Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Politics Daily in the US reports that perhaps the reason that Obama is dithering on the McChyrstal request is that not enough troops are available to sustain the Afghan War.

It has this to say:

Here’s what worries the planners: The Army has 44 brigade combat teams (BCTs), its basic deploying unit of between 3,500 and 4,500 soldiers. Of those, 19 brigade combat teams are already committed, including 11 in Iraq and five in Afghanistan. One BCT is stationed in Korea, one trains deploying soldiers at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and one BCT is on strategic alert for potential crises.

There is a relentless and punishing logic to this pace. Maintaining one brigade combat team in the field requires two others on standby. So, for every unit in combat, planners keep a second one in training and a third one in “reset” after a long combat deployment – time when the Army can send its soldiers off for advanced schooling, absorb new replacements, receive new gear. Thus, a total of three BCTs are tied up.

Just to maintain the 16 current brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan is, let’s see, three times 16 is 48 and – oops! We’re already out of BCTs! And here’s the White House blithely batting around numbers like 40,000 more troops. That’s roughly eight BCTs, which do not exist. And you wonder why the open-air courtyard in the middle of the Pentagon is full of colonels striding around waving their arms and muttering to themselves?

This is the same strain that the UK forces have been under for the past 3-4 years and is the cause of much of the problems seen with making more UK troops available in Afghanistan.

New Afghan War Headache: Not Enough Troops Available? — Politics Daily.