ESTIMATING HOW MANY OF THE ARMY’S SOLDIERS ARE DEPLOYED
PROVES TRICKY
By Anne Plummer, Inside the Army, 22 November 2004
How many of the Army’s soldiers are off fighting the nation’s wars? The answer depends largely upon who is asked and which soldiers they count. The Army’s latest estimate holds that approximately 256,300 soldiers are serving in 120 countries. The service maintains a force of slightly more than 1 million soldiers, including those in the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard.
According to independent analysis, however, the service has only 178,300 active-duty and reserve soldiers conducting major military operations around the world. Both estimates include those soldiers securing the border in Korea, performing homeland defense missions within the United States, fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, conducting peacekeeping in the Balkans, securing detainees at Guantanamo Bay, helping enforce a peace treaty on the Sinai Peninsula and working with forces in the Philippines and Honduras.
So what explains the 78,000-soldier difference?
The service estimate includes those soldiers who may -- or may not -- be engaged in combat missions but fall under the category of “forward-stationed” because of their overseas location. Of the 257,300 soldiers estimated by the Army to be serving in 120 countries, nearly half of them -- 110,500 soldiers -- are in the category of forward-stationed. While most of these forward-stationed soldiers are located in Germany and Korea, even those in Alaska and Hawaii are counted separately from their counterparts in the continental United States, according to the Army. The abroad status of these soldiers, along with those situated in U.S. territories, is enough for the Army to include them in the 257,300 total even though, in the deployment rotation pool, they are much like those inside the continental United States.
“The number of forward-stationed soldiers indicates soldiers who are serving at a great distance from their homes, away from the continental United States,” said Lt. Col. Jerry Healy, a spokesman for the Army’s operations and plans office (G-3), which produced the estimate. “For purposes of monitoring costs and potential morale-associated issues, such numbers are helpful,” he added.
In written statements provided to Inside the Army, the G-3 office said last week that 13,000 soldiers are in Afghanistan, 93,000 are in Iraq and 15,000 are in Kuwait. These 121,000 soldiers are cited by the Army as supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command said 140,000 U.S. military personnel -- a figure that includes those from the other services -- are supporting OIF, and 15,000 personnel are supporting OEF. Approximately 17,000 soldiers are deployed as part of Operation Noble Eagle, the military’s homeland security operation; 1,400 soldiers are at Guantanamo Bay; 700 are in the Sinai Peninsula; 800 are in Honduras as part of Joint Task Force-Bravo; 200 are in the Philippines; and 2,500 are in the Balkans. Another 2,200 are listed as “other ops/exercises,” according to the G-3. The Army has another 32,500 soldiers stationed in Korea, according to a spokesman for U.S. Forces Korea.
Add these deployments together, and the Army has 178,300 of its soldiers engaged in what it calls major combat operations. Add the soldiers forward-stationed in places like Europe, the U.S. territories, Alaska and Hawaii, and the Army arrives at 256,300 soldiers “serving” in 120 countries.
Earlier estimates of deployed soldiers produced by the Army were much higher. Until recently, the service has said some 330,000 soldiers were deployed. The estimate was widely quoted by uniformed officers to illustrate the high operational tempo of the force, and lawmakers have used it in heated debates about the appropriate size of the force.
But that figure prompted a phone call to the Army from Charles Knight, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives. Knight was preparing a briefing on whether the Army was stretched too thin and was trying to cross-check some of the numbers then listed on various Army Web sites. Using what Knight called a “napkin-back” estimate, he thought 250,000 sounded closer to the correct number of deployed soldiers -- to include forward-deployed soldiers.
Knight contacted the Army and, on Oct. 18, received a response saying the “latest number” was 269,000. A public Army Web page (www.army.mil/operations) that Knight had used for reference eventually was changed to note that approximately “272,000 soldiers are serving in 120 countries.”
According to Knight, the Web site had previously stated that 330,000 soldiers were “deployed overseas in 120 countries” (Inside the Army, Nov. 15, p12). The new figures, however, still didn’t quite add up. In a Nov. 12 statement provided to ITA, the Army stated that 126,000 soldiers were forward-stationed. The estimate included those in Korea, as well as the 62,000 soldiers in Europe. Approximately 15,500 of the Army troops stationed in Europe, however, had been deployed to Iraq, said Elke Herberger, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Europe. Another 200 of USAREUR’s soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan, Herberger said.
It appears those soldiers were being counted twice -- both as forward-stationed and deployed in Iraq. After being questioned on this point by Inside the Army, the service reduced by 15,500 its estimate of 126,000 forward-stationed soldiers. The Army’s estimate of 271,800 soldiers serving in 120 countries fell to 256,300. The Army maintained, however, that the 121,000-soldier estimate of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was accurate.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Rodney said the Army’s estimate of 330,000 soldiers was calculated in 2003, when the second rotation of troops were being sent into Iraq. “There was a temporary increase in the total number of deployed soldiers due to the transition of forces in the OIF1 and OIF2 rotations,” he said Nov. 19.
