The Expansionist

Friday, September 29, 2006

Military 'Stretched Thin'? We keep hearing how the United States military is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain its missions abroad, because there are 'too few' troops available. And General Peter Schoonmaker, Army Chief of Staff, says we need more people and thus a larger military budget to support them. Oh? Answers.com says:

Approximately 1.4 million personnel are currently on active duty in the military with an additional 860,000 personnel in the seven reserve components (456,000 of which are in the Army and Air National Guard). There is currently no conscription. * * *

With a strength of 2.26 million personnel (including reserves), the United States armed forces are the the 2nd largest military in the world [after only Communist China, a nation of 1.3 billion people].

Current deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan total about 150,000. How does that 'dangerously deplete' a military of 2.26 million?
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(I tried to post this yesterday, but Blogger was down. It goes into these endless loops when you try to publish a draft, and does not publish. Then the server couldn't even be found by my browser. I will save to tomorrow what I was going to say today. I wish Blogger would fix this problem. It is very irritating to be stymied by technology.)
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,710 — for Israel.)

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- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:35 PM

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