Defense Secretary Robert Gates has approved a temporary increase in the size of the Army — a three-year, 22,000-soldier boost designed to provide relief to a service stressed from fighting two wars — and promised to finance a $1.1 billion down payment on this end-strength increase by cutting existing programs from the fiscal years 2009 and 2010 budgets.

The end-strength increase — which would not be used to form new combat units but to provide a pool of soldiers to support planned combat rotations and would bring the total size of the Army to 569,000 — would be paid for in part by identifying offsets in programs that are currently planned, Gates told reporters at the Pentagon today.

[reported in Inside Defense, 20 July 2009]

Gates said the temporary increase will cost about $100 million for the remaining months of this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and about $1 billion in fiscal 2010. However, he offered no cost estimates for fiscal 2011 or 2012. Higher costs will likely be reflected in subsequent budget requests to Congress.

[reported in The Hill, 20 July 2009]

AFP, 15 July 2009.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is weighing a possible temporary expansion of the US army to ease the strain from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, his press secretary said on Wednesday. Gates was discussing the idea, backed by Senator Joseph Lieberman, with senior officers to add 30,000 troops to the active-duty army, press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

The possible expansion from the current strength of 547,400 would be designed “to get them through what is still a stressful period as we draw down in Iraq and continue to plus-up in Afghanistan,” Morrell said. “So he is engaged in discussions with a number of people about that possibility,” he added. Any expansion would be temporary but would carry a significant price tag, possibly more than a billion dollars, army officials said.

General Peter Chiarelli, the army’s vice chief of staff, has told lawmakers that at any given time about 30,000 Army troops in the current force are not available to deploy to combat missions. About 10,000 army personnel are wounded and receiving medical care, another 10,000 are in training programs and the remainder have been ordered to serve the Defense Department or other agencies and cannot be pulled from their duties.

Amy Belasco, Congressional Research Service, 2 July 2009 (printable .pdf file).

U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Release, 23 June 2009.

Greg Grant. DoD Buzz, 2 June 2009

Archives of 14,000 documents and articles on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan compiled by the Project on Defense Alternatives. This site was begun in 2002 and has been archived as of 31 March 2009. Subsequent articles and documents on Afghanistan and Iraq are included in the Defense Strategy Review page.

http://www.comw.org/warreport/

Afghanistan Index by topic (2002-April 2009) — http://www.comw.org/warreport/#toc2

Iraq Index by topic (2002-April 2009) — http://www.comw.org/warreport/#toc1

Lolita C. Baldor, AP, 19 February 2009.

Stephen D. Biddle and Jeffrey A. Friedman. Strategic Studies Institute Monograph, Army War College, 25 September 2008. Posted on the Commonwealth Institute Website (printable .pdf file).

U.S. Army, 2008. Posted on the Commonwealth Institute Website (printable .pdf file).

Frank G. Hoffman and Steven Metz, Policy Analysis Brief, The Stanely Foundation,
September 2007. Posted on the Commonwealth Institute Website (printable .pdf file).

Charles Knight. Project on Defense Alternatives Commentary, July 2007.

excerpt:

It is my best guess that we won’t see an Army/Marine Corps invasion of Iran or Pakistan or North Korea. If the ‘new center’ in Washington was seriously considering interventions abroad that might require deploying up to 3 million troops, they would need to start providing basic training to a significant portion of Americans between the ages of 18 and 28 — and that, of course, means conscription.

Michèle A. Flournoy and Tammy S. Schultz, Center for New American Security, June 2007. Posted on the Commonwealth Institute Website (printable .pdf file).

Carl Conetta. Project on Defense Alternatives, 31 January 2007.

U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, 15 December 2006

Stephen Biddle. Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College, November 2002.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/afghan.pdf