MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: DANIEL McKIVERGAN, Deputy Director

SUBJECT: Congress Calls For Larger Military

I wanted to draw your attention to a bi-partisan letter recently sent to President Bush that is cited in a front-page USA Today article, "Push is on for Larger Military: Congress Moves After Years of Downsizing." The letter, which was circulated to colleagues by Reps. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Jim Copper (D-TN) and signed by most members of the House Armed Services Committee, including Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and ranking member Ike Skelton (D-MO), warns that the size of the current force is "predicated upon an early-1990s strategy that did not foresee the tempo of today's operations or the long-term war on terrorism."

The letter urges the President to "take the necessary steps to increase the end strength" of the Armed Forces by adding up to two more Army combat divisions. The letter follows:

November 21, 2003

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We are concerned that our Armed Forces are over-extended and that we are relying too heavily upon members of the Guard and Reserve in the continuing war on terrorism.

You will be making decisions over the coming months that will be reflected in your FY05 budget request to the Congress. We believe that we must significantly increase the number of people on active duty in the military and revise the missions given to the National Guard and Reserve during the up-coming budget year. We encourage you to incorporate proposals to address these challenges in your budget. Making these changes would be met with broad, bipartisan support in the Congress.

The operational tempo required to maintain forward-deployed forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Korea, and elsewhere is unprecedented. Not since the Vietnam War has the U.S. Army had such a large fraction of its active-duty forces deployed.

While we understand that the administration will seek to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq as Iraqi security forces are trained, we must expect that the Iraq deployment will continue at substantial levels for a considerable time. Moreover, the war on terrorism is not a crisis for which the military can surge and then recover. This will be a lengthy war that will define entire careers. We must size and structure our forces to prevail over the long haul.

We are also concerned about the mix of Active, Reserve and Guard units needed to sustain the war on terrorism. We are asking more from our reservist citizen-soldiers than ever before. While they have served admirably, we believe that we need to review and adjust the missions and specialties in the reserve components so that we can protect the homeland and prevail against terrorists without over-reliance on citizen soldiers for long periods of time.

The men and women of our Guard and Reserve can and should be called upon to assist our country in times of crisis on a temporary basis. Many of the units currently serving in Iraq will have served for nearly 15 months, in some cases longer, by the time their tours are finished. When they come home, the nature of this war is such that they know they are quite likely to be called up again sometime in the near future.

Mr. President, every day we read stories about the potential impending loss we could suffer to our Guard and Reserve forces if the current situation is not fixed. The Army Guard is not going to meet its recruitment targets this year. Many of us have served, currently serve or have family and personal friends that serve in the Guard and Reserve. All of us have constituents who serve. Unless these burdens are reduced we may find ourselves in the midst of a recruiting and retention crisis in the reserve components. We need to send a clear message in the coming budget to members of the Guard and Reserve that help is on the way.

Repeated, long-term deployments will clearly take a toll on spouses and children of our men and women in the military here at home. Military service always entails time away from home, but we think that the active services - and particularly the Army - must find a way to better balance the demands of overseas deployments with the needs of troops' families back home. Otherwise, we may face a mid-grade retention problem in the coming years that will be devastating to our forces.

We are particularly concerned about the size of the active duty Army. While we will certainly work with you and your administration, we feel that your budget should include a build up to two more combat divisions so that we can reduce the pressure on the reserve components and sustain the war on terrorism for the long term without losing expertise that will "hollow-out" the Army.

The size of the current Army - and the Army budgets that pay for it - are predicated upon an early-1990s strategy that did not foresee the tempo of today's operations or the long-term war on global terrorism. During the decade of the 1990s, the Army shrank from 18 divisions to 10. The Cold War was over and the war on terrorism had not yet begun. We must now make the decisions needed to structure our forces so that we prevail in this new war that is likely to continue for some time. Increasing the size of the force is no panacea for meeting all of the challenges we face, but we believe it is a critical element of any plan to address the needs of our nation's security.

Mr. President, our military needs help now. We ask that you show strong leadership and take the necessary steps to increase the end strength of our Armed Forces and adjust the mix of active and reserve component forces in the upcoming budget year.

We stand with you ready to confront any and all challenges to our great nation.