How strong will the urge by after tours 4-6 roll around?
 

Nate: rather, I think it makes about as much asense as asking the gregarious Megaplex security guard for his take on what the moviegoing public he listens to thinks of Brokeback Mountain. (After all, it's the moviegoing public that decides the financial success of the movie, not Ebert & Roper or the Academy.)
 

"...but what exactly makes these officers qualified to judge the nation-building that is going on?”

Every military officer has earned, at a minimum, a bachelor's degree. It is a requirement to hold a commission. At the same time, more and more junior officers are pursuing and earning graduate level degrees. Furthermore, the higher you go in the chain of command the more advanced the level of education completed is. Additionally, the subjects studied are myriad and the choice is normally left to the person pursuing the degree. Finally, remember the following:

“Seventy-Four have been awarded Rhodes scholarships, making West Point the fourth ranking source of Rhodes scholars in the nation, even though graduates were not allowed to compete until 1925.”

“Four Naval Academy individuals were recently announced as recipients of 2006 Rhodes Scholarships.”

Mentioned above are men and women who fall into one of three categories: have served, are currently serving, or will serve in the active duty military after completion of their studies.

The officer corps of the United States military, at all levels, is educated. It is that education that allows them to make the judgments on the cultural, political, and economic situation.

"The second is the enlistment shortfall. In February for instance the Army was short 27%."

That was almost a year ago. Maybe there are more recent figures available out there.

"The active Army and the Army National Guard met their recruiting goals for November, the sixth consecutive successful recruiting month for the active Army and the second for the Guard."

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1409980.php
 

"Military recruitment falls short in key jobs
A government report found that the military had failed to adequately staff 41 percent of its array of combat and noncombat ranks."

First off, let us look at some of those jobs that are under filled.

Army Band Person, Fabric Repair Specialist (Marine Corps), Bioenvironmental Engineering (Air Force), Diver (Navy)

Above is one under filled job from each branch of the military listed in the GAO report. Therefore, it can be said, that each undermanned job that makes up the 41% statistic is not necessarily a severe impediment to the military’s combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In general, the 41% figure is somewhat sensational. The majority of positions with shortages are still at or above the 90% level. Additionally, in some of the positions the shortages number under 50 people, some less than 20, and some even less than 10.

However, that being said, there are some very critical jobs that the military is coming up short in. In particular are translators/linguists. At the same time, this is not an example of service members “voting with their feet.” Rather, it is due to the highly technical nature of these jobs and there is no quick and simple fix for the shortages. It is simply going to take time for the language training to be completed. Additionally, demand for these positions has doubled in some cases. For example, the Army Human Intelligence Collector position went from 577 slots in 2000 to 1013 slots in 2005. That is almost a 100% increase and training in this field, takes a large amount of time, over a year in some of the more difficult languages. The shortage of language specialists is similar to the problem that the Army is having in filling certain Special Forces fields. These positions require extraordinary levels of physical ability, intelligence, and discipline. The shortages in Army Special Forces, like the problem with translators, will take time to properly fill with fully qualified people.

While the shortages have been discussed, the surpluses bear a closer look. In particular, what are some of the jobs that are listed as being overfilled?

In the Army: Cavalry Scout, Combat Engineer, Tank Crewmember, and Infantry Senior Sergeant

In the Marine Corps: Infantry Unit Leader

In the two branches of the military doing the majority of the fighting on the ground, important combat jobs are not merely at the minimum, they are overfilled. Additionally, other key combat fields are not listed as a being affected by a shortage. Still also, two of the above fields, Infantry Senior Sergeant and Infantry Unit Leader, show something else. Leaders at the enlisted level, non-commissioned officers, are not made fresh from basic training. Rather, they are the Soldiers and Marines who have already served for several years, most likely with at least one deployment to OIF or OEF, and have decided that they are staying in their respective branch. They make that decision to stay and compete for promotion knowing full well that being a combat leader will practically guarantee that they will be a member of a future deployment or future deployments. This is further reinforced by the report’s statistics on retention and reenlistments in the Army and Marine Corps. In 2005, both the Army and the Marine Corps exceeded all of their retention objectives.

While there are shortages in certain key fields, efforts are being taken to see they are filled with quality personnel. Additionally, progress is evident. For example, in the “Human Intelligence Collector” position, the Army added almost 100 in 2005 alone. Additionally, important and vital combat jobs are filled if not overfilled. Additionally, the two branches of the military doing the majority of the work on the ground show amazing reenlistment and retention rates in 2005 as well as in the fours preceding. These are good signs about the current state of our armed forces, not bad signs.
 

All my statistics are from the GAO report cited in your link.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06134.pdf

Retention/reenlistments and the "backdoor draft" are two seperate things. The "backdoor draft" refers to servicemembers affected by stop/loss orders and those who, as members of the Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR), are recalled to active duty.