Monday, August 24, 2009

More boots on Afghan ground

This was of course inevitable: American commanders (though not overtly Stanley McChrystal himself, the sly boots) want more troops in Afghanistan. Of course they do! As the much-maligned Curtis LeMay once pointed out, you could send a unit to Bermuda with no mission and no duties whatever, and within two months they'll be asking for reinforcements.

More seriously, Afghanistan has 40,000 villages. To put just one squad in each village, like the US Marines' Combined Action Platoons of the Vietnam War, would require 480,000 enlisted warfighters, which I suspect is more than we have in our army and marines combined. Somehow I don't see Sweden and Belgium making up the difference. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

1 Comments:

At 5:50 AM, Blogger Daniel Ford said...

Yes, yes, there are 40 men in a platoon. But a Combined Action Platoon was made up of 12 Marines, about the same number of Vietnamese police, and the balance in local militia. See Bing West, The Village. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

 

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