Matt Kambic
Mr. Maite
Honors English 9
November 6, 2000
Military
Readiness:
The
Nation’s Crisis
The
United States is facing a large crisis when it comes to the nation’s military
readiness. Over the past decade
since the Gulf War, it has been obvious that our military readiness has been in
a steady decline. This is a growing
problem and, unfortunately, it has gone unnoticed by the current administration.
During the past ten years, the United States military equipment has aged
and modernization pushed further into the future, the size of the military has
been reduced significantly, and its overall readiness has eroded which brings
into question whether it can complete all required missions.
All of these entities must be addressed and corrected immediately.
First
of all, it is difficult to understand the problem of military readiness if the
definition of readiness is undefined. Readiness
is the scale this nation uses to measure the ability of a military unit, such as
a Navy division or an Army battalion, to accomplish assigned missions.
Logistics, available spare parts, training, equipment, and morale are all
contributing factors when measuring readiness (Spencer 2).
The military recognizes four different classifications of readiness, C-1
through C-4 (Military 2). At
the highest level of readiness, C-1, a military unit is fully capable of moving
into a position and accomplishing its given mission.
At the lowest level of readiness, C-4, a military unit requires further
manpower, training, equipment, and/or logistics to accomplish its given mission
(Spencer 2). In April, the Army’s
Chief of Staff said that the Army is not a fully “C-1” Army (Military
2).
There has been recently discovered evidence of a widespread lack of
readiness within the U.S. armed forces. Newly
leaked Army documents report that twelve of the twenty schools that are training
our soldiers in skills such as field artillery, infantry, and aviation have
received the lowest readiness ranking. This
document also showed that over half of the Army’s combat and support training
centers are rated at the lowest readiness grade.
According to the reports taken last November, two of the Army’s ten
active divisions were rated at the lowest readiness level.
Also shown from this report was that none of those ten divisions were
rated at the highest rating. All of
these ten divisions required additional manpower, equipment, and training before
they would be ready to handle combat. In
addition to the personnel training problem, the equipment these men will be
operating are not operational. Twenty-three
percent of the Army’s Chinook cargo helicopters, nineteen percent of its
Blackhawk helicopters, and sixteen percent of its Apaches are not ready to take
into combat (2).
Some people would say that our military readiness is in the best shape it
has ever been in. These people
would support their position by saying that the army is the most powerful army
in the world and can handle any attack from any individual country’s army.
That statement is correct. These
people would also say that our nation has a world wide dominance due to the fact
the United States has forces positioned all over the globe.
This statement would also be correct.
These people might even go as far as to say that we are capable of
fighting small battles without suffering major American casualties due to the
fact that we have a technological advantage over other countries. This fact would also be correct (COL Kambic).
However, there are some problems with the reasoning given by these
people. First of all, the United
States can not measure our military readiness by comparing our military to other
countries’ armies (Spencer 1). There
is no force in the world that can take on the United States one-on-one, that is
true. On the other hand, all of the
other counties in the world know this too.
Therefore, these countries are not going to come at the United States
one-on-one, they are going to form alliances with other countries and then
attack the United States. According
to some of the military’s highest-ranking officials, there are doubts that we
are capable of handling multiple enemies at a time (COL Kambic). This can not be tolerated.
Next, to the topic of the United States having a world wide dominance.
Yes the United States has forces deployed all over the globe but that is
the problem. The United States is
over-deployed. Our forces are
spread out to the point where that if we were to have an attack on our homeland,
it would be hard for the United States to fight it off.
This must be corrected soon or a bold country will try to test us and
that could be very damaging (COL Kambic).
Last, to the fact of us being able to fight small battles with suffering
few American casualties. We are
more then capable of fighting any small battle with suffering few casualties
(COL Kambic). The problem is that the next war we fight will not be a small
battle. The next war is going to be
a large confrontation between joint forces.
The US must work hard to improve our military so that any thought of
being able to defeat the United States will be crushed.
One reason why I believe our military readiness is not where it should be
is because of the aging of the already old equipment that is in use.
Most of the equipment that the United States military uses is aging much
faster than the manufacturers can replace them.
In fact, some of this equipment is not even being replaced.
This equipment includes items like Bradley fighting vehicles, Apache
helicopters, surface ships, Abrams tanks, bombers, submarines, and tactical
aircraft. One reason this is taking
place is because of a shortsighted upgrade plan.
Our nation’s leaders have not done a good job of planning out a way to
keep our military forces up to date and operational (Spencer 10).
For example, in the Navy, one or two out of a ten forward-deployed F-14
Tomcat squadron jets are capable of flight.
They can not fly because they are in ‘donor status” which means they
are being cannibalized for spare parts. In
the non-deployed squadrons, up until a few months before an upcoming cruise,
only about three or four jets can fly at a time (Doing 1).
Another example would be in the Air Force.
