Bush has vowed to increase our military
When Bush first started to talk about increasing the size of the US Military he did it it in the context of Iraq, linking it to the idea of the surge - otherwise known as the "McCain Doctrine":

George Bush says he wants to increase the size of the US military - currently the second largest in the world - to allow America to take on a "long struggle against radicals and extremists".

Speaking at an end-of-year press conference, Mr Bush said he was "inclined to believe" a permanent increase in the size of US forces was necessary. Previously he indicated he wished to boost the Army and Marine Corps.

On the option of sending more troops to Iraq in the short term, he said: "I haven't made up my mind yet about more troops. We're looking at all options, and one of those options, of course, is increasing more troops, but in order to do so there must be a specific mission that can be accomplished."

Of course King George made up his mind pretty quick; the escalation in Iraq happened despite overwhelming public disapproval and little real Congressional opposition. And now it seems doubtful that the so-called surge will end until Bush is out of office. So much for that "specific mission". And Bush's plans to increase the miltary have continued as well - even with the recognition that this troops won't be ready for Iraq and even after abandoning the Pentagon's policy on length of service for reservists.

The Pentagon also announced it is proposing to Congress that the size of the Army be increased by 65,000, to 547,000 and that the Marine Corps, the smallest of the services, grow by 27,000, to 202,000, over the next five years. No cost estimate was provided, but officials said it would be at least several billion dollars.

So Bush wants to add 92,000 troops. Is that a good thing? Well abstractly it might be as long as we avoid asking why. There are some real problems and a lot of people are wondering what these troops will be used for:

From the Boston Globe:

Despite broad political support for President Bush's plan to expand US ground forces by 92,000 troops, a growing number of military strategists and defense specialists are questioning the need for so many more conventional combat forces.

They say the additional troops will not be available in time to relieve the strain on the Army and Marines from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there has been virtually no discussion in Washington on the purpose for the largest military expansion since the end of the Cold War.

The specialists, who represent a diverse set of viewpoints, fundamentally question whether maintaining a larger standing military -- 547,000 active-duty Army soldiers and 202,000 Marines once the new troops are added -- is the most effective way to fight smaller but lethally innovative groups of Islamic terrorists and other less traditional security threats.

"The global war on terrorism and Iraq are being used as lame rationales for enlarging the military", said retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman, a researcher at the Marine Corps Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities in Quantico, Va. "Unless you think we will have more than six brigades in Iraq in 2012, I don't see how this is relevant."

Even the Washington Post weighed in as well:

This proposal is a bad idea. It is irrelevant to the stresses the Army is experiencing in Iraq. It would build enormous long-term costs into the defense budget, and it presumes a role in the world for the U.S. military that the voters emphatically opposed in November.

And of course as the Globe mentions this all comes with a price tag - spending more money we don't have while we keep giving tax breaks to the richest 1% of Americans who don't need them. More debt on the backs of America's working poor and middle class:

Nonetheless, the president's call to increase the Army and Marine Corps by nearly 15 percent over the next five years -- at an initial cost of nearly $100 billion and at least $15 billion per year thereafter -- has received nearly universal support in a Congress dominated by Democrats.

Say it ain't so! Unfortunately its sad but true; Democrats have been lining up to agree with Bush. Can't be seen as weak, the horror! But more on that below. The Post goes into more detail on why this is such a bad idea - no mission. Its certainly not Iraq:

First, deciding to add to the Army today would do nothing to deal with the stress of Iraq. The hype about our Army is true: Our troops are the world's best. And it takes time to make them so. The lag time for recruitment, training and deployment means that new forces would be available far too late to ease the stresses now facing the Army in Iraq. Even on a fast track, it might be as long as five years before an additional combat-ready brigade would be ready to deploy there

So what is their mission and when are we going to talk about it? The Post continues:

If this is about invading Iran, or carrying out a land war in China, as The Post has suggested, then maybe we need to have a national debate about that strategy, not slip it in sideways by expanding the Army without agreeing on the mission. The experience of Iraq has clearly dulled America's appetite for continuing in the role of designated global occupier and nation-builder.

