by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
(A later version of this essay appears in the current issue ofCommentary Magazine.<\/i>)<\/span><\/p>\n How many American troops should be posted in Iraq, beyond the present spike of 135,000\u2014a number that was itself raised from the informally agreed-upon level of 115,000?<\/span><\/p>\n Critical Consensus<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n This question of numbers came sharply to the fore in April in light of the sudden toll taken on American forces confronting the insurrections in Falluja and Najaf. But the ferocity of renewed battle was not the only impetus behind the controversy. There was, for instance, the announcement in March that the new government of Spain was withdrawing its contingent from Iraq; the ongoing controversy over Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s sweeping reforms of the U.S. military and their immediate ramifications for peacekeeping operations; and the charges and countercharges over our actions in Iraq that have swirled about this year’s American presidential campaign. All this confusion has helped to push the issue of troop numbers to the front of public consciousness and to tie it inextricably to a still larger issue: namely, the success or possible failure of the American mission itself.<\/span><\/p>\n In no time, it seems, a critical consensus seems to have formed on the matter of numbers, embracing Senate Democrats, media talking heads, editorial boards from the\u00a0New York Times<\/b>\u00a0to\u00a0USA Today<\/b>, and even a number of well-known conservatives. The emerging party line goes roughly like this. The new American military\u2014lighter, faster, more flexible\u2014has proved that it can take out almost any rogue regime (the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq) with ease. But it lacks either the skill or the will, or both, to ensure that such rapid victories will not, in the ensuing postwar chaos, transmogrify into a Vietnam-like quagmire or a Lebanon-like debacle. Only much larger numbers on the ground (the argument continues) can prevent opportunistic criminal gangs, terrorists, and religious extremists from intimidating nascent democrats and causing us in the end to leave things as bad as when we first arrived. In Iraq, specifically, the one-time target number of 105,000-115,000 \u00a0American occupation troops is simply too small to secure the safety or help bring about the democratization of an uneasy populace of some 26 million. Therefore, anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 more American soldiers should be sent as quickly as possible, to reach an optimum force roughly comparable to the number of ground forces that won the war in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n A variety of broad concerns are adduced in support of this conclusion. Critics point to the presence in Iraq of about 15,000 armed “contractors,” or private security guards, as evidence that uniformed American troops are stretched too thin to provide basic protection. They cite the military’s need to postpone the scheduled returns of both regular and National Guard units, whose tours of duty have been extended repeatedly. They note the apparently dwindling contribution to overall force levels now being made by other members of the original coalition. And they remind us of the often questionable loyalty to the new government of the shaky 200,000-man Iraqi security force, many of whose “soldiers” fled the scene of battle at Falluja at the first opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n The usual villain in the critics’ indictment is Rumsfeld. If, as a species, military planners are too often guilty of rehashing the last war, Rumsfeld is purportedly too eager to fight the next one, obsessed with the enemies we will be facing in 2050 rather than those who are killing us right now in 2004. At a time of soaring budget deficits, coupled with the need for expensive new weapons systems\u2014from air-refueling tankers to missile defense\u2014Rumsfeld, charge the critics, has been criminally reluctant to reconstitute two or three more old-fashioned, $3-billion-a-year Army divisions of the type now situated outside some of Iraq’s most populous cities, relying instead on small pockets of counterinsurgency troops aided when necessary by precision air power and some armor. The<\/i>Weekly Standard<\/b>,\u00a0<\/i>no beacon of liberal hand-wringing,\u00a0<\/i>has taken particular umbrage at Rumsfeld’s stubbornness on this issue: \u201cIf [the] current Secretary of Defense cannot make the adjustments that are necessary,\u201d the\u00a0Standard<\/b>\u00a0editorialized a while ago, \u201cthe President should find one who will.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Others look elsewhere for culprits. For them, the real blame attaches to the White House, and specifically to its cynical subordination of military considerations to partisan political ones. In this view, a Karl Rove or Karen Hughes lingers in the logistical shadows, issuing election-year warnings about \u201cmission creep\u201d and conjuring up nightmarish recollections of the soon-to-be-lame-duck Lyndon Johnson, whose steady incremental reinforcements in Vietnam finally reached the 500,000-plus mark and, even so, left Gen. William Westmoreland complaining he was short-handed. The Bush politicos are said to fear that any increase in troops will be seized upon by the liberal media as still further evidence that we have entered an Iraqi swamp, putting ever larger numbers of Americans in the line of fire from all sides with no end in sight. Rather illogically, some newspapers that demand additional manpower on their editorial pages have also run cartoons and opinion pieces warning that such demands are themselves proof that we are back to 1965.