Does a bigger Army mean another Iraq?

Every major presidential candidate, including the Democratic front-runners, wants a much bigger Army. But that means an Army expressly designed to fight another war like this one.

Editor's note: Two sentences in this article have been clarified since it was first published.

By Mark Benjamin

Read more: Military, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, Politics, News, John Edwards, Iraq War, Barack Obama, Mark Benjamin, 2008 election, Mitt Romney, David Petraeus

Sept. 27, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton wants 80,000 more soldiers in the Army. Republican hopeful Mitt Romney and Democrat Joe Biden are calling for 100,000 additional troops. Barack Obama thinks the military needs 92,000 more soldiers and Marines. In a speech at the Citadel this spring, Rudy Giuliani said he would add 70,000 new soldiers to the Army. John McCain seems to want 200,000 more soldiers and Marines. John Edwards has said the U.S. “might need a substantial increase of troops,” but has not given a number.

With the Army and Marine Corps stretched to a breaking point because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has become a no-brainer for the major presidential candidates to call for the biggest increase in ground forces since the 1960s. All three Democratic front-runners are either on board or open to the idea, perhaps because for Democrats in particular, it's a risk-free way to look hawkish and burnish national security credentials. "[Democrats] don't want to look weak on defense," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Calling for more troops "is an easy signal of your bellicosity and your willingness to be serious about defense policy."

The next president, therefore, is almost certainly going to be an advocate of adding tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines. But setting aside where these fresh recruits will come from, given current recruiting woes, adding troops will have serious consequences that may not be obvious more than 13 months before the general election. And the consequences may not please antiwar Democratic primary voters. Committing to an expanded Army and Marine Corps implies spending a great deal of additional money on the military. But it also means the presidential candidates are choosing sides in an internal Pentagon dispute -- and they are choosing the side that wants a military designed to fight another war just like the unpopular war the United States has been waging in Iraq since 2003.

Whoever the next president is, he or she will inherit a Pentagon divided. In large part, points of view diverge by service branch. The Air Force, for example, has what Biddle describes as a simple argument: "Never again." Air Force brass say Americans do not want to be bogged down in another Iraq. Meanwhile, explains Biddle, "the conventional Army thinks that the future is more Iraqs ... They are trying to figure out how they can build an Army that will do better in the next one," he explained.

But both sides of the debate agree on one thing. They feel they've been left hanging by the lame-duck Bush administration, and they are waiting for the next president to articulate a new national security strategy. "We need adult supervision," said one retired general who served in Iraq.

"The next president has some really hard decisions to make," said Dr. Conrad Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute. Crane also coauthored the Army's new counterinsurgency field manual with the commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus. Military planning is about deciding on a strategy and then lining up the resources and training to get it done, whether that means more soldiers trained for counterinsurgency or more airplanes to bomb the enemy into submission. "If we really want to be a revolutionary power and export democracy around the world, then we need a pretty good-sized Army," explained Crane. "If we are just about maintaining stability, maybe we don't need as much.

"But that all ties into what is your national security strategy," he said. "What are you trying to do?"

When it comes to matching strategy and resources, many military experts agree that the Bush administration has a dismal record. In Iraq, the administration had a strategy of preemption, but for years remained ideologically hostile to the idea that vast numbers of troops would be needed to get the job done. President Bush did not call for a significant increase in the size of the Army till earlier this year.

Now military planners are divided over where to go next, but the 2008 candidates have effectively voted, whether they truly appreciate it or not, for the Army's point of view.

Army counterinsurgency experts predict that despite the misadventure in Iraq, the United States will be drawn into more counterinsurgency operations for a long time. "Is this a one-off for Iraq and Afghanistan, or are these the kinds of wars we are going to be fighting for the rest of the 21st century?" asked Lt. Col. John Nagl, another coauthor of the counterinsurgency manual along with Crane and Petraeus. "I believe very firmly that this is the kind of war we are going to be fighting for the rest of the 21st century."

The strategy articulated by Petraeus, Nagl and Crane in the new counterinsurgency manual released late last year emphasizes the civilian population as the key to success -- protecting the population and turning support away from insurgents. That means troops. Lots of them. If followed to the letter, the counterinsurgency doctrine requires one counterinsurgent soldier for every 40 or 50 civilians -- or 150,000 soldiers in Baghdad alone. President Bush adopted a version of that strategy early this year for the so-called surge in Iraq, though without the full contingent of troops. "Securing the population requires boots on the ground, in most cases," noted Crane. "They don't have to be American boots. But they have to be somebody's boots."

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