So said William Butler Yeats, and it seems that war hawks have begun to agree, at least in regards to the outstretched American forces. Thomas Donnelly and Frederick W. Kagan appear in the news today, writing in the Wall Street Journal on the size of the American military. Bush’s plans to expand the Army have been much reported in the past, but the Bush plan–to grow the active Army and Marine Corps from the current 700,000 to about 750,000 in the next five years–has been deemed insufficient by Donnelly and Kagan. For you see, the Long War will go on for a long time, despite the wishes of the American people, and the current military is stretched far too thin to sustain further escalation.

Because the Donnelly and Kagan foreign-policy camp will wield significant influence in a McCain administration, it would be wise for Republicans disconcerted with America’s continually-expanding military presence in the Middle East to pay attention to what Kagan and Co. have to say. They believe America’s military problems should be addressed as follows:

As Mr. Gates recognizes, the first order of business is to expand, restructure and modernize U.S. land forces. Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s program – to grow the active Army and Marine Corps from the current 700,000 to about 750,000 in the next five years – is a Rumsfeld legacy and entirely inadequate. Regardless of the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will need a total active land force of something like one million soldiers and Marines.

Those who believe that the need for such a force size will abate as troops are drawn down in Iraq should consider the larger pattern of American operations over the past generation. Since its creation in 1983, the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for operations in East Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, has demanded an ever-increasing American presence, a presence which has changed from being largely air and maritime to boots on the ground. That’s the war we are in.

These plans, to expand “Regardless of the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,” seem to be a bit of a step in the wrong direction. It is an extreme policy, based on ambitious plans to continue to expand “the war we are in” far beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, where we now find ourselves mired. Anyone who felt reassured by McCain’s predictions about our future military operations should now be sufficiently unsettled.

Even McCain’s plans aren’t hawkish enough for Donnelly and Kagan, but they obviously favor McCain for the White House:

While there is a general bipartisan consensus that America’s land forces are too small, there are big differences among the candidates about the size of the problem. Sen. John McCain, for example, has suggested that the active Army and Marine Corps should be increased to about 900,000. Sen. Barack Obama, by contrast, believes the Bush expansion plan is sufficient.

Is this how conservatives are looking to distance themselves from the Bush war policies, by intending to emphasize “escalation” and “expansion” even more than the President has? They are sure to be in for a rude awakening when they discover that the American people disapprove of war without end not because it has been insufficiently time consuming and costly, but rather because it has gone on far too long and has cost far too much.

Filed under: Iraq, War