U.S. deployment numbers have been dropping — and what that might mean
Tim Kane has done us all a service by compiling total numbers on deployments of the U.S. military over the last 65 years. Most notably, they’ve been plummeting in the Middle East since about 2007.
Tim Kane has done us all a service by compiling total numbers on deployments of the U.S. military over the last 65 years. Most notably, they’ve been plummeting in the Middle East since about 2007.
But I am not sure I agree with his core conclusion that this indicates “the strategic withdrawal of U.S. forces from the world.”
He assumes that there is a correlation between the number of people deployed and the intensity of U.S. commitment. But the decline in numbers could result from four other current trends. For example, it could be:
Tim Kane has done us all a service by compiling total numbers on deployments of the U.S. military over the last 65 years. Most notably, they’ve been plummeting in the Middle East since about 2007.
But I am not sure I agree with his core conclusion that this indicates “the strategic withdrawal of U.S. forces from the world.”
He assumes that there is a correlation between the number of people deployed and the intensity of U.S. commitment. But the decline in numbers could result from four other current trends. For example, it could be:
— The increased use of small, precise, low-impact Special Operations forces, rather than large, heavy-tailed conventional forces;
— The related greater value of those Special Operators, who have scored most of the important victories of the last 14 years;
— The heavy use of contractors in place of conventional support troops, in part because of the growing political sensitivity of deployment numbers;
— And possibly the end of Industrial Age mass as a military virtue, and the beginning of Information Age mass as a military vulnerability.
In other words, “Plan Colombia” works better for me than “The Short, Happy Triumph of Tommy R. Franks.”
Image credit: U.S. Department of Defense data compiled by Tim Kane/Hoover Institution
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