XPost: ucb.math, alt.society.civil-liberty, ca.environment
XPost: alt.mountain-bike
WASHINGTON -- The Army would be slashed by more than 100,000
soldiers to a force of 420,000 by 2019 under budget plans set to
be unveiled next month. It is a level far below what Army
leaders have said they would need to ensure they can fight one
major war.
The Army currently has 528,000 soldiers and had been scheduled
to drop to 490,000 troops by 2019. The 420,000 level reflects
Pentagon planning based on automatic budget cuts that will
reduce military spending by about $500 billion over the decade
unless Congress restores the funding.
This fall, Army chief of staff Gen. Raymond Odierno warned top
Pentagon officials in a briefing that a force of 450,000
soldiers would be "too small" and at "high risk to meet one
major war," according to documents obtained by USA TODAY. The
Army could not adequately protect the country and fight abroad
at 420,000 soldiers, the documents stated.
Since then, the chiefs of the services have been told to list
the missions they won't be able to accomplish with diminished
budgets, a senior Pentagon official said on condition of
anonymity because the budget will not be released for weeks.
For the Army, a force of 420,000 means that it could respond to
a conflict, such as one on the Korean peninsula, but won't be
able to keep up the fight for long without a significant call up
of reserve forces, said another senior military officer who also
spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.
The other services will be reduced in size as well. The Navy
will be able to continue to shift its focus to the Pacific but
with far fewer ships, and its presence in the Persian Gulf will
be lessened.
Even at the reduced numbers, the U.S. military is more than a
match for any potential foe, said Gordon Adams, a professor at
American University and a budget official in the Clinton
Administration.
"Who else that we are going to fight in a ground war has 420,000
soldiers?" Adams said in an email. "Silly, really. Of course we
can."
If long-term budget cuts are rolled back, the services won't
have to cut so deeply into their troop levels. The Pentagon
forecasts significant shortfall in its budgets for the next
several years. In the current fiscal year, it sought $526
billion for costs that did not include the war in Afghanistan.
The budget cuts known as "sequestration" would have lowered that
to $475 billion. A budget deal in Congress restored some funds,
giving the Pentagon $496 billion.
The shrinking budget has resulted in jockeying by the services
to secure the most funding. Last month, for example, a National
Guard leader said the Army could be cut to 420,000 soldiers if
the Guard was allowed to expand.
The Army grew to a force of about 570,000 soldiers at the height
of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was strained greatly in
2007 when President Bush ordered the surge of troops in Iraq.
Deployments that had been one year long were extended for some
soldiers to 15 months.
The White House strategy assumes that the U.S. military will no
longer be engaged in long-term operations that are troop
intensive. Instead, it envisions smaller, nimbler forces that
deploy for short periods.
The Obama Whitehouse is staffed with idiots.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/17/army-gen- raymond-odierno-budget-cuts-sequestration/4595003/
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