Growing the Army
Administration proposals for end-strength increases for the Army and Marine Corps were welcome, if overdue, news for a force that is at its smallest size since the mid-1990s and that is...
Create a U.S. foreign legion
America is a land of immigrants. Their spirit of resolve, adventure, hard work and devotion to an idea bigger than themselves has made this country great. Whatever one thinks of the...
BY MAX BOOT AND MICHAEL O’HANLON
We should defend ourselves
Between an already shrunken military, the requirements of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, the public’s perception that the war in Iraq is not going well and a healthy domestic economy,...
By Seth Cropsey
Gray Lady in winter
A recurring theme in this column is the relationship between the blogosphere and the mainstream media, one that could be politely described as “strained.” To put a finer point on...
BY CHRISTOPHER GRIFFIN
Iraq’s new drill
Change is coming for U.S. policy on Iraq. We have a new Congress committed to change. The American people have signaled that there must be change; it’s not clear what kind of change...
By LT. COL. TERENCE J. DALY (RET.)
Strategic invisibility
No strategic arena is so readily ignored or, arguably, as little understood by the U.S. government as Latin America. Yet, no state is more vital to our security, economy and contemporary...
By Ralph Peters
Eyes wide shut
Many military professionals and politicians have come to believe that the threats facing the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan are distinctly different than the threat that the Army is...
By Capt. James G. Alden
Pacific arms race
The conclusion of a second memorandum of understanding on the Joint Strike Fighter in December opened the door for the JSF to progress from being a paper airplane to an aircraft in...
By Christopher Griffin
Transformation reality check
With the Iraq operation failing, his battle plan for that conflict widely discredited and even Afghanistan looking like a partial success at best, Donald Rumsfeld’s vision for...
By Michael O’Hanlon
Spending greenbacks to entice Leathernecks
The Marine Corps admits it’s going to take more than a poster campaign to meet its goal of growing its end strength from just under 180,000 leathernecks to 202,000 over the next five...
BY KAREN WALKER
The right-sized Army
The number of soldiers in the U.S. Army, both active and reserve, will continue to be a critical determinant of America’s ability to win future wars and, above all, the peaces that...
BY TOM DONNELLY, FREDERICK KAGAN AND GARY SCHMITT
IN READING THE ARTICLE BY RALPH PETERS, “Progress and peril” [February], one is struck by the infantile approach we as a culture are making to the global war on terrorism. We...
In 1971, then Army Col. Robert D. Heinl Jr. penned what remains today one of the most famous articles published in Armed Forces Journal’s 144-year history. “The collapse of the...
More infantry
With the chief of staff of the Army and the commandant of the Marine Corps publicly calling for more troops, here is a solution that sources those troops from within current Defense...