More About the Current Army Cutbacks
Many have probably heard that the Army is cutting 10 Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) this year and next . It’s doing this in order to reduce end-strength to 490,000 (active component) by the end of FY 2015.
For those interested, here’s the list of which units have/are scheduled to inactivate.
Already inactivated:
- 4th BCT, 1st Cavalry Division (Fort Hood) – inactivated last October
- 4th Stryker BCT, 2nd Infantry Division (JB Lewis-McChord) – inactivated in March
- 4th BCT, 101st Airborne Division (Fort Cambell) – inactivated in April
Scheduled to be inactivated:
- 4th BCT, 82nd Airborne Division (Fort Bragg) – to be inactivated in June
- 3rd BCT, 1st Infantry Division (Fort Knox) – to be inactivated in July
- 3rd BCT, 10th Mountain Division (Fort Drum) – to be inactivated this fall
- 2nd BCT, 3rd Infantry Division (Fort Stewart) – to be inactivated during winter 2015
- 2nd BCT, 4th Infantry Division (Fort Carson) – to be inactivated during winter 2015
- 3rd BCT, 1st Armored Division (Fort Bliss) – to be inactivated during spring 2015
- 4th BCT, 1st Infantry Division (Fort Riley) – to be inactivated during summer 2015
The unit inactivations at Forts Knox, Carson, Bliss, and Riley will require a substantial number of soldiers to PCS. The unit inactivations at Forts Drum and Stewart will not require very many PCS moves, as soldiers assigned to the inactivating BCTs at those locations will be reassigned to other units on their current installation.
The current reductions are in conjunction with scheduled Army end-strength reductions. They will reduce the Army’s overall end strength to 980,000 (450,000 Active/195,000 USAR/335,000 ARNG) by FY 2017.
Additional unit inactivations may be forthcoming. The Army is looking at potential options reducing the Army’s overall strength further after 2017, to a possible end-strength of 920,000 (420,000 Active/185,000 USAR/315,000 ARNG).
The Army Times has a decent article giving more details. It’s worth reading if you have the time and inclination.
Yeah, we can give out free phones and pay for people’s groceries while they sit on their azz, eat Cheetos, and play X-Box. And we can keep funding Social Security “disability” and unemployment, and giveaway “free” medical care subsidies.
But we can’t figure out how to pay for an adequate defense. And we don’t seem to be able to figure out that Social Security and Medicare are about to go belly up – in about 20 years.
Ain’t life wonderful?
Category: Army News, Defense cuts
Being a Navy guy who know nothing about Army ratings, what the hell is a BCT?
Brigade Combat Team. Usually about 3000-3500 Soldiers per.
Why does the Army have to be so confusing with ratings? They should take lessons from the Navy. Our stuff is so simple to understand!
Rob in NH…Smile when you say that. I could see a Navy Admiral and couldn’t tell you if he was a fireman or a bosun. 😀 NEVER understood Navy rates and ranks.
Bub, I’m trying to drink my coffee here. Who’s got the Windex?
Rob in NH: point taken. I changed the article to spell out the acronym “BCT” on its first use.
Yeah, but since we all have to be joint-trained, we should know what all that means…:)
Thanks Hondo, us Navy guys need things spelled out for us. 🙂
Sorry about the screen Pave Pusher… It’s either laugh or get mad and cry… Because it kills me seeing our military being weakened this badly.
Hondo…Thank you. Good and saddening article. God help us if this administration gets us involved in Europe. We have tired, worn out troops from multiple deployments, even if Afghanistan ended today. We need time to regroup and rebuild before we even look at another conflict front. (I can’t believe they’re inactivating the 10th Mountain, especially or any of them for that matter.) We need freshened, ready troops and the new, updated equipment to support them. I don’t believe for one second that Putin knows as much or more about our strength and capabilities at this point than the average American, member of Congress and even our own POTUS and MANY in the Pentagon. They are operating with blinders on! Dangerous blinders if I might add. The kind that get troops killed. But as most liberal democrats think, military troops are so much fodder to be used for their political glorification and the resulting dead…well they are just the cost of doing business like so many dollars or Obama Phones. They can impose new taxes to support gimme programs…but as odd at it is to them, they can never find a tax or program which replaces lost troops. Ever.
I misstated the above, “I don’t believe for one second that Putin knows as much or more about our strength and capabilities at this point than the average American, member of Congress and even our own POTUS and MANY in the Pentagon.”
Bad.
Should have read, I absolutely believe Putin knows more about….
Do you remember when Joe (our Rockclimber, not our current one) would come on here and opine for the return of the draft? I used to think he was nuts. I’ve also read comments on here that indicated that the progressives wanted to reinstate the draft. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of why anyone would believe that.
But seeing these cuts, and watching the agitation by the administration over the situation in the Ukraine and other places…now I do believe it. I think the adminstration is gutting the military for precisely that reason: to get us into a conflict and be able to front the “necessity” to reinstate the draft. It seems to be the only answer that fits.
Then they would make the same cuts, except to equipment and quality of life, resulting in lower morale that would probably return our military to the 60s since most of those drafted wouldn’t want to be there. Oh, and more combat deaths in any war we try to fight because of inevitable cuts in “superfluous, redundant, unnecessary training and equipment for 21st century irregular warfare.” Oh yes, and tons of draft-card burning/rioting and bitter political conflict a la Vietnam if we ever try to actually fight a war that doesn’t absolutely concern our survival like WWII.
I have to believe that Putin’s Ukraine incursion is a direct result of whatever information Edward Snowden provided them. It is no coincidence that Putin started moving a few months after Snowden took refuge there, regardless what he says about not giving any info to the Soviets.
bullnav, you are probably correct, when it comes to Snowden. I’m sure that the Chicoms, then the Russians, got a thorough look at his laptops. That was, likely, the price of admission to their respective countries.
Remember the old saying about how you go to war with the army you have, not the one you want? Well, it seems like the Glorious Leader wants to go to war with no Army (or Navy, or Marine Corps, or Air Force) at all.
Was it this bad during the Carter Hollow Army?
B Woodman In my opinion no, it was no this bad. Only because Carter, dumber than dog’s foot that he was and is, had served and had a modicum of respect for the military. Obama who has never served anyone except himself, could car less how many