Global counterinsurgency and US army expansion: the case for recruiting foreign troops

American military landpower, represented by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, finds itself in a period of transition. This phase is characterized by troop drawdowns from the decade-long, manpower-intensive counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan an uncertain budgetary perspective given impending defense cutbacks and a divisive debate on the appropriate roles and missions for ground forces in the future. This article aims to provide a forward-looking view of U.S. landpower for the next decade. While the sheer difficulty of predicting the future is known, the demands of policy and force planning require some attempt to delineate at least the rough contours of this upcoming period.