I have been musing about the shrinking of the force, and in particular a need to expand the Guard. While the below article is biased from the NYT, it is eye opening in the sense of the lack of manpower & ability to respond.
yahoo.com/news/aggressiv…
yahoo.com/news/aggressiv…
The Guard does not get credit for what I believe is its best value. That is the diverse makeup & skillset of the individuals that make it up, as well as a great feel for the community it serves. The benchmark from big Army is its combat readiness.
The problems stated in the article are what Guardsmen see on a drill to drill basis. As technology becomes ever more prevelant to our military, the readiness of “part time” soldiers will be more difficult to to accomplish.
I fear the Federal forces will use these current actions as a means by which to shrink the Guard further, or relegate them to pre 9-11 status. That is the opposite of what we need. An expansion & simplification of our tech is a better route.
We need more generalists in our military, & less specialists. I will have a thread soon covering this topic. A guard of 350k will never respond to a country of 350m adequately. Only small & isolated incidents can hope to be covered.
The continuous specialization & shrinking of the force will exacerbate future issues. And while I’d love to say there is a solution & be a glass half full type of guy, time has run out, & my previous solutions are no longer pallatable.
Pre covid19 and rioting the only option I personally saw as a means to set things right again was...
With the current state of affairs, ppl applaud actions like the one linked below, but all this shows me is posturing to put himself on the perceived right side of things, & not be cancel cultured out of a cushy post career hiring...
news.google.com/articles/CAIiE…
news.google.com/articles/CAIiE…
And while many current & former serving will defend the General, and applaud him for separating himself from politics, I can’t help but think there is a longer game at play. This is systemic across these levels of leadership.
When things settle down & hypothetically turn to normal, our enemies overseas will have taken notice & even enabled the virus & rioting/protests. They will see how our military restructures & retrains. I don’t get a warm & fuzzy based on previous controversial outcomes.
One day things in the military will be set right again, but until that day comes a lot of blood & political beatings of the military will be the reasoning for the reset.
As always, the young, idealistic & patriotic kids will be the ones who pay the price, and it will be the lack of true leadership that failed them.
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