A Military Goal for the Pentagon

As an over-arching plan for the U.S. - a governing principle and operational concept -the military for years touted its "2 and a half wars" thesis as primary.

This was actually rarely possible. But it is quite true that the US can afford a massive, incredibly strong military. In the next century our goal should be to establish a new model - not based on vague quantities of "wars" but rather on the real world saturation point required for security.

The Iraq War topped out at 225,000 troops and was quickly reduced to a 120,000 in the aftermath. Security and a host of other issues would have been easier to deal with had the saturation point been maintained. I would argue that the U.S. should make every effort to utterly and completely overwhelm an opponent. Not stupidly, not suddenly land troops in hostile zones to be slaughtered. All preliminary work, bombing, UAV's, communication eliminations and so forth would all remain textbook. But the advance of troops should be swift, astonishingly organized, and irrevocably total.

In short, a U.S. invasion and occupation model:

• Massive air and intelligence support.
  
• 250,000 troops landed, fortified, and supplied in country in 48 hours from Presidential Order.
  
• 100,000 active duty reserves on standby for deployment within 24 hrs.
  
• Assumed occupation of 2 years.
  
• Massive food, medicine, and supplies to occupied territory.
  

This model as rule would create new industries, new contracts awarded on swiftness and rapid response, and force the Pentagon to become very, very good at establishing security and democratic institutions in country. The American public would also come to learn and expect such actions and respect the "completeness" of the plan.

Cons:

• Extraordinary expense.
  
• Higher casulties.
  
• Defense contractors retooling needs.
  

It is still the way to fight and win wars. Once and for all.