Ok, here is my opinion. All this talk that we need MORE soldiers over there seems wrong. We had a massive amount of combat troops in Vietnam, and they just served as cannon fodder for the guerillas. I actually argue it would be in our best interest to REDUCE the size of the military, and transform it.
The war in Iraq was won. The peace is hard to secure. We won the war with like 150,000 troops, much less than the Gulf War. It's because we have such awesome technical superiority, through smart bombs and things of that sort, that we can win wars on technology and air power alone (think Kosovo). These are going to be the wars of the future. Yet our military is still bloated and massive, with soldiers all over the place in a Cold War footing. Donald Rumsfeld actually has addressed this issue, wanting to make the military smaller and quicker.
Wars of the past, huge tank battles with massive amount of soldiers, ala WWII, was the contingency during the Cold War. Yet that never came into being because of nuclear deterrence. We are unlikely to fight a huge war of attrition with a great power, because nuclear weapons would come into play. The only real danger would be North Korea, but we should rely more on the 660,000 South Korean infantry who are trained almost exlusively to deal with a land invasion from North Korea. That coupled with massive American firepower would easily defeat the North Koreans.
So, reduce the size of the military. Withdraw some from Korea, Germany, Japan. REPLACE them with elite forces. Spend more money on training fewer soliders, and pay them more so they become even more professionalized. These type of elite, commando type of soldiers would be much more effective in rooting out insurgents and providing security in places like Iraq, then just having 200,000 soldiers walking around so guerillas can play target practice. Wars will be won with superior air power and technology anyways, so it's useless to actually have a BIGGER military, at least in my opinion.
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