Mismatch of Force Structure versus Mission
Issue: The grinding pace of operations to support today's global war on terrorism continues to stress armed forces that were already overworked before 9/11. Significant force increases are required to forestall considerable long-term retention and readiness problems.
Background: Years of budget cuts and strength reductions have cut military manpower by one-third since 1986, while deployments to support the global war on terrorism and other contingency, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations have dramatically increased.
More deployments spread among fewer people have sharply increased frequency and length of family separations. Service leaders testified to Congress before 9/11 that troops were overstressed. Now, our forces must meet vastly more long-term deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, with many making repeated deployments to these combat zones.
Compensation gains of recent years addressed one aspect of the retention equation. But servicemembers now are working far longer hours for their compensation, and enduring considerably more family separation. Congressional leaders are pressing the Administration to increase end strength to ease this stress and avoid a retention and readiness backlash. But until late 2006, the Administration's top civilian leaders opposed any increases, preferring to plan for internal "transformation" of existing forces, and relying on optimistic scenarios that envisioned significant troop cuts in Iraq in the relatively near term.
Force rotation shortfalls continue to compel Army reliance on "stop-loss" policies that keep soldiers beyond their original service commitments and excessive reliance on Guard and Reserve forces.
The FY07 National Defense Authorization Act increased the Army budget by 30,000 and the USMC budget by 1,000. These increases were above the president’s requests. Both the Senate and House concurred with the Presidents request for an increase in National Guard by 17,000 and a reduction in the Navy by 12,000 and AF by 23,200.
MOAA Position: MOAA believes the pace of operations is not likely to decline in the foreseeable future, and that it is imprudent to base the Nation's military readiness posture on optimistic scenarios. Significant force transformation will take several years, but rotational forces continue to need relief in the short term. MOAA supports a significant increase to Army end strength (with associated resource increases for recruiting and training) to meet mission requirements, and that failure to do so poses unacceptable risks to national security.
MOAA support increases for Army, USMC, and Army National Guard, but we are concerned that Navy and AF reductions are driven by budget rather than requirements and bear close scrutiny.
Key Bills/Status: No bills yet introduced on this topic for the 110th Congress. MOAA is working with potential sponsors and will update bill information as soon as it is available.
MOAA Fact Sheet 14 March 2007
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