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Backgrounder: The Future of the U.S. Military

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Greg Bruno, Staff Writer

November 7, 2007

Introduction

Six years after 9/11, the U.S. military is at a crossroads. Stressed under the dual weight of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon's human and mechanized resources hover near the breaking point. Ground forces are especially strained. The U.S. Army, responsible for the bulk of operations in the Middle East, forecasts officer deficits and equipment shortages as the conflicts drag on. The U.S. Marine Corps, too, strains to maintain adequate levels of readiness as equipment losses pile up. The air force and navy, less active than their ground-fighting counterparts, nonetheless suffer as well from the longest period of conflict since Vietnam. All face budget cuts that could threaten their long-term capabilities.

Much has been made about how and when the U.S. military will eventually extract itself from these wars. Less attention, however, has been paid to what the military might look like when it returns. Mounting costs—both human and budgetary—threaten to derail force modernization projects that service leaders deem necessary. And fueling the debate of how to pay for defense is a burgeoning disagreement over how the nation's future threats will manifest themselves.

Army

By all accounts, active and reserve components of the U.S. Army bear the brunt of current U.S. wars. As of September 2007, roughly 122,000 army soldiers were in Iraq, with an additional 18,000 serving alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan. As many as 1.4 million active and reserve personnel have participated in combat operations since September 11, 2001. In April 2007, the Pentagon placed further strains on the army, extending tours to fifteen months from the traditional twelve. The move, called "prudent management" by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, came as a growing number of soldiers were opting not to reenlist.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.