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Smothering Brushfires. By the end of the year, the Army will have increased from 856,000 to 1,080,000 men. Three Stateside training divisions are being elevated to combat readiness. Two National Guard divisions—the 32nd Infantry from Wisconsin and the 49th Armored from Texas—have been called up, and two more are on alert status. A total of 40,000 men will flesh out the five divisions and supporting units of the Seventh Army, which may also be reinforced by the 4th Infantry and the 2nd Armored by December. In all, the buildup this year will increase the number of Army combat divisions from 41 to 16.
The minimum aim of the Army is to be able to fight two limited wars simultaneously in such distant corners of the world as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Each of these wars would be fought by a corps of two or three divisions. Even now, the U.S. can drop a battle group (1,800 men) of the combat-ready, U.S.-based xoist Airborne Division into action some 8,500 miles away in 80 hours, put the rest of the division on the line in two weeks. Under present plans, reinforcing divisions would travel by sea; the standard infantry division has far too much heavy equipment to be airlifted.
Another Layer. The Kennedy Administration's defense policies plainly put a life-or-death premium on Army abilities. Just how good is that Army? How ready is it to meet the critical responsibilities assigned to it?
Judged on the Washington level, there seem to be several flaws. "Attacking the Army's problems is like uncovering Troy," says one Army officer. "You always find another layer." Says a top Defense Department official: "I look at the whole mess more in sorrow than in anger." In part, the Army's troubles stem from the Eisenhower Administration's "new look" decision to get a bigger bang for a buck by curtailing the weapons of conventional war and concentrating on the massive nuclear deterrent. From a peak strength of 1,668,579 men and a budget of $21.6 billion during the Korean war, the Army slumped in peacetime to 856,000 men and $9.5 billion in 1961.
But Army leadership also was to blame, as it groped for a new mission in the age of the missile and the atom. With what money it had, the Army joined the interservice scramble for space, developed the Jupiter-C that launched the first satellite in 1958. Army Research and Development spent millions perfecting the intermediate-range, nuclear-tipped Jupiter missile (no kin to Jupiter-C), only to have it taken away by the Department of Defense and given to the Air Force. Other sorely needed Army funds were spent on such Buck Rogers gimmicks as the one-man helicopter and backpack rockets that would turn an infantryman into a flyboy capable of clearing a building.