A Republican lawmaker is pressing the incoming administration of Donald Trump to change the way that troop caps are formulated, arguing that current caps on service members in Iraq and Afghanistan are too low to achieve U.S. strategic objectives.
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R., Mo.), who chairs the House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, sent a letter to Trump last Friday spotlighting the way that the Obama administration's formulation of troop caps has negatively effected the readiness of the U.S. armed forces.
The executive branch establishes force management levels–commonly referred to as "troop caps"–to limit the number of service members deployed in certain U.S. Central Command areas of responsibility. The Obama administration capped the number of service members in Afghanistan at 8,448 and those in Iraq at 5,262 for the start of 2017.
Those levels are "too low given the military force necessary to achieve our nation's strategic aims," Hartzler wrote in the letter to Trump released by her office on Tuesday. Hartzler urged the president-elect to review the way that force management levels are formulated so that military discussions about desired end results inform the development of troop caps.
"Last month, I led a hearing in my role as chairwoman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to hear testimony on the readiness and strategic considerations of force management levels in Iraq and Afghanistan," Hartlzer wrote. "Retired senior Army officers and outside experts confirmed concerns I held in regards to second order effects of the way in which the current administration has imposed these troop caps."
"I urge your incoming administration, in conjunction with military leadership, to mindfully make force management level decisions with a clear understanding of resources needed to achieve the desired end result," Hartzler wrote. "Deliberate civil-military discussions about that desired end result at the beginning of setting force management levels should then inform the subsequent [force management levels] imposed on our military, not the other way around."
Republican lawmakers have also urged the incoming administration to remove budget caps placed on defense spending by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Trump has indicated his willingness to do away with sequestration and rebuild the U.S. military.