I've talked before about how most military analysts not currently employed by the US government seem to think that the troop levels of the "coalition" in Iraq are way too low for nation-building and counterinsurgency.
Fareed Zacharia is reporting the calcuations of the RAND Corporation: Our Last Real Chance Newsweek (04/19/04 issue).
The history of external involvement in countries suggests that, to succeed, the outsider needs two things: power and legitimacy. Washington has managed affairs in Iraq so that it has too little of each. It has often been pointed out that the United States went into Iraq with too few troops. This is not a conclusion arrived at with 20-20 hindsight. Over the course of the 1990s, a bipartisan consensus, shared by policymakers, diplomats and the uniformed military, concluded that troop strength was the key to postwar military operations. It is best summarized by a 2003 RAND Corp. report noting that you need about 20 security personnel (troops and police) per thousand inhabitants "not to destroy an enemy but to provide security for residents so that they have enough confidence to manage their daily affairs and to support a government authority of its own." When asked by Congress how many troops an Iraqi operation would require, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki replied, "Several hundred thousand" for several years. The number per the RAND study would be about 500,000.
"Coalition" troops levels in Iraq right now are around 150,000, of which 134,000 or so are American and just under 10,000 British. And the US is already having to use de facto conscription by extending tours of duty for troops in Iraq that have already been there for a year. And none of the countries that could provide troops at the levels needed to get us to 500,000 in the immediate future are even going to consider just a commitment.
The math just doesn't look good on that issue. Neither do the Bush Administration's disastrous policies.
2 comments:
I was pretty obvious that troop levels were way too low when, right after "major operations" were over, looters were stealing everything that wasn't nailed down (and some things that were.)
But Rummy said that was just fine! "Freedom is untidy," he said.
Actually, in retrospect, that looting should have been a screaming alarm signal - as it was to less arrogant and short-sighted observers than Rummy. Those with experience in actual national reconstruction - "nation-building" - tend to see that as a critical moment of breakdown in the prospects for a successful occupation.
Not that you had to be any kind of expert to see that. Anyone not lost in an Oxycontin haze should be able to see that having looters ransack government offices, buildings, museums, libraries, hospitals, schools and anything else in sight was a very bad sign. - Bruce
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