Quote:
Originally Posted by waiting4something
We use combat soldiers like cops and then we act like we are shocked at the outcome. Civilians will always get killed in wars, they always have. For some reason it is viewed worse if you shoot them with a rifle, instead of dropping bombs on them.
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This is why I advocate two distinct field forces: an Army that kills folks and breaks things and an Army that handles peacekeeping, nation-building, etc. The soldiers who sign up for killing folks and breaking things should be kept doiing that and nothing else.
The Regular Army should handle the first job, for which they have the time and resources to train. Obviously, MP units from the Regular Army can be used in the peacekeeping role; but the combat arms of the Regular Army are attack dogs to be let off the leash only when we mean for them to take someone's arm off.
The National Guard should handle the second category of jobs: peacekeeping, nation-building, policing, etc. Temperamentally, the Guardsmen are better suited for not shooting people. The Guard generally have other jobs on the outside. Collectively, the Guard understands the situation in which the local nationals find themselves far better than the Regular Army. It's not that the Regular Army is full of bad people or unimaginative people. Maturity and life experience count for something, though. A Guardsman who runs his own business at home is going to understand the plight of the local shopkeeper better than a Regular Army rifleman who has been in the service since the day he graduated high school. Understanding the situation of the locals is the cornerstone of good policing, which is what OIF2 through the end were mostly about.
Of course, one can't do without the Regular Army. Every peacekeeping brigade needs to have at least a company of killers and breakers. In places where the peacekeeping effort borders on LIC, a given brigade might be mostly Regulars with peacekeepers attached. Overall, though, peacekeeping ought to be done by the older, part-time soldiers.
This means a much larger National Guard and Army Reserve, though. We can't have reservists called up for years at a time without a crisis on the scale of WW2. How we get a reserve force 2-3 times its current size is a matter for some consideration.