I guess the Post doesn't want seconds on that meal. The Post also points out one of the big lessons of Iraq that Bush and many in Congress, including even many who voted agaisnt the war, still don't seem to get:

Terrorism is not a political movement so much as a logical weapon of choice for political extremists facing a superpower. There will always be a military component to meeting this threat. But as administration spokesmen have testified, the primary role in this "long war" may well belong not to the military but to the State Department, foreign assistance agencies, and the Treasury and Justice departments, supported by the appropriate application of force (usually in small numbers and with Special Forces troops, not Army brigades). The Army does not need to grow to perform this mission; it needs to refocus.

The question the new Congress must deal with is one not of enlarging the Army but of redefining the armed forces' mission in today's world. Do we want an Army big enough to invade and occupy Iran or Syria? Or do we want a tailored, restructured force designed to play its role in the pursuit of terrorist organizations (along with other tools of statecraft) and with enough heft to play a part in peacekeeping operations, deter potential adversaries and decisively win intense but brief conventional conflicts? This strategic alternative is hardly an endorsement of the "Rumsfeld doctrine." The U.S. military as currently sized can still "go heavy" when needed. What it can't do is remain indefinitely bogged down in a static mission with inadequate body armor and no strategy.

So what exactly do we need more troops for? Terrorism? Seems like we've already learned that more troops isn't the answer. Iraq? They won't get there in time, and we should be getting out, not putting more troops in. Iran or Syria? No thanks. Been there, done that. Or more precisely we haven't done that very well at all. For some unforseeable future need? That isn't a mission. This is just the kind of Orwellian thinking we need to move away from.

As Gordon Adams notes (who also co-authored the WaPo Op Ed):

The case for force expansion has not been made.  For some supporters, growing the ground forces smacks of seizing the moment because the Congress looks willing to spend the money, regardless of the rationale.  For others, it looks like political safety - rather than tell the American public how we should engage the world and what the role of the military should be in that engagement, let's just grow the military and we'll look "tough on defense."

 

Where do our presidential candidates stand?
So given that Bush is asking for almost 100,000 more troops that its very unclear we need or even what they would be used for, and given the Pentagon's questionable recruiting tactics (see here, here, here, and here) and obvious disinterest among Americans to join or even stay, where do our presidential candidates stand?

With all of the discussion on foreign policy lately and attempts to show how Democrats are making the case for a new direction, we would expect a wholesale rejection of a costly expansion without a purpose, but unfortunately that's not the case, at least not among two of the frontrunners.

It ain't a pretty picture folks:

What do Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Bill Richardson, and Gen. Pete Schoomaker, among others, have in common?  They all think the U.S. military is on the verge of breaking and the solution is to make it bigger.  Yet, none of them have told us why it should grow.  Every one of them has put the expansion cart ahead of the strategic horse.

Hillary Clinton wants more troops

The lastest info is that she is supporing Bush's increase in troops and making it her own. According to The Hill, she is joining Lieberman and others in calling for more troops:

A team of Senate and House Democrats today are planning to introduce legislation today aimed at significantly increasing size of  the U.S. Army.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services (SASC) airland subcommittee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a SASC member, and Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), both members of the House Armed Services committee, are pressing for the passage of the United States Army Relief Act.

This is really a reintroduction of the United States Army Relief Act she introduced with Lieberman in 2005. As Senator Leiberman announced with a press release, with the strong support of the DLC's Third Way:

Today, I am pleased to join with Senators Hillary Clinton, and Jack Reed, and Representatives Ellen Tauscher and Mark Udall to introduce the United States Army Relief Act of 2005.

snip

What brings us together today is a shared conclusion that the United States Army is facing a crisis. It is not a crisis of quality, bravery or commitment. The men and women in today's Army are as good as any who have ever worn the uniform.

The crisis is that there are not enough of them in today's army.

and why do Clinton and Lieberman want more troops you might ask? Well mainly to support Iraq, Afghanistan and the surge:

We believe that the current pace of troop deployments to Iraq requires too much of the men and women of our Army. Too many of them have been sent there too often and stayed too long and that has had an undesirable affect on their families, their communities, and the capacity of the Army to meet recruitment goals.

We believe that greater Army end strength will give our war fighting commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq the capability they need to surge the number of troops on the ground there if facts on the ground require that.

We are concerned that if other crises occur elsewhere in the world in the years ahead we won't have the appropriately sized Army trained and ready to go there to deal with these other crises.

