Biden continuing to shrink the military
Jeff LPH3 sends in this Military Times piece on how the latest Biden Administration Pentagon budget continues to shrink the size of the active duty forces. This time to the tune of about 25,000 troops.
From Military Times;
Most of the military services are hoping to get smaller, as the Army, Navy and Air Force seek to slash thousands from their rolls.
The Defense Department budget request unveiled April 4 asks for Congress to cut about 25,000 positions from the military services, which would bring authorized end strength much closer in line with current manning levels.
The $813 billion budget request is the largest in history, up more than $17 billion from last year, but its goal “is not about making the force bigger,” comptroller Michael McCord told reporters April 4. “That is not what … our review concluded we needed to do. We’re looking at making the force more capable.”
The Army and Navy would shrink by more than 5,000 currently serving troops if the proposal is enacted as is, losing about 3,000 and 2,000 service members, respectively. The Air Force wants to drop around 5,700 active duty airmen by the start of fiscal 2023.
Overall, the military could draw down by more than 10,000 troops, though the Marine Corps and Space Force would see a small bump. The new authorized end strength could come in at 2,122,900, down from 2,147,540 in 2022.
The Army’s request to drop its active duty end strength marks a new direction for the service. In 2017, after planning to draw down, the Congress authorized the service to grow, from 460,000 to 476,000, with an eye toward 500,000 active duty soldiers by 2022.
But that goal proved difficult to reach, as recruiting pushes fell short of goals. The Army topped out at 486,490 in 2021, before falling to 476,000 currently.
“This is the same size Army that we had on 9/11, and when I take a look at what the requirements are, when I take a look at what historically we needed, and now that we’re in a time of great power competition, I’m very, very concerned about the size of the Army,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in April 2021.
Me too General. It’s not like there’s a land war on-going in Europe or China flexing their might in the Far East.
Category: Biden, Big Pentagon, WTF?
I am not a Brandon supporter in any way other than he is the CINC, but this cannot be put on him. What many people do not realize, the Army especially, was under extreme pressure from the Trump Administration (who I did support) to reduce end strength and budget.
“he is the CINC”
Maybe on paper but that’s about it and even that is suspect.
He is a meat puppet with Obama’s hand up his ass.
Correctamundo. Brandon is like that actor depicted above; he is merely playing his role as instructed. He just keeps flubbing his lines; so he is not a very good actor.
The facts regarding Army end-strength seem to argue otherwise. From the quote in the article above (originally from Military Times):
Trump’s term as POTUS began in Jan 2017 and ended in Jan 2021. That coincides with the rise in Army end-strength noted above – from roughly 460,000 in 2017 to a bit less than 486,500 not long after he left office. The trend of increasing Army end strength appears to have ended after Trump left office.
The fuck are they trying to do, cripple the US Military and invite the commie Chinese to invade? I’m also betting they want to funnel more money into woke projects as well as more handouts to illegal aliens and welfare flunkies to buy their votes along with pet pork projects that they’ll get kickbacks from.
It’s time to cut a division from army force structure. I’m not advocating for this, but given that our generating force has been gutted, if we are to achieve these directed cuts and maintain combat-capable units while not reducing manning within brigade combat teams (anybody recall our infantry platoons in the 90s?) or cutting force structure in BCTs (BCTs with two line and can’t maneuver, and nether can divisions with only two BCTs), then we will have to cut a whole division. Before anybody says to “cut those bloated GO staffs,” they’ve already been stripped. For example, my OCteam a few years ago ran at 65% manning and my current directorate is manned at @50% on officers and 60% on NCOs and that’s after a @ 30% reduction in authorized strength over the last few years. I guarantee nobody has reduced requirements on me by any percentage.
Boot out straight White and Hispanic men.
Make it appear more inclusive.
But let’s keep all the homo’s, lezzies, and trannies. What a war winning ground force the nation will have.
The frustrating thing is that these cuts are coming at the same time our forces (especially Army) remain committed all over the globe. Start cutting back on the useless commitments of “trip wire” troops. Looking at you, Korea. There was no reason for us to have a division in Korea when I was there in 1991-92 and there sure as hell isn’t any reason now, except as a form of foreign aid to the ROK businesses (not to mention the “support” to the flourishing black market.)
There should be no US troops North of Seoul and, really, other than maybe some Air Bases or logistics bases, why do we even have troops in Korea? The ROK is a modern, first-world country with a modern military. They don’t need the “backing” of the US military. They’re more than capable of cleaning Kim Jong Un’s clock if his forces were to cross the MDL.
Question, are these cuts or hiding the failure to recruit? It would also be nice if they cut the over represented top of ranks.
Historically, recruiting is always tough when unemployment is low (as it is now.) I also think the “cohort” of 18 year olds has been diminishing each year which means that there is a smaller “pool” of potential enlistees.
Yes the cuts are to hide the failure to make the recruiting mission.
Might as well do away with the excess. That many fewer when we are surrendered to the ChiComs. All part of the plan, Comrade.