Matt Kambic

Mr. Maite

Honors English 9

November 6, 2000

Military Readiness:

The Nation's Crisis

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.


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