On military readiness and what happens after deployment

There are two hot topics of mine that fall the civil-military relations section of this blog: readiness and recruiting. The first might not be considered c-m at first, but the areas I’m looking have direct ownership in the civilian side of the equation. The second, the recruiting, falls within the c-m framework in our citizen army, the All Volunteer Force (AVF). So briefly, because it’s late and I have a lot more work to do…

First, from Phil Carter on the Washington Post’s announcement that “nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated ‘not ready'”:

In his 2000 acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention, then-Gov. George W. Bush leveled the following criticism at the Clinton Administration and its management of military readiness in the wake of the Kosovo campaign:

“Little more than a — little more than a decade ago, the Cold War thawed, and with the leadership of President’s Reagan and Bush, that wall came down.

“But instead of seizing this moment, the Clinton-Gore administration has squandered it. We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence. Our military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report: “Not ready for duty, sir.” “

read the rest of Phil’s post here

Second, Noah Schachtman captures the terrible situation situation at Walter Reed and the deplorable support of our forces, as does Phil Carter. If you’re a family member of a person at Walter Reed and you had a son, nephew, or neighbor considering going into the service, what would you say? Tom Barnett in his JHU Rethinking War seminar commented on this very point a short while back.

2 thoughts on “On military readiness and what happens after deployment

  1. It makes my jaw drop in utter shock, but SECDEF Gates actually fired some high-ranking folks for this disgrace. Hopefully a few more heads will roll along with some spicy hearings on Capitol Hill.

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