1 Jan. New York Times - The Army, Faced With Its Limits.

... The Pentagon expects to face many Iraq-type conflicts in the coming years, wars that involve battling insurgents and restoring stability. As a result, a debate is beginning to churn in defense policy circles: Should the government enlarge the military so it can more easily fight these wars? Or should the government alter its policies, so as not to fight such wars as often, at least not alone?

Senior Pentagon officials argue that neither shift is necessary, that reorganizing the Army's existing combat units into stronger, faster and more flexible brigades will have the same effect as adding more soldiers. But some analysts doubt these adjustments alone will go far enough.

Lawrence Korb, who was assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs in the Reagan administration, states the issue baldly: "We cannot fight a long, sustained war without a larger ground force." He defines a "long war" as lasting two years or more. The Iraq war has gone on now for nearly three.

The claim may seem strange, until you peel apart the numbers. Of the Army's one million soldiers, fewer than 400,000 are combat troops (the rest are support personnel). Only about 150,000 of those combat troops are on active duty; the rest are in the National Guard and Reserves...