Matt Kambic
Mr. Maite
Honors English 9
November 6, 2000
Military
Readiness:
The
United States is facing a large crisis concerning our 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 unchecked by the current administration.
During the past ten years, the United States military equipment has aged
as technology has grown exponentially, the size of the military has been reduced
significantly, and the military’s overall morale has been deteriorating, which
brings into question whether our military can complete all required missions.
All of these issues 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 unclear. 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 of this year,
the Army’s Chief of Staff said that the Army is not fully a “C-1” Army (Military
2).
There has been recently discovered evidence of a widespread lack of
readiness within the United States Armed Forces.
Army documents that have recently been leaked reveal 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 taken from this report was the fact that none of those ten divisions
were rated at the highest rating. All
ten of these divisions required additional manpower, equipment, and training
before they would be capable of handling combat.
In addition to the personnel training problem, the equipment these men
will be using is not operational. Twenty-three
percent of the Army’s Chinook cargo helicopters, nineteen percent of its
Blackhawk helicopters, and sixteen percent of its Apache Helicopters are not
ready to be taken into combat (2).
Some people 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 United States Military is the most
powerful military force 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 same people might even go as far as to say that we are capable of
fighting battles and small wars without suffering major American casualties.
They believe this due to the fact that we have a technological advantage
over other countries. This fact
would also be true (COL Kambic).
However, there are a few problems with the reasoning given by these
people. First of all, the United
States cannot 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 head to head.
On the other hand, all of the other counties in the world know this also.
Therefore, these countries are not going to come at the United States
one-on-one; these countries are going to form alliances with other countries and
then attack the United States using an alternate strategy to replace the head to
head tactic. These countries will
most likely attack the United States in the form of terrorist attacks.
These attacks would be just like the attack against the USS Cole.
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 is an extremely
dangerous situation.
Next, to the topic of the United States having a worldwide dominance.
Yes, the United States has forces deployed all over the globe but that is
one of the many problems. The
United States is over-deployed. Our
forces are spread out to the point that if we were to have a large attack on our
homeland, it would be hard for the United States to fight it off.
This must be corrected soon or a rogue country may try to attack the
United States and the attack 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 than capable of fighting any battle or small war while still not suffering
a large amount of American casualties (COL
Kambic). The problem is that the
next war may not be simple or small. The
next war we face could be a large confrontation between many allied forces.
The United States 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 it is that 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, Abram tanks, bombers, submarines, and tactical
aircraft. One reason this is taking
place is because of an under funded modernization 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 ten forward-deployed F-14
Tomcat squadron jets are capable of flight.
They cannot 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).
These numbers are disturbing. These
numbers must be raised before we have only five or six F-14s that are
operational at a time.
The next reason high ranking government officials 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 United States
Military has been cut by more than 500,000 personnel and $50 billion in
inflation adjusted dollars. Despite
this huge reduction in funding 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, a 34% lost.
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).
These are a lot of statistics, all of which are very disturbing.
The United States Military has lost a huge sum of funding and soldiers
during a time when it should have grown. This
must be reversed and it has to do so quickly.
The last reason people believe our military readiness is not where it
should be is the simple fact that the overall morale of the military is
dangerously low. According to a
recently retired Marine colonel who has requested to be left nameless, in the
armed forces “quality of life is all lip service....
We need tough, realistic and challenging training.
But we don’t need low pay, no medical benefits and ghetto housing.”
What he is saying is that we don’t have quality of life.
The unacceptable 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).
Op tempo is operational tempo. Operational
tempo is how often a unit is engaged in stressful operations (COL Kambic).
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 (Spencer 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, is inadequate.”
Even though there are plans to alleviate housing problems, the funding is
insufficient. The military has not
been able to solve this problem because it continues to have to 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 potential
repercussions will exist. First, it
puts our way of life at risk. It
would encourage rogue nations and state-sponsored terrorist to attack the United
States. Our military cannot 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 interests 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 must 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 allies, and failing to accomplish these objectives, to win our
nation’s wars.
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