CBO: Troop shift Costly, unnecessary

[papau]

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5415&sequence=0

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5415&sequence=1&from=0

ftp://ftp.cbo.gov/54xx/doc5415/05-03-ArmyOBasing.pdf

CBO: Troop shift Costly, unnecessary

CBO's analysis points to several conclusions:

Because the United States has invested heavily over the past 50 years in base infrastructure for its troops stationed overseas, any major shifting of forces--either between overseas locations or to the United States--would require significant spending to provide that infrastructure somewhere else.


There would be limited annual savings to offset the large initial investment needed to restation U.S. forces, unless U.S. presence overseas was greatly reduced. In that case, annual savings could exceed $1 billion, but the net up-front investment would be substantial--on the order of $7 billion.


Restationing Army forces would produce, at best, only small improvements in the United States' ability to respond to far-flung conflicts. The reason is that deploying Army units to many potential trouble spots from the likely locations of new bases would not be significantly faster than deploying them from current bases.


Bringing forces that are permanently stationed in Europe and South Korea back to the continental United States (CONUS) and maintaining a presence in those regions through unit rotations would reduce the need for infrastructure overseas. It would also reduce instability in Army units by lessening the extent to which soldiers come and go, thus potentially enhancing unit cohesion. But maintaining the current level of overseas presence with unit rotations would limit the forces available for other operations--including the occupation of Iraq--and could hurt retention in the Army by increasing family separation.


If large numbers of forces were relocated from overseas, the need for additional basing in CONUS for tens of thousands of personnel could preclude some of the closings that might otherwise occur as part of the 2005 round of base realignments and closures (BRAC).

[indepat]

1. Troop shift is necessary to enhance Halliburton's bottom line

[Pegleg Thd]

2. If bushit and rummy want to do it

it is the WRONG thing to do!!!!

[wurzel]

3. Bush can claim "I brought troops home". Without saying where from!

The press will make sure that this deception works.

[wuushew]

4. Please explain why we need to maintain current force levels?

Our military is tank,artillery, and other expensive toy heavy. We need to transition to a light and mobile force trained at peacekeeping. Their are no rogue states that we "need" to fight. Israel can defend itself as can the ROK. The 21st century will feature more internal strife in conflicts, the era of expansionist nationalism by nations is over.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. This troop-shifting sounds more and more like the re-arrangement

of deck chairs on the Titanic.


:evilgrin:

[Enrico]

6. Could this be a tactic?

Could this be a legitimate tactic to spread to more strategic
areas of the world? Just because Bush said it doesn't
necessarily mean it's wrong. (Although it usually is)