By It just makes you wonder why the Army even bothers spending the money and resources to increase force size when it just ultimately gets cut again as quick fix to budget problems:
The Army has drawn up a plan that would cut 10 of its 45 active-duty brigade combat teams to meet President Obama’s order to cut defense spending by $400 billion over the next 10 years, said an Army official familiar with the budget deliberations.
This is one of many proposals being considered as the Army goes through a series of budget drills. Service leaders are still discussing how many Stryker, heavy or infantry BCTs might get cut and when.
Some defense analysts counter that the proposals are “worst-case scenarios.” One congressional staffer said cuts will be far less severe.
“Is it possible that the Army will see these kinds of cuts? We’re coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan and have a tough economy to deal with. Anything is possible,” said the staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Are such big cuts likely? No, they’re not likely.” [Army Times]
You can read more at the link, but the Army just reached the 45 BCT level in 2009 and is now looking to cut it back down. When the Army was building up the force I remember having water cooler talk with other Soldiers in regards to how long it will be before the Army gets cut back down again? Well it isn’t taking very long. Instead of cutting the brigades I wonder if anyone has done a cost analysis of transferring brigades over to the National Guard? Instead of the constant build up the force and then cut it again approach, having a larger National Guard would allow the Pentagon to maintain a large force to meet future contingencies without the expense of maintaining the brigades on active duty status. The past 10 years have clearly shown National Guard soldiers when called to active duty for service abroad that they are well trained and professional force.
9:35 pm on September 14th, 2011 1
The problem here is the politicians, they only think 2~6 years in advance and the closer it is to an election year (any of them) the shorter their outlook is. And ultimately its the fault of the US people, we’re such a fat, stupid, lazy and short sighted population that we let them do this. People are more concerned about their next clothing purchase, the color of their new i-device, and who their gonna date next to have any real sense of direction. The politicians just tap dance to whatever people are complaining the most about.
9:48 pm on September 14th, 2011 2
+1 Someotherguy. These days I feel like I don’t even want to live in the United States anymore, but a few years ago, all I wanted to do was go back.
10:39 pm on September 14th, 2011 3
The endless political binge and purge…
12:39 am on September 15th, 2011 4
Another cycle begins. Who remembers 6th ID? 7th? 9th?
7:33 am on September 15th, 2011 5
“The past 10 years have clearly shown National Guard soldiers when called to active duty for service abroad that they are well trained and professional force.”
Really?
9:46 am on September 15th, 2011 6
Remember how defeating the Soviet Union was supposed to bring the Year of Jubilee?
You can’t trust Democrats with the White House. They hate the military and want America to be another Third World hellhole…
1:56 pm on September 15th, 2011 7
We cut the force after WWII. Then came Korea and Task Force Smith. After death and taxes, the third constant for Americans is War. Just the nature of existence.
4:14 am on September 16th, 2011 8
#5 – It looks like we have a National Guard hater. The US military would not be able to accomplish its missions in either Iraq or Afghanistan without the National Guard.
10:54 am on September 16th, 2011 9
IMHO, the surefire method to preserve the size of the Army would be to follow the USMC game play. That being do get a law passed setting a minimum number of Army Divisions, BCTs, etc. Combine that with a sales pitch to convince everyone the Army is the only thing seperating the nation from complete doom and we’d be set. Doubt that would ever happen since the Army institutionally does have the backbone to do it.
As to extra Guard Brigades that’s great if future threats wind being more low intensity stuff. I don’t think pulling a Guard unit out of FT Livingroom and tossing it into the Uijongbu Corridor or some other place for a combined arms operation would work very well.
5:16 am on September 17th, 2011 10
National Guard units do not just come off the sofa and deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan. They get mobilized and spend months getting trained up before getting deployed. National Guard units are doing combined arms high intensity operations every day right now in Afghanistan, unless you consider Afghanistan low intensity?
7:59 am on September 17th, 2011 11
I have no problem with the National Guard. But, as GI Korea pointed out, “they get mobilized and spend MONTHS, *M-O-N-T-H-S*, getting trained up before getting deployed.”
Do we always have MONTHS to get troops out of the house and ready to be a fighting force? No. They do a fine job, once they are ready.
National Guard is “part-time” when not at war. As it should be. There is no dishonor in that. After all, the active duty force is mostly engaged in Politics and political correctness training during their full time duty days, when not at war. It takes allot of training to prepare young troops to serve side by side with the opposite sex, the same sex and X-sex. Train them to be sure and not offend the “special interest groups”. You know who you are. Make sure all the different religions have a place to pray to their God. The Witches need an open field of course. EO training is #1! NCOERs and OERs. Make sure you kiss the correct asses. Ah, active duty. How I miss it.
12:46 pm on September 17th, 2011 12
Well, the National Guard is the modern equivalent of the colonial militia, so it makes sense that they’re part time soldiers.