An Army near the Breaking Point

– studies & reports

We spend more on defense (broadly defined) than the rest of the world combined. Nobody has military technology as advanced and powerful as ours. American military journals assure us that our doctrines range from adequate to awesome. None of this matters if we cannot attract and retain quality people in sufficient quantities.
Designed to wage 2.5 wars, after five years of fighting two “small wars” already our Army shows signs of breaking under the strain. That is unfortunate, as these wars are like those we will likely fight in the future. Worse, experts tell us that such struggles often take a decade or more to win (in the few cases in which foreign forces have been able to claim victory). What will our Army look like after another five years if we cannot substantially reduce our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan?
What does it mean to say that an army is “breaking”? Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings writes:
For one thing, there is no sharp, discontinuous transition between an “unbroken” Army and a “broken” one: the kind that happens when a plate shatters, a fuse blows, or a motor finally gives out. For another, a “broken” Army will still be able to function, more or less … So there is no sharp contrast between an “unbroken” Army, which works, and a “broken” Army, which doesn’t.
What we are doing to the Army is less like breaking something, and more like slowly degrading its ability to perform its tasks to an unacceptable level. It’s a gradual process, one that does not provide us with clear points at which we can look at the Army and say: well, now it is well and truly broken. It’s not like breaking a chair or a statue.
Here are a selection of reports about the stress cracks in the body of the US Army. None of these look good for the prospects of an Army of “strategic corporals” capable of implementing sophisticated COIN doctrines. ( learn more at )