A recent survey of 3,400 military officers revealed an overwhelmingly high sentiment of concern about the military's strength, given pressures of the Iraq War. Highlights of the survey include:
- 88 percent of respondents believe the demands of the Iraq war have "stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin"
- Eighty percent of officers believe it is unreasonable to expect the
U.S. military to wage another major war successfully at present
- Sixty percent said the U.S. military is weaker than it was five years ago
- 46 percent of the officers thought that the Iraq War has "broken" the military.
When asked to grade the their concern over the current state of each military service branch (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) on a scale between 1 (best) and 10 (worst), respondents ranked the services as follows:
The survey was conducted by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for a New American Security. Their report may be found here.