Among the most contentious aspects of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' long-term plan for the military is shrinking the Army and the Marine Corps. Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee especially don't want a smaller ground force. So at the panel's first hearing with Gates under its new GOP leadership rates, Gates offered legislators an off-ramp, tied to how able the U.S. is to bring troops home from the wars.
The "key metric and the most predictable variable" in the plan to cut 27,000 soldiers and up to 20,000 Marines, Gates said, is that "we have a very much smaller presence in Afghanistan in 2014 than we do now." It also assumes that the residual 50,000 troops in Iraq come home by year's end.
No troops get cut from either services' total "end strength" before 2015. Should the pace of reductions not go as the Pentagon foresees, Gates said, "we'll be in a position to change this position and add to end strength further well before 2015." Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that the military believes the U.S. is in "an era of persistent conflict," where wars requiring ground troops might unexpectedly erupt.
When will Congress know know whether the drawdowns in Afghanistan will be substantial? "As early as the end of 2012, early 2013," Gates said. Mullen noted that the leadership of the Marine Corps, who have 20,000 Marines in Afghanistan, specifically requested the size reductions, so they're not permanently a second land army.
Now: it's clear from NATO's plan for Afghanistan, announced at Lisbon last November, that there will still be some foreign troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Even as President Obama's original date for troop withdrawals beginning in July has lapsed, Gates told reporters on Monday that troop reductions will proceed this year, something he called a "lead-pipe cinch." So it sounds like Gates' plans for reducing the size of the Army and the Marine Corps have the additional effect of keeping those withdrawals on track, even as he tells Congress that the withdrawal dog will wag the troop-cut tail.
Indeed, every legislator was reassured by Gates' off-ramp. "I'm under the impression that end-strength and force structure is not the kind of thing you can just switch on-off," said Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Texas Republican. "You have to plan for it."
Photo: Flickr/ISAF
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