Schoomaker, who was plucked from retirement in the middle of last year and promoted to the army’s top job over more senior generals, is one of the White House’s point men in this restructuring of the U.S. armed forces. A former head of Special Operations Forces, he has supported the push by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other officials to forge a military capable of defending and enforcing the interests of U.S. imperialism worldwide.

The radical changes now under way were given extra steam by the successful invasion of Iraq by a U.S. force that was modest in size and equipment compared with the Gulf War armies of a decade earlier.

Among the changes under way are a shift of forces from Western to Eastern Europe and Central Asia; the greater use of elite military units such as the Navy Seals or the Delta Force; and the training of virtually all military personnel as “riflemen.”  
 
Stop-gap measures
Another stopgap measure already in place is the four- to six-month extension of soldiers’ tours of duty. These ongoing “stop-loss” orders, in military jargon, have to date increased the army’s strength to 493,000—13,000 more than the number officially authorized by Congress. The 30,000 extra troops would be on top of this expanded number.

According to the Washington Post, Schoomaker said that the additional troops would be limited to four years, “so the service could sustain deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently more than 130,000 troops, as the Army restructures 10 active-duty divisions and much of its reserve and National Guard forces.”

Schoomaker argued against congressional representatives who had called for permanently increasing the army’s strength by 40,000 troops. Such a proposal, he said, “puts readiness at risk, it puts training at risk, it puts modernization at risk, it puts transformation at risk—and that’s why I’m resisting it.”

U.S. officials explained that the army is stretched by the demands of rotating a complete set of fresh forces into Iraq and Afghanistan this year—a total of 250,000 military personnel. Similar rotations are planned in 2005 and 2006.

Speaking before Congress’s Armed Forces Committee, the army chief described the military’s reorganization as “the biggest internal restructuring we’ve done in 50 years.” He warned that “it must be done to make us relevant and to allow us to meet the real threat to the United States.”

An official told reporters after Schoomaker’s remarks , “One of the advantages of being an Army at war is that war focuses us.”

The U.S. Army’s 10 active-duty divisions—each of which has 10,000 to 18,000 soldiers—will be made more interchangeable, and tailored to operate more closely with air force, naval, and marine corps units, Schoomaker said.

“One example of this,” wrote James Garamone of the American Forces Information Services, “is that divisions will lose their air defense artillery.” With U.S. air supremacy, Garamone added, “It has been years since an American soldier had to worry about being killed by a bomb dropped by an adversary…. Army assets will be concerned mostly with incoming ballistic and cruise missiles.”

Some 39 field artillery and air defense battalions—each involving between 500 and 900 soldiers—will be converted into military police, light infantry, and civil affairs units.

Resources will be shifted from the headquarters of each division, Schoomaker said, down to the commanders of brigades.

“Schoomaker’s restructuring plan calls for an increase in the active-duty combat brigades from 33 to 48, creating more versatile units available for rapid overseas deployment,” reported the Post. “Each new brigade will be more self-sustaining and have more combat power than current brigades, enabling the Defense Department to respond to smaller-scale contingencies by deploying a brigade of 5,000 soldiers, instead of a much larger division.”

Five brigades will be based on the Stryker assault vehicle, a multi-wheeled alternative to the heavier-armed but slower moving tank.  
 
 
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