This story points out one of the untalked about results of the campaign and long occupation in Iraq - the effects on the Army's combat divisions. Four divisions, or 40% of the armies combat capability will be listed as not ready for comba for up to six months as vehicles are refurbishe and repaired, equipment fixed or replaced, and personnel get retrained.
With another four divisions deployed (three in Iraq and one in Afghanistan), this leaves two divisions for use during emergencies around the world. If I've done the math right, that's about 20,000 people that can be deployed by the Army for combat operations.
This has the potential to be a serious national security issue. What if North Korea decided to renew hostilities? We could do little to support South Korea and our 30,000 troops there othr than aerial bombardment. That's not a real good solution. Despite what Desert Storm and Persian Gulf War II accomplished via airpower, we've not seen what our modern weapons will do in the face of a determined, large-scale infantry assault.
WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam all showed that airpower is vauluable, but not great at winning against large motivated forces by itself...and by all accounts North Korea has just that.
Posted by Chris at December 9, 2003 12:35 PM