Unfortunately as Wa Po pointed out these new troops won't help Iraq, Afghanistan or the "surge" unless Clinton, Leiberman, and the others are planning on being in Iraq a long long time. So maybe its for some future wars that we just don't know about yet? Beats me. And frigtens me.

Obama wants more troops
And while Obama has recently been trying to distinquish himself on foreign policy in regards to Clinton, he isn't any better on this. In fact he's much more explicit in Foreign Affairs:

We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines.

But he never really says convincingly why. And interestingly enough the numbers are exactly the same as what Bush, Gates and their Pentagon proxies have been asking for. Obama must have faith in what the Pentagon is preaching - do you? He does say this in the preceeding paragraph:

We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.

But what does that mean given the fact that these troops are for a post-Iraq military? Why does rebuilding a breaking military have to equate to a troop increase? It doesn't make much sense and while he promises that the mission WILL be defined clearly:

As commander in chief, I would also use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm's way, I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders, objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.

he doesn't say why they are needed NOW with a mission undefined, although whenver that mission does come he certainly won't hesitate to use them (unilaterally if necessary). We deserve a lot more than that. Ironically unlike Clinton, Obama has received quite a bit of criticism on this - including from a European perspective:

The US needs a bigger, better army - to use it

His whole text is about the use of military tools. He criticizes Bush for focusing too much on military solutions, but that's all he discusses. How to make the US military bigger, stronger, more effective, and how to use it all around the world.

Jerome a Paris also points out that conservatives are doing a happy neo-con jig over all this. And its a good example of what all this looks like around the world.

And right on cue, in the same Foreign Affairs journal, Mitt Romney agrees wholeheartedly with Obama:

First, we need to increase our investment in national defense. This means adding at least 100,000 troops and making a long-overdue investment in equipment, armament, weapons systems, and strategic defense.

Eerie isn't it?

And where does John Edwards stand?
John Edwards was once where Clinton, Obama, Romney and Bush are now. But unlike them, he thinks that the Commander in Chief should be asking some tough questions about why we need almost 100,000 new troops. Edwards doesn't see the reasoning in increasing troops and wants to make getting out of Iraq a priority instead. Especially since as WaPo mentions leaving Iraq already serves as an increase:

A program of troop reductions and phased redeployment from Iraq would in effect increase the size of the Army by relieving the force of a burdensome, costly and unproductive mission. There will be opportunities to retrain and reequip to redress the shortcomings in armor and tactics so neglected by the Rumsfeld Pentagon.

John Edwards laid out his take on this in a foreign policy speech before the Council on Foreign Relations. Edwards gets it - proposals to increase the military without an understanding of the reasons why is a political numbers game:

The problem of our force structure is not best dealt with by a numbers game. It is tempting for politicians to try and "out-bid" each other on the number of troops they would add. Some politicians have fallen right in line behind President Bush's recent proposal to add 92,000 troops between now and 2012, with little rationale given for exactly why we need this many troops -- particularly with a likely withdrawal from Iraq.

and he understands that this idea is just more of the same bait and hook, and certainly won't help with Iraq:

The numbers game only gets us into the same problems as the president's approach. We must be more thoughtful about what the troops will actually be used for. Any troops we add today would take a number of years to recruit and train, and so will not help us today in Iraq.

He recognizes that there MAY indeed be legitimate reasons for increasing our military:

We might need a substantial increase of troops in the Army, Marine Corps, and Special Forces for four reasons: to rebuild from Iraq; to bolster deterrence; to decrease our heavy reliance on Guard and Reserve members in military operations; and to deploy in Afghanistan and any other trouble spots that could develop.

But none of these reasons take into account our withdrawing from Iraq:

While such proposals are worth close examination, they do not take into account our withdrawal from Iraq -- which I believe must occur in about a year. We need to avoid throwing numbers around for political benefit and instead take a broader view. As president, I will carefully assess the post-Iraq threat environment and consult with military commanders to determine the exact number of troops we need and where.

In other words, he isn't just going to throw a number out there, see if it sticks, and hope we can develop a rationale for it later. Why is he going against the grain? Not sure, maybe because he is actually listening to honest advice or maybe he has a new direction for foreign policy. I don't really know. But I like it and I'm damn glad someone's saying it.

To learn more about Edwards' foreign policy: Video and text of CFR speech, Iraq, Iran, Global Poverty, Military, Homeland Security, Terrorism, Darfur and Uganda