At the height of World War II the United States fielded over 92 Divisions of Infantry and over 10 Armored Divisions, and countless number of other units of brigade and battalion sized elements. During the Cold War the size of the army began to decrease where by the end of the cold war leading into the Persian Gulf War the US Army was down to 20 active divisions. Now in the midst of two major operations, while having to sustain forces in two other theaters, the US Army has been able to manage within this relatively brief period of time with only 10 active divisions, and roughly 10 national guard divisions. However, as reported by the present army staff. Thus US Army cannot continue to sustain the current operation tempo unless the reduce deployments to 12 months, where as the average deployment period has ben 15 months.
One solution to this problem that no one has brought up is an increase in the size of our Army. Although there has been an initiative to increase the force size by a little over 35,000 soldiers, that will only be about 1 division worth of individuals, and those are being dispursed amoungst existing divisions meaning that there is no noticable increase in force size.
With a nation of over 300 Million citizens, and with total expenditures on national defense continuing to decrease year after year in relation to the GDP, I don't see why our nation can't afford to increase the size of the army, whether that be by 5,10, or 15 divisions. Furthermore, with increaseed military expenditure those funds will be used to purchase equipment in the private sector, and more soldiers will spend their pay within the private sector as well.
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Oh a side topic, how is it that everyone is in a tizzy about GE's reported reduction in profit . . . not a loss . . . but a reduction in profit . . . and in doing so have the company loose over 10% of its total stock value?!?
It didn't post a quarterly loss . . . rather they are not profiting to the toon of a 4.9 Billion Dollars . . . but to a mere 4.36 Billion Dollars . . . that Billion with nine zeroes after the numbers! OMG!
I don't know about you but that still sounds like a positive thing to me.
Related Article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCLKAmIILQfc&refer=worldwide