Barnett really misses the issue.

When Dr. David Chu was ASD (PA&E) under Bush41 I was an action officer in the Pentagon. He made an interesting observation: "Without a Soviet Union there is no logical floor to Army endstrength."

The USSR had maintained stability of the Regular Army at a number colloquially referred to as "781K". A minimum of 781,000 troops were required to meet our NATO obligation of 10/10, ten American divisions in 10 days. This is what was the models said was needed to stop the Warsaw Pact. From that calculation, based largely on the rail capacity in Poland, East Germany, and the Western military districts of the USSR and the inventory of rolling stock in the Warsaw Pact, we ended up with 4 2/3 heavy divisions in Germany and POMCUS for the remainder.

That hasn't changed.

Absent a significant enemy there is no defensible floor for Army endstrength. The Pentagon is reluctant, and rightfully so, to press for a significant expansion.

In the short run you have to raid tactical units for more recruiters, for drill sergeants, for instructors, etc. This means less capable deploying units. We've divested ourselves of a lot of training facilities. It will take lots of time and money to get back to the capacity we had in 1990 with a much smaller number of installations because an expanded Army has to be quartered somewhere and it has to train when not deployed.

So without some degree of political guarantee that we won't find another "Peace Dividend" there is really little to no constituency within the institutional Army to expand in anything but the most gradual way.