The percentage of mission-capable Air Force fighter aircraft has
decreased from eighty-five percent down to seventy-five percent since the Gulf
War. Undersecretary of Defense for
Acquisition and Technology Jacques Ganslet states that “we now have an average
age of our fighters in the Air Force of about 20 years.
These were designed for a 15-year life” (Spencer 10).
The next reason I believe our military readiness is not where it should
be is because of the vast reduction in forces and funding we have undergone
since the Gulf War. Since the
beginning of the Clinton Administration, the national defense has been cut by
more than 500,000 personnel and $50,000,000,000 in inflation adjusted dollars.
Despite this huge reduction in finding and personnel, the missions and
operations tempo has increased. This
combination has resulted in decreased military readiness (3)
Over the past eight years, the Army has gone from 18 active divisions to
10 divisions, which is a 29% decrease (Skibbie 1). The Army has also lost 2 of its 10 reserve divisions.
That is a 20% reduction. The
Marines have lost 22,000 of their active personnel, which is an 11% reduction.
The Air Force has gone from 270 bomber forces to 178, which is loss of
34%. The Air Force has also lost
137,900, or 28%, of their active personnel.
The last division of our Military is the Navy. The Nave has lost 77 ships, which is 20% of their fleet.
The Navy has also gone from 546,650 soldiers to 369,800.
This is a reduction of 32% of their active personnel (Spencer 4).
All of the above statistics are frightening.
The Military has lost a huge sum of soldiers during a time when it should
have grown a huge amount. This has
to turn around and it has to do so quickly.
The last reason I have for believing our Military readiness is not where
it should be is the simple fact that the overall morale of the Military is low.
According to a recently retired Marine colonel who has requested to be
left nameless, in the armed forces “quality of life is aid lop service....
We need tough, realistic and challenging training.
But we don’t need low pay, no medical benefits and ghetto housing.”
The unexcitable living conditions for soldiers, sailors, and airmen hurt
the services’ ability to find the best young men and women to fill their ranks
and their power to keep highly skilled servicemen.
Representative Joel Hefley had this to say about the condition:
“The pay is lousy, the retirement is lousy, the living conditions are
lousy. The op tempo is lousy.
The ability to do their job, because of lack of spare parts and that kind
of thing, is lousy (11).
According to the August 1999 GAO, Government Accounting Office (COL
Kambic), review, more than half of the officers and enlisted personnel surveyed
“were dissatisfied and intended to leave the military after their current
obligation or term of enlistment was up.”
Another concern of the military is the inadequate training.
An example of this is Army officials have blamed “a reduction in
training at the Army schools for shortages in skilled workers such as
mechanics.” Because of inadequate
training, only 20% of the Army’s reserve brigades can report that their
platoons meet the requirements for tasks. These
tasks would consist of duties such as attacking enemy positions and defending
against attacks (12).
Substandard housing is also a problem for morale.
It has an immediate impact on servicemen and their families.
As stated by General Shelton, almost two-thirds of all military housing,
or approximately 180,000 units, are inadequate.”
Even though there are plans to alleviate housing problems, the funding is
inadequate. The Military has not
been able to solve this problem because it continues to have divert funds away
from military housing and use it for peacekeeping and peace-enforcement
operations (12).
The problem of our Military Readiness must be addressed now.
If this problem is allowed to continue, many terrible repercussions will
occur. First, it puts our way of
life at risk. It would encourage
rouge nations and state-sponsored terrorist to attack the United States.
Our Military can not handle a dozen wars in a dozen different locations. It would reduce our ability to influence events around the
world, it would reduce our ability to protect our national influences around the
world, and it jeopardizes our relationships with allies and friends around the
world. Last, we must improve our
Military Readiness so we can continue to be involved in contingency operations
such as Bosnia and Kosovo. We must
maintain our ability to prevent war and keep peace (COL Kambic).
The United States has a serious problem to face in the near future.
The first step in solving this problem is by admitting that there is one.
After that, the United States replace its old and malfunctioning
equipment, recruit more capable individuals, and increase the capability of our
many military units. Once it has
accomplished these tasks, the United States must commit the resources necessary
to achieve the highest level of readiness possible.
The United States must do this to ensure our military maintains a dynamic
posture to preserve peace, protect our vital interests, support our many
friends, and failing to accomplish these objectives, to win our nation’s wars.
Works
Cited
COL Kambic, Matt. Personal
interview. 22 Oct. 2000.
Doing More With Less: Is Our Military In Decline? 28
Oct. 2000.
< http://www.cmrlink.org/CMR59.htm>
Military Readiness. 21
Aug. 2000. Governor George W. Bush.
28 Oct. 2000.
< http://www.georgewbush.com/Media/PDFs/MilitaryReadinessFactSheet.pdf>
Skibbie, Lawrence F. “Nation’s Military Edge is Eroding.” New York Daily
News Online
10
Oct. 2000.
Spencer, Jack. The
Facts About Military Readiness. 15 Sept. 2000. The
Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder.
22 Oct. 2000. <http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1394.html>