U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Anthony Wood and Capt. Nick Morgans prepare to load simulated casualties as an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter lands during a mass casualty scenario near Kandahar, Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 2010. Wood and Morgans are assigned to the 46th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Eric HarrisA Farewell To Arms -- Max Boot, The Weekly Standard
In 1991, at the end of the Cold War, there were 710,821 active-duty soldiers in the U.S. Army. By 2001, that figure was down to 478,918. That 32 percent decline in active-duty strength severely limited our options for a military response to 9/11, practically dictating that the forces sent to Afghanistan and Iraq would be too small to pacify two countries with a combined population of nearly 60 million. The result was years of protracted conflict that put a severe strain on an undersized force.
Eventually even Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was compelled to admit that the force was too small. Today the Army is up to 566,045 active-duty soldiers, an 18 percent increase since 2001.
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My Comment: The U.S. military is still the world's most formidable military force .... but time and budgetary constraints are changing this. Max Boot does a good analysis on where this is leading us.