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Weigh force increase

The House and Senate are on the verge of approving a temporary increase in Army troop strength — but the help might come too late and evaporate too fast to make much difference.

The measures would let the Army add 30,000 soldiers in 2011 and 2012, easing dwell time and deployment stress at a time when the service is struggling to meet commitments abroad because about the same number of troops are currently nondeployable, either because of injuries, legal woes or other troubles.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey has said he’d welcome some temporary relief. But he’s also indicated the most critical period is the next 18 months.

During this period, the Army is mounting a troop surge in Afghanistan and anticipating a drawdown in Iraq. But the plus-up in Afghanistan is going faster than the drawdown in Iraq, and any delay in bringing troops home will only add stress to the force.

Paying for the extra troops will also be a problem. The Senate has indicated the Army will have to come up with the funding itself, which means raiding funds earmarked for training, weapons modernization and more. In effect, the Army is being asked to borrow from its safety tomorrow to pay for its comfort today.

A temporary increase may ease deployment strain in some units, however, and is at least worth a look — but not without extreme care and due diligence.

What Congress authorizes as temporary often has a way of becoming permanent. Casey’s predecessor, Gen. Pete Schoomaker, asked for a temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers way back in 2004. But that increase is essential to the Army’s present force structure and its commitment to having 45 brigade combat teams. And the service appears to have given up on Schoomaker’s intent to field 48 BCTs, canceling the last three of these because officials couldn’t find the manpower to support them.

Jacking the Army’s manning up and down every few years is not the answer to the service’s problems. The residual effects on bottled-up promotions and, potentially, forced reductions in manpower at the end of the cycle could be far more painful than the short-term squeeze they’re designed to fix.