Military might tested, after the battles

To compensate, Army troops from Germany and marines from Okinawa are being rotated into Iraq.

"Rumsfeld already had tendencies to pull troops out of existing deployments - Europe and maybe even Korea," says defense analyst Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. "The stretch because of Iraq has likely strengthened those tendencies."

At the same time, reserve components now are scheduled to make up 40 percent of the force in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. One reason: Reservists and those in the National Guard are more likely than active duty troops to have had the training necessary for postcombat duty, including as translators, military police, and civil affairs specialists.

While such trends may argue for either increasing the active duty force or decreasing their missions around the world, they may also help Americans reconnect with their military. Ever since the end of the draft in 1973, fewer and fewer Americans have had direct (or even indirect) contact with those in uniform. But with small towns around the country now watching their men and women marching off to war, returning with stories of combat, some of them wounded or not coming back at all, that gap between citizen and soldier has closed dramatically.

"There is a universal, patriotic pride in what they are doing and how well the rank and file do it, perhaps helped by the embedded reporters who made the operations in Iraq very personal," says retired Navy Capt. Larry Seaquist, a former warship commander and Pentagon strategist. "There is a huge, personal connection with the war through Guard and Reserve participation, which seems to touch every town and village; and there is a sense of solidarity generated by the common feeling of vulnerability to terrorist attack."

Still, that could portend trouble for the Pentagon, adds Captain Seaquist: "It could mean that there may be a clash ahead between the citizenry and the high command over what the military does and how they do it. American Main Street values do not comport with a military increasingly formed around super-secret Special Forces or one using high-tech disinformation campaigns in its combat tool kit."

Especially since Vietnam, it's often been observed that military officers are more reluctant to go to war than the elected officials and civilian appointees who set policy. This may become more obvious, especially with the new kind of war in which those in uniform are likely to find themselves.

"Military guys are reluctant dragons," says retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner. "They have always been concerned that policymakers fully understand what they are doing before they commit treasure into harm's way."

"I can hear the arguments when policy makers talk of using force: 'Yes sir, we can win quickly, but that is when the problems will start. We could be there for years. Just look at Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti,' " Colonel Gardiner says.

In important ways, America's adversaries no doubt have gone to school on the Iraq war as well. In Iraq, that has meant roadside bombs rather than firefights; and when US troops began emphasizing "force protection" to reduce casualties, it's meant attacking Iraqis and foreign-aid workers who support the US-led effort. In other words, what started out as a straightforward battle against an identifiable foe has become unconventional war.

"Unfortunately, there is one other lesson that may be emerging from the insurgency that followed conventional victory," says military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, who supported the US invasion. "America's military is in danger of becoming 'the redcoats' - a readily identifiable and isolated force that numerically inferior adversaries can gradually wear down through a combination of unconventional tactics and patient pressure."

"Time will tell," Dr. Thompson says, "whether America has the resolve to prosecute low-intensity conflicts against persistent adversaries."

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