Although the number is unlikely to go that high again because the Army is now staggering its rotations, the estimate will continue to fluctuate as the service continues to rotate troops, Rodney said. Counting soldiers likely will become tougher as the Army continues to draw down forces abroad under a new basing strategy that will pull soldiers out of Korea and Germany.
The Army’s presence in Korea, for example, was 37,500 soldiers until recently, when 5,000 of those soldiers were sent to Iraq. That recent deployment means the Army would have to ensure the 5,000-personnel brigade combat team sent from Korea to Iraq is counted as part of the OIF force and not as among the 110,500 forward-stationed soldiers.
While several lawmakers and defense officials continue to debate end strength and other Army issues using an estimate off by at least 70,000 soldiers, the miscalculation is unlikely to alter the course of debate on whether the service needs more end strength: Both sides agree that there are not enough soldiers available for combat tours in Iraq and other hotspots.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who oppose a permanent end strength boost, say the size of the force isn’t the problem. The officials contend that the more than 1 million soldiers in the force need to be reorganized because too many of them are not trained and equipped for the types of missions needed in theater.
Meanwhile, advocates of a bigger Army say it remains unclear whether the new organizational plan will translate into a more potent force. And they maintain that the force needs immediate relief.
According to Knight, though, everyone should be reading from the same page. “The fact that official sources are producing mistaken information is disturbing,” Knight wrote in a Nov. 10 statement issued by the Project on Defense Alternatives. “It is more so that the misinformation is quickly picked up and repeated in the press.”
© 2004 Inside Washington Publishers
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ARMY SAYS ONLY 272,000 TROOPS -- NOT 330,000 -- ARE ‘SERVING’ IN
120 COUNTRIES
by Anne Plummer, Inside the Army, 15 November 2004
The Army recently dropped its widely quoted claim that 333,000 soldiers are deployed in 120 countries after a defense analyst notified the service that the figures didn’t add up.
The new assertion is that only 272,000 soldiers are “serving” in 120 countries. Its appearance on a public Web site calls into question how the service arrived at the 333,000 figure in the first place, and whether it miscounted -- or, as the defense analyst suggests, whether the Army redeployed or simply “misplaced” some 61,000 soldiers in recent weeks.
More likely, said Charles Knight, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives in Cambridge, MA, the Army is still miscounting. “They certainly haven’t told me where they made the error,” he told Inside the Army last week. Knight said he discovered the error a few weeks ago when trying to prepare a briefing on whether the Army is stretched too thin.
The issue of the service’s congressionally mandated size, or “end strength,” has been hotly debated since the war in Iraq began in spring 2003. Knight said he was trying to calculate the number of active-duty soldiers deployed overseas when he discovered apparent “accounting anomalies,” including some published on a public Army Web site (www.army.mil/operations). Until recently, the Web site stated that 333,000 soldiers were “deployed overseas” in 120 countries, according to Knight. But when he clicked on individual icons on a map representing various overseas deployments, including the war in Iraq, the total came to only 172,500, with another 3,000 personnel listed as deployed in “other operations/exercises around the globe.” Another 17,000 personnel were deployed inside the United States in support of homeland defense, according to the site.
Knight estimated that even if the Army counted those troops deployed inside the United States at training ranges or assigned to homeland defense missions, as well as those permanently stationed in Europe, the total still would have been far from the 330,000 figure widely quoted in the press and by senior Army officials. Knight said he contacted the Army about the apparent discrepancies and, on Oct. 18, received a response saying the “latest number” was 269,000. The Web page eventually was changed to note that approximately “272,000 soldiers are serving in 120 countries.”
“Since there are soldiers serving in 120 countries, and since we list just the major operations, the numbers will never add up,” the Army told Knight, according to a Nov. 10 statement issued by the Project on Defense Alternatives. Knight says the Army also said some of the locations will not be reported because of security concerns. Even so, Knight says the Army’s move to lower the number raises questions about how the Army is informing the public -- and whether the revised figures are correct.
“The fact that official sources are producing mistaken information is disturbing,” Knight says in the Nov. 10 statement. “It is more so that the misinformation is quickly picked up and repeated in the press.”
As of Nov. 11, the Army Web site maintained that 187,600 troops are deployed in support of the major operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; Operation Noble Eagle, homeland defense missions; detainee operations at Guantanamo Bay; peacekeeping in the Balkans; operations in Korea; and the Multinational Force and Observers Mission in the Sinai Peninsula.
But if 272,000 are serving, where are the remaining 84,400 soldiers? Some of them could be deployed at Army training ranges like the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk, LA. Also, the Army’s use of the more general term “serving” -- as opposed to “deployed” -- seems to indicate the total figure includes personnel stationed in Europe. Unlike soldiers in South Korea, who are assigned the task of protecting the country from an attack from the north, soldiers in Europe are not typically regarded as supporting a combat mission; rather, they are considered “forward deployed” because of their overseas location.
In a statement provided Nov. 12 to Inside the Army, a service spokesman confirmed that the 272,000 serving soldiers include 126,000 troops “forward stationed,” primarily in Korea and Europe. He did not say how the Army arrived at the earlier 330,000 figure.
© 2004 Inside Washington Publishers