Thursday, March 27, 2008

An army strained to the limits in Iraq--my take

Washington Babylon (Harper's Magazine)

Also see these earlier posts: discontent with senior officers; troop shortages; lowering promotion standards; flood of officers leaving army; strained military; Gary Hart on the strained army; and recruiting problems.

This 2006 CRS study is valuable. It includes data on officer accessions, showing a decline in officers from ROTC and an increase to 30% (probably more today) of the total from OCS.

1 comment:

arn said...

Comment by a retired senior officer:

Indeed. I think there are two problems we will pay dearly for:
1. Exhaustion of our young leadership.
2. Deliberate selection of senior leadership with the short term approach to everything that leads to said exhaustion.
With few exceptions like Dave [Petraeus], we are managing with horizons of weeks and months.