An Open Letter

Dear Peter Beinart, et al.,

In response to your letter posted in the Weekly Standard on Jan. 28, 2005, I would like to publicly disagree with your proposal to increase the size of the Army and Marines over the next couple of years.

First of all, and most importantly is the question of where the military will get these new recruits. While the Army has not met a problem with recruiting since 9/11, the fact that army reserves are now not reaching their recruitment goals suggests that the pool of candidates for the Army is now growing thinner. It is hard to believe that the Army will be able to magically recruit 25,000 more soldiers over the next few years without needing to resort to either a draft or even more costly recruiting bonuses and entitlements.

Your letter also glibly suggests that the size of the current armed forces is too small to meet current obligations gives no creedence to the fact that the Armed Services might be used in an inefficient manner. Do we really need troops stationed in Europe now that the Cold War is over? Or in South Korea? Or in a democratic Iraq? The fact that you ignore the fact that future obligations could change and require troop deployments in different areas of the globe shows that you have not considered all possiblities and then decided that increasing troop strength is the best solution.

Another possible solution to keeping global peace would be to include other countries in these missions. Rather than keeping the burden entirely on the United States for a global threat, the United States would be served to have other nations of the world assist us in these missions. That is if the threats are truely global. If they are not truely global, would a better use of our time, money and resources be to instead focus on increasing security within the United States? This can be done by giving more resources to the Coast Guard, Border Patrol and the National Guard. However, these underfunded departments of the goverment do not receive the same treatment that is given to the armed services. Perhaps that would be a more effective way of keeping the nation safe.

In all, perhaps an examination as a whole of what the United States' current foreign policy should be is in order before we make a committment of 100,000 soldiers to the defense of the United States. Are the use of soldiers in humanitarian/peacekeeping roles really the best use of our troops? Can we try and create allies that also have the same interests in keeping the world safe and free and are willing to commit troops to that end? These are questions that go unexamined in your letter and should be resolved before we put any more American soldiers at risk.

Respectfully yours,
Michael Hansen
U.S. Citizen