Army Stretched Too Thin?

For you regulars here, you know that my average posting ratio of celebrity accostings to military matters is somewhere along the lines of 1 to 300.

So, with that in mind, I would be aghast if I didn't link to Dave's post that analyzes whether the Army is overstressed and stretched too thin. The article Dave picks apart, claims that because of this, we will not beat the Iraqi insurgency. For some non-partisan critical thinking, read it all.

For a quick interjection, I would say that, yes of course they are stretched and stressed. But the stress has yet to manifest itself in re-elistment rate decreases. The fact that our soldiers are re-enlisting for the most part, we know have the most battle tested force in the world. The low-level of casualties strengthens even further that a lot of soldiers are getting combat experience that is hard to simulate or game.

But, where is the breaking point? At what point do our soldiers, as a group, snap and we experience diminishing returns throughout the Army? This is an art that our commanders get paid to manage, but so far it seems like they have done a rather superb job.

Lastly, I always find it odd that analysts, pundits and politicians still claim the "insurgency," who three years into this war, has yet to acheive a single strategic objective, is always in the brink of bringing the American efforts to its knees.

Three country-wide elections with growing participation? Check.

The most murderous sect (al-Qaeda) of the insurgency isolated and rapidly losing support of not only the population, but of those they have fought side by side with? Check.

Insurgents dropping their guns and trying to work with the new government? Slowly, but check.

Homegrown security force taking the initiative and actively providing security for their country? Check.

Jeeze man, if this is failure, by all means, please continue to screw up like this for the indefinite future.