While still at war, services brood over 'what's next?'.

ALBERT EINSTEIN SAID IT'S BETTER to never think of the future because it comes soon enough.

The business of planning for the future indeed can be scary, especially when it comes to predicting when and where the nation will fight the next war.

While most of the Defense Department remains consumed by the conflict in Iraq and officials ponder exit strategies, senior leaders have warned that the military has been so drained by the war that it may not be capable of responding to another major contingency--at least in the short term.

The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Army Gen. John Abizaid, sparked the current round of debate when he suggested that a surge of troops in Iraq would be tough for the Army and Marine Corps as their forces already are stretched too thin.

Incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates downplayed the issue at his Senate confirmation hearing, citing estimates of 350,000 troops from the active-duty, reserve and National Guard ranks who have yet to see combat. It is premature, he said, to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps until they've shown that their current strength is being used to its full extent.

But the question of whether the military would be capable of fighting a new war is more than just about numbers of troops. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker told lawmakers that Iraq rotations have sapped the Army's training resources to the point that many non-deployed units remain unprepared for combat. Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, operations director on the Joint Staff, described the current force as being "one fight deep." Speaking to the Association of the U.S. Army, he said that as long as troops remain in Iraq, the Defense Department will have to risk being unprepared to tackle another conflict. An Army brigade today, he said, is either in Iraq or heading to Iraq. "For those who are heading toward Iraq, you're pointed towards Iraq. You're not pointed toward another crisis. You're not pointed toward the unexpected event."

Making a similar argument, Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, said he worries that his troops are becoming a one-dimensional counterinsurgency force. "The Marine Corps over time has become a very counterinsurgency capable force, but we are not providing the nation some of those other things that we should be able to do in virtually any other contingency," he told reporters. "We are not sending battalions, like we used to, for mountain and jungle training. We are not doing combined arms exercises like we used to ... Our artillerymen are not firing artillery."

What if the United States had to respond to a major contingency?

The Marine Corps has enough of a "residual" force that it could engage in another conflict if necessary; Conway said. But it would not be an easy victory, he cautioned. "We are not as capable today as we were in 2001 to respond to all those things ... The deployment would take longer, we would not win as fast, there would be more casualties."

But before anyone starts panicking, it's worth remembering that the Defense Department has yet to accurately forecast the future as far as military threats are concerned. "We've never been very good at predicting where we are going to go and fight," Conway said.

Military readiness or the lack thereof, in many ways, is in the eyes of the beholder, contends Norman Polmar, a military analyst.

"The readiness problem depends on how you see the future," he said. Those who see it as more Iraq-like wars would argue that the military has gotten valuable training there and could handle other conflicts of a similar nature. But if the future brings conventional wars against North Korea, Iran or whatever enemy du jour might lurk, the ground forces may not have time to retrain.

Conway's worries make sense in the context of the Marine Corps' view of the future--large-scale amphibious operations with Marines assaulting the beach from the air and from the sea.

"Some of us do not believe that we are going to see large numbers of troops come across the beach ever again," Polmar said. "They are not training to that right now because they don't have time."

The same rationale applies to the Army's readiness conundrum. Unless most troops withdraw from Iraq, the Army would be hard-pressed to train for a ground war with North Korea, even though that country is considered a potential military threat.

Before Iraq, the Defense Department set artificial goals for military readiness. The guidance changed over time--troops would be prepared to engage in two conflicts simultaneously, which then shifted to "one-plus" to "ready to deploy in 10 days."

There is no formula today. The war has rendered those guidelines irrelevant.

In recent months, Army officials have debated this issue and have concluded there is not much they can do until Iraq is over.

If another Katrina-like domestic emergency came about, the Army could send 60,000 troops, says an Army spokesman. "But if we were to be asked to deploy 160,000 to Korea, they would need to reduce the presence in Iraq or increase Guard calls ups," which is politically unpopular. Another option would be to use the other services more, such as in an air campaign, with few ground forces.

Privately, Army officials remain optimistic that they can reduce troop presence in Iraq in half, down to 60,000 by 2008.

When that happens, the prognosticators will have to tell the services what the next war will be.

Maybe they don't want to know.

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