<\/span><\/p>\n The Case Against the Critics<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The critics\u2019 concerns, if not the conclusions drawn from them, are in many cases sound and legitimate. But one factor that makes it difficult to adjudicate today\u2019s argument over the proper number of soldiers needed in Iraq is that often it is the generals and official military planners, not their critics in the media, who complain vocally to their civilian sounding-boards of too few troops. Historically, manpower levees are like taxes, and the government that says it requires more of either of them can always find a self-fulfilling reason for such an increased need. Today\u2019s reversal of roles may be one reason why the debate, such as it is, has taken place only between those who think we need greater numbers and others who assure us that we can make do with what we have. Scarcely anyone has advanced a contrary but, as we shall see, arguably stronger claim: namely, that 180,000 soldiers\u2014or why not 300,000?\u2014might even be deleterious\u00a0<\/i>to our efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n One standard reply to the critics, sometimes invoked by defenders of the administration, begins by pointing to our responsibilities elsewhere. In theory, the United States is supposed to be able to fight two full-fledged conflicts simultaneously. This is not an idle concern: second wars, or second fronts in wider wars, are more likely to break out after a first war has begun\u2014the Nazis declared themselves at war with us only after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Soviets often felt freer to probe in Europe and the Middle East when they felt assured we were fully committed in Korea or Vietnam. Thus, an America tied down in the Middle East is by definition more vulnerable in East Asia, the Balkans, or Central America.<\/span><\/p>\n If, moreover, we were indeed to increase the number of ground troops in Iraq to 180,000, the reinforcements needed immediately would have to come out of the at-risk theaters of southern Europe, Japan, or Korea. Such redeployments, however justified by the need in Iraq, would impinge upon fundamental bilateral relationships with major allies, and could not be undertaken lightly. Interestingly, very few of those who now insist on more manpower in Iraq seem ready to take the next (and necessary) logical step and demand that the requisite numbers be removed summarily from Europe or Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n As for private civilian guards, we should not assume that their presence is necessarily a sign of too few troops\u2014any more than the presence of millions of security guards in the United States proves that there are too few police. Private consortia make their own judgments about their security needs, and will always have requirements that cannot be addressed by soldiers alone. The exact aggregate number of American, foreign, and Iraqi civilian contractors is not known; but in some cases, the Pentagon itself has outsourced responsibilities to such private concerns, suggesting that many of these often very well-trained and retired military personnel could be considered part of the overall security apparatus of the coalition occupation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But these arguments, though cogent enough, do not go to the heart of the case against the critics. To put it in a nutshell, although numbers are important, the mere size of a military force is not always commensurate with its ability either to beat an enemy or to keep the peace.<\/span><\/p>\n Alexander the Great, who never led an army numbering more than 50,000 men, defeated hordes five times that size in battle, and consolidated his victories with forces that were likewise vastly outnumbered. Julius Caesar conquered and held much of Western Europe with legions that numbered fewer than 40,000. The British defeated both Cetchewayo and the Great Mahdi with a few thousand redcoats, and held Zululand and the Sudan under control in the aftermath of victory. The British army\u2019s campaign to crush the 1920 Iraqi revolt, undertaken with just a few thousand troops, is now described in pessimistic terms by critics as having taken \u201cthree long months\u201d; the true wonder was both its economy and brevity.<\/span><\/p>\n The story of occupation is much the same as the story of warfare. Rome administered an empire of some 50 million people stretching over a million square miles with rarely more than 250,000 legionaries. India\u2019s many millions were occupied by many fewer than a million of the Queen\u2019s soldiers. After World War II, Italy, Japan, \u00a0Germany, and their territories together represented nearly 200 million occupied peoples; by 1947, the Allied armies exercising control over them amounted to a few hundred thousand. At one time, vast tracts of Sinai, the Golan, and the West Bank were secured by a few thousand Israeli soldiers.<\/span><\/p>\n