The Military Times reports that the Army plans to cut 50,000 troops from their ranks in the next five years as their contribution to the $3/4 trillion in cuts from the Defense Department;
Bostick, the Army G-1, said the pending drawdown initially will focus on the temporary 22,000-soldier increase launched three years ago to support the Afghanistan troop surge.
These soldiers can be removed from the force primarily through offsets in accessions and retention, sources say.
The second phase of the drawdown involves 27,000 soldier spaces that were added to end strength during the Grow the Army program, leaving the service with 520,400 active-duty soldiers on Sept. 30, 2016.
So I guess the next time we go to war, we don’t get to take the Army we want to take, but the one this administration sticks us with…like the one Bush sent to war after the last attack. And, oh, there’s no real evidence that this war has ended. At least after the Cold War we made sure there were no immediate enemies before we sent the troops homes for our “peace dividend”.
But then this is the administration that uses the Jimmy Carter Administration as it’s example. Carter drew down while we still faced the Soviets in Europe and the communists in Central America.
I am sure that 50,000 is only 10% of what the Obama Administration would like to draw down.
We’ll survive., as long as we use the application of smart power towards the functional and critical nodes of Islamic terror organization, instead of trying to install pseudo-democracy in nations with corrupt and illegitimate hosts.
I don’t have a big problem with shrinking the Army and Marine Corps, I’d rather have 70,000 less between them and make sure the remainder are getting the gear and training they need. We can’t afford to maintain COIN level manpower anyway. My bigger problem is with the overall cuts will imperil the forces that remain. Cutting Carrier groups, next generation air platforms, the AAAV and investments into the force itself should be where the line gets drawn.
I read that article earlier this week after actually buying an Army Times for once.
I’ve decided to devote my last few months in USAREC to bettering myself both as an NCO and as a person. The Army has recently released a number of tools linked through AKO that hint at how much tougher it is going to get to get promoted or even retained. Granted, a majority of Soldiers who decide to get out will do so voluntarily, but retention control points have already been reduced and it is not too far of a stretch to imagine them closing reenlistment for a while.
As for the tools, there is an assessment that Soldier can request their subordinates, peers, and leaders to complete. We can also conduct a self-assessment. One of my favorites is the Army Career Tracker, which lets us set professional goals, see how we stack against our peers (only 15.74% of 11B E-6s have Bachelor degrees, and less than 3% have completed SSD-3), and summarizes our assignment history and positions we’ve filled.
Call me paranoid, but my current ETS date is a little over two years from now and there are plenty of Infantry Staff Sergeants to go around. When I got out here I was just another 11B SSG who picked up rank kind of quickly and was happy blending in. Now I want to do everything in my power to stand out from the crowd when it comes to professional and personal development. Worst case scenario, it helps set me up for a post-military career.
re #4
That’s a hell of an attitude. SF is always hiring.
@ 4fm2176 – I devoted as much time as I was able during my last year to do the same thing, prepare myself for a post-military career.
I can’t overemphasize [for my experience at least] the value of a good security clearance. With that in hand, even 11B’s can get in the door to great contract opportunities.
We can significantly reduce the number of troops if we change the weapons we’re using.
Instead of a “peace dividend” we’ll have a “nuke dividend.”
The days of the “dumb grunt” the knuckle dragging ape that is little more than a brute is LONG over. The soldiers of today must be experts in their craft. Should the need to arise expand it will not be easily accomplished because of that very reason. This move is very narrow minded indeed. The future soldier may suffer much worse than year long deployments.
“The Military Times reports that the Army plans to cut 50,000 troops from their ranks in the next five years…” But 50,000 what? What kind of mix are you retaining? For all we know thats 50,000 cooks or other assorted Pogues! I some how doubt that any manpower cut will be that logical or even well thought out.
2#”We’ll survive., as long as we use the application of smart power towards the functional and critical nodes of Islamic terror organization…” there are other adversaries beyond them, that might require more manpower at our diposal. This will not be readily available.
3#”I don’t have a big problem with shrinking the Army and Marine Corps, I’d rather have 70,000 less between them and make sure the remainder are getting the gear and training they need.” The problem is their not retaining those funds by cutting manpower to use in other avenues. They are simply losing that money! Your just ending up with a smaller force, not nessarily a smaller BUT better equipped force.
#3#”We can’t afford to maintain COIN level manpower anyway. My bigger problem is with the overall cuts will imperil the forces that remain.” The USA/USMC are not awash in manpower to begin with. One medium war and a semismall one(that got larger) stretched our ground forces to the limit. We had no strategic reserve left. We most likely could do one medium or something slightly larger indefinetly, without straining the force and maintain a reserve. Beyond that we have a serious problem.
If memory serves me right I think the Army has something like 45 combat brigades. Now remember under perfect conditions only a third will be available at any time. I don’t have a problem cutting the overall number of brigades, if the combat battalions of such units are retained. The light and mech brigades each only have two battalions, adding a third(like the old ones or the Strykers) will ensure that most manpower cuts will hit tail not tooth. The US Army organisation can be tweeked a little, but if we want a credible roster to pull from, not much.
The USMC I know was above 200,000 and was supposed to be reduced to 175,000 something. Don’t know if they have done it yet. I also could have sworn the Marines’ next generation AmTrack was already cut by Gates. So it does not play any direct part of this possible budgetary equation. I admittingly am not as up on them as the Army.
8#”The days of the “dumb grunt” the knuckle dragging ape that is little more than a brute is LONG over.” Absolutely! Armies that depend on overwhelming firepower, tend to have poor infantry. The farming out or siphoning off of any problem that wasn’t purely technical or that couldn’t be settled in a near single set piece battle, did alot to help compromise our Army ground forces. Those tasks ending up be passed to the operators in the twenty years preceding 9/11. The issue is they really don’t belong to them but the Regulars or GPF(General Purpose Forces). SOF are not always the best tool in the tool kit, in fact sometimes they can be the worst.
Saint Maurice, hear our prayer!
Credo there are three ground combat BNs in light and mech Bdes. One is organizes as a “cav” bn, but really they tend to do the same things as the infantry. You’ve also got Arty BSB, and STB (which is really a weird command because the whole purpose of it is to be broken up and sent to other units). They tried to build the brigade around the idea that each Bde could in theory be self contained. Doesn’t work out that way.
The point I was trying to make is that it takes a LONG time to train to that level of proficiency. Unfortunately, by cutting the force like they are, and slashing the shit out of the budget, you’re going to have to hook or crook everything you do. Forget medium wars, there will be major failures even assembling the forces FOR the war. the integration which we have worked hard to achieve will essentially be flushed down the toilet. The AF will go off to do its thing the Marines will go back to bitching about how their the only ones that fight, the Army will go back to using Golf Karts to simulate tank battles, and the Navy will rust because they can’t even get the funds for reasonable deployments. the only reason OEF/OIF didn’t start off as a major disaster is because a *mostly* republican congress shamed Bill Clinton into ramping up the military after the Bosnia/Kosovo interventions were to say the least, less than successful.
I have read somewhere the next generation Bradley fighting vehicle the M2A5 is going to be unmanned. That tells you where the military is leading too.
I’ll help! I’ll help with the drawdown!!
I’ll tell every young person I meet, or who asks, to either NOT join the military, or to do a quick single term in-and-out.
Think that will help??
PS – Didn’t we run through this same crap drawdown during Carter?
Doc, the Reconnaisance Squadron you referenced as a 3rd manuever battalion is not even designed to accomplish traditional cavalry functions without a significant attachment from the two manuever battalions. They are designed, manned, and equipped to fulfill a reconnaisance role and not that of a traditional “heavy” cavalry. If they are conducting manuever operations these squadrons cannot fulfill their role as the eyes and ears of the Brigade Commanders.
I found this CGSC paper to be an effective analysis of the problem: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA483239&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
The paper also includes an analysis suggesting that the most cost efficient way of growing the Army’s manuever functions would be to add a manuever battalion to each bridage as opposed to adding brigades or converting the reconnaisance squadron into a traditional cavalry squadron capable of manuever.
Additionally, utilizing the Arty Battalion in a provisional manuever role is a product of the current COIN environment and not a suitable solution if the goal is preparing to conduct full spectrum operations up to the combined arms breach.
The Army Reserve has been doing this for a while. Unfortunately, not all of the proper administrivia is being done. I’m still waiting for my letter and DD214 and other stuff and from HRC-Reserve to the UA no one is authorized to do anything.
NSOM in #3: While I agree with you I, also, am concerned that the amount of gear will be reduced as well. I remember the bad old days, that happened under Carter and then later with Clinton, where there were reductions in materials as well as forces. I was out before Clinton, but heard the stories from friends that were still there and it mirrored what happened under Carter. I was at the tale end of the Carter Army and the beginning/middle of the build up of the Reagan Army. We were the first basic training cycle to use live ammunition for other than weapon qualifying. What kind of military force is that, where you train with blanks and only get to shoot 20 live rounds in basic? The regular units were in much the same situation, until Reagan started his modernization policy.
So, let me get this straight.
We are STILL under attack by radical Islam. We have to be right all the time and they have to be lucky once for a new 9/11. And, through all this, we are going to cut the feet of of our military forces because the President has spend too much money funding companies that went bankrupt five minutes after they cashed the government check?
Is anyone else calling BULLSHIT to this as loudly as we are? I mean anyone in the government politic?
We grew too fast and brought on a lot of problems due to lower entrance standards and waivers. I would like to go back to the pre-9/11 Army. At least we had standards then.
#10 Doc, the RSTA battalion is not considered a maneuver battalion. Even if it was, that would mean the Stryker Brigades had four and not three battalions. Strykers have three and an RSTA battalion, the Light/Mech have two and an RSTA battalion.
“They tried to build the brigade around the idea that each Bde could in theory be self contained. Doesn’t work out that way.” Not perfectly but fairly well. The brigades are microcosms of the old Divisions. There will never be a perfect brigade structure that can do everything. This is why they must be weighed towards a particular mission. Concept is not the problem, its the organisation that is. General Keane succeeded where Marshal failed.
“The point I was trying to make is that it takes a LONG time to train to that level of proficiency. Unfortunately, by cutting the force like they are, and slashing the shit out of the budget, you’re going to have to hook or crook everything you do. Forget medium wars, there will be major failures even assembling the forces FOR the war. the integration which we have worked hard to achieve will essentially be flushed down the toilet.” I concur. I think I was making a much larger point about the manpower. To take it one step further we won’t even be able to slap that half fast of a conglomerate together because there simply won’t be that many pieces. We are in general agreement though.
“…the only reason OEF/OIF didn’t start off as a major disaster is because a *mostly* republican congress shamed Bill Clinton into ramping up the military after the Bosnia/Kosovo interventions were to say the least, less than successful.” I would say its less the Republicans then the Army’s known poor performace during the 90s. The budgets really didn’t improve any until the first fiscal year the Bush administration advanced. Ironically that was oct 01, the previous year was still technically a Clinton budget year. GWB Administration was already pushing for higher spending before 9/11, it was just the priorities that tended to be wrong inhindsight.
13#Daendda thanks for the link. I knew somebody did a study a while back, but even before then there were public hearing held by Congress. I remember some retired colonel asking “where is my reserve”. Now thats an example of a conventional point of view, but it is still true.
There is no practical reason for the existence of a two battalion brigade headquarters. You might as well have two battalion sized task forces. The rule of thumb is that you can manage three to five subordinate elements directly. Less then three, there is no point to superior, more then five to many to easily control/manage.
13# Also thanks for shedding somelight on what some of the RSTA parameters actually are. Other then it being a “Hybrid” element, primarily having to do with reconnaisance, which has a structure that can vary by brigade, and is not a fully manned squadron I really didn’t know much more about it. That last sentence is not sarcasm! I had an idea about what it wasn’t, but not what it is.
13# “Additionally, utilizing the Arty Battalion in a provisional manuever role is a product of the current COIN environment and not a suitable solution if the goal is preparing to conduct full spectrum operations up to the combined arms breach.” This is also true. You know you could in theory be in an actual irregular environment where artillary is needed. Hmm, does anyone know of such a place? Ahh, must be my imagination, because you know we don’t use artillary ever in COIN!
Nice talk. Cedo.
Just before I got out in 09, I was speaking to some pups just back from BCT/AIT and I was fucking surprised. No cursing, no raised voices, very little stressors, a full 8 hours of sleep every night (7 with fire watch), no kill zones in the middle of the bay, they got cell phones after 6th week, craptops in AIT, and even more shit than I care to remember. And this was Ft. Lost-in-the-woods to Ft. Lee… I wonder where the hell Relaxin’ Jackson is now?
I said it then and I’ll say it now… it is the pussification of the Army.
Flagwaver you do have an interesting point. War is brutal and cruel and training must be even more so. When/if the draft is reimplemented, how will you get recruits to follow orders? The training NCO (DS, DI, TI, or whatever the navy calls them) must be FEARED. The PVT must have in their mind that they MUST get a first time go at all stations, because there might be one small piece of advice that will mean the difference between life and ignominious death. If anything there should be a push to make BCT harder.
Cedo: RSTA is SUPPOSED to be used for Recon, but lets be honest, if they’re plunging Arty into 11B slots how much Recon is a Cav unit REALLY doing. In theory yes. Overall the combat effectiveness of a unit will be determined in how they train. In my six years in the army, I went on ONE Bde FTX. Brigades don’t work that way anymore. Its nearly impossible to get the budget do have a whole brigade square off against another (unless its NTC/JRTC and those rotations are infrequent at best for most units)
I was a bit young to remember (or care about at the time) the details of the shake up post kosovo, but I do remember that there was a shake up. Although XVIII Abn Corps(82nd 10th Mtn 3rd ID) tended to get first dibs on the training budget, by the time I got in in ’03, I didn’t really see units that were as disastrously unprepared as the media made it out to be (aside from one 30th BDE cave trp that only had two deuce and a Halves). Afghanistan, and some of the initial successes would have been hard under Clinton’s Army, nearly impossible under Carter’s
I think that the reason for the constant slashing of the DOD budget and conversly the increased use of the UN, has a lot to do with this idea of “informal empire” in that we technically don’t have the land that a traditional empire would, BUT our economic and cultural influence over other countries is such that we have a de facto empire. the obvious solution is multi-nationalism (so the thinking goes) which seeks to reduce nationalistic tenancies (especially things like standing armies and borders). Personally I think multinationalism much like multiculturalism is a kumbiyah philosiphy that has absolutly NO place in the real world.
We *kind of* have to go along with this right now because we’re so in the hole that we have no choice, but that does not preclude the certainty of disaster down the road.
#20 “RSTA is SUPPOSED to be used for Recon, but lets be honest, if they’re plunging Arty into 11B slots how much Recon is a Cav unit REALLY doing.” RSTA is not a manuever battalion in the classical sense, even on a conventional battlefield. Thats what makes it so hard to quantify. The Army itself doesn’t consider it as such and has made reference to its two battalion brigades.
On a side note I think I heard the RSTA formations had something just above three hundred men(if anyone wants to correct me please go ahead). Thats less then half an infantry battalion or half a traditional cavalry squadron. That really isn’t large enough to be used in such a manner, as a brigade manuever battalion. See #13 above.
“In my six years in the army, I went on ONE Bde FTX. Brigades don’t work that way anymore. Its nearly impossible to get the budget do have a whole brigade square off against another (unless its NTC/JRTC and those rotations are infrequent at best for most units)”. They will again though, combined arms training where whole battalions/brigades manuever, is not obsolete. It may be less likely, but it is still relevent.
The pre9/11 Army had a tough time with small police functions that are a prerequisite for irregular wars(like COIN) as the peacekeeping missions of the 90s showed. That requires an emphasis on intiative, skill, small unit leadership, and delegated authority to very small microunits. Something the institution was loathed to do. These are skills we still need to retain.
There was a famous Colin Powell quote, at the end of the Coldwar, something like ” All I’ve got left is Kim Il Sung and Fidel Castro”. The whole notion that we may be fighting something prolonged, nonlinear, or not out in the open, was something the leadership didn’t like to pontificate. The Army thought it would be settling our future conflicts in something close to single clashs. Beyond that it had a tendency to push tasks onto the operators.
Delta force didn’t subdue the Indians, the infantry/cavalry did. Operators are specialists not jedis. They were easier to deploy though because they could be explained away. The problem is thats the wrong reason to use them. You end up getting alot of them killed, compromising the line units, and most likely preventing the accomplishing of national objectives.
The post 9/11 Army has the exact opposite defect then the previous incarnation. Many of its higher conventional capabilties have atrophed from lack of practice. We need to begin training on them again. At the same time we want to retain these new capabilities, the question is how and/or if we should put an emphasis on one or the other. Whats the balance? We must plausibly be able to do both.
“…I didn’t really see units that were as disastrously unprepared as the media made it out to be…” I agree with regard to the media but this was less a material argument outside the press, more a skill debate. It was aimed at all levels of command but critisism varied depending on unit, commander(s), success, and locale, etc.
“…Afghanistan, and some of the initial successes would have been hard under Clinton’s Army, nearly impossible under Carter’s.” I agree with Carter but the problem was this was still essentionally “Clinton’s” Army, and I don’t say that approvingly. The Bush administration had just started contemplating defense increases when 9/11 happened, by 03′ they were into just there second fiscal defence budget. The money had just started flowing.
General Shelton, former CJCS, made a comment a few years ago that under Clinton they had been forced to use R&D funding to fund basic operations. I don’t know if he meant just the Army or the whole military though. Much of the “bureaucracy” that Clinton cut(over 200,000) came from the military. There were three years around 96′ where the Army bought almost no equipment. The Buford, our new airborne light tank for example, the replacement for the aging Sheridan, was canceled. Not to mentioned all the little tidbits that are simply needed to maintain not improve the force.
“We *kind of* have to go along with this right now because we’re so in the hole that we have no choice, but that does not preclude the certainty of disaster down the road.” I disagree with the use of empire both formally or informally because frankly the whole characterisation is simply wrong. This is really a gigantic massive topic we could go into, but you and I are generally not far apart.
The multinationalism as pushed by the transnational progressives at home, in europe, and the UN, is dieing. Its an unserious philosophy pushed by an unserious class of people. The Chinese don’t believe in it! Do they?
On the other hand we have theses rabid isolationist types on the right, who believe if we just pull up the draw bridge all will be well. We do have interests beyond our shores that require us to be prepared to go abroad and it costs money to maintain such a capabilty. We also have the Neocon types who believe we should democratise the planet. Most conservatives are not part of either of these two camps but are Jacksonian in nature. Belief in defending our national interests, whatever the goal maybe(to the bitter end), but generally not looking for crusades to adventure on.
Sorry bed for me, can barely see…