COIN Perspectives From On Point

[Sabre]

They're bone ignorant and don't know what to look for.

The elements you quote above are all worthwhile and I don't see business as usual in them. As a long time Grunt, I understand the value of Infantry -- I also understand that there are always only going to be so many Infantrymen, thus there will never be 'enough' of them and that force multipliers like IRS assets are beneficial to those four Grunts.

There is no question in my mind that we have significant need for ability to reach into denied areas; we have neglected that since a need was shown in 1979. More aviation assets are needed to reduce road exposure of convoys.

Bad article by the WaPo (not much new there...); good paper by DoD, I think.

I should have clarified what I meant by "not enough infantry" - I mean that, as a percentage of the total force, there aren't enough. I see numbers assigned to headquarters staffs increasing dramatically, and Intel slots increasing dramatically, and given that there is an "inelasticity of demand" for support troops (mechanics, truckers, medical,etc), it is the combat MOS's that end up with fewer personnel, one way or the other. Sure, ISR has value. But do we really *need* one Intel MOS soldier for every Infantryman?
Some of the ISR technology that we have now is great, but to just randomly throw more bodies and money at "Intelligence" isn't the right answer.
(Heh, Perhaps instead Intel branch could be re-cast, something like the Engineers, who always remind folks that their secondary mission is to "fight as Infantry".)

Nonetheless, a "force multiplier" applied to zero force is...

To be picky, I could crunch some numbers, but I am reasonably certain that even a massive increase in aviation assets wouldn't be enough to prevent the need for resupply with ground vehicles - trying to move all materiel and personnel by air is prohibitively expensive. (The only thing that would do the trick would be to cut back on the amount of resupply that you need, perhaps by using far fewer folks to accomplish a mission...)

[Ken White]

I should have clarified what I meant by "not enough infantry" - I mean that, as a percentage of the total force, there aren't enough. I see numbers assigned to headquarters staffs increasing dramatically, and Intel slots increasing dramatically, and given that there is an "inelasticity of demand" for support troops (mechanics, truckers, medical,etc), it is the combat MOS's that end up with fewer personnel, one way or the other. Sure, ISR has value. But do we really *need* one Intel MOS soldier for every Infantryman?

and I'm sure they're worse now than ever. As far as a percentage of total force, in addition to staffs and intel increases, I'd be willing to bet that there are many 11Bs buried in out of the way and esoteric jobs all over the world.

I doubt there's one intel person per grunt but I do understand your point. What we don't know is how that ISR plus up will work.

To be picky, I could crunch some numbers, but I am reasonably certain that even a massive increase in aviation assets wouldn't be enough to prevent the need for resupply with ground vehicles - trying to move all materiel and personnel by air is prohibitively expensive.

Didn't mean to imply that. POL other than in small doses isn't going to be air delivered -- still, more aircraft will mean less total ground exposure. If the force in Afghanistan stays light Infantry, we proved in Viet Nam you resupply at an 85% plus level by air.

(The only thing that would do the trick would be to cut back on the amount of resupply that you need, perhaps by using far fewer folks to accomplish a mission...)

Not the only thing but definitely a plus on several counts.

My major point was that the article was not terribly informative and it missed the point that the Infantry is a part of the General Purpose Force (the bulk of the army by far) and is not a part of the IW force which the paper and Vickers were addressing. That's why the infantry increases such as 4/1 and 4/4 -- both new light inf Bdes in heavy Divs -- plus the others weren't mentioned.