Le fameux “breaking point”

On parle depuis plus d’une année des tensions considérables que subit l’U.S. Army à cause de la guerre en Irak et de ses autres engagements. On parle notamment du “breaking point” auquel ces conditions pourraient conduire l’Army. Pour la première fois, un rapport semi-officiel y fait référence.

Associated Press a reçu un exemplaire du rapport rédigé par Andrew Krepinevich, ancien colonel de l’U.S. Army devenu analyste indépendant. La rapport lui a été commandé par le Pentagone. Krepinevic trace un bilan pessimiste de l’état de l’U.S. Army et, surtout, signale que la crainte de ce fameux “breaking point” commence à jouer un rôle dans les décisions qui sont prises actuellement.

« Andrew Krepinevich, [...] concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

» As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump — missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 — and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives. “You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue,” he said in an interview. (...)

» He wrote that the Army is “in a race against time” to adjust to the demands of war “or risk ‘breaking’ the force in the form of a catastrophic decline” in recruitment and re-enlistment. »

Mis en ligne le 25 janvier 2006 à 10H02