be a futile effort.

...Separating strategy from questions of resources and personnel undercuts the debate before it begins. The simple fact that both Americans and Afghans understand is that the war is over when American troops are no longer sent to Afghanistan. Obama has to figure out how, and when, that will happen.

As I've noted before now, Gen. Eikenberry has led where people like the Center For American Progress think-tank have failed to do so applying CAP's arguments - now vindicated by events - about Iraq both before and after the surge there to Afghanistan. There are all kinds of good reasons for Obama to listen to the ambassadorial general and the danger of pushing the Army and Marines past Mullen's "tipping point" is just one of them. Ret. Gen. Wesley K. Clark yesterday compared Afghanistan to Vietnam and echoed Eikenberry when he said that any troop escalation should be put on hold while an exit strategy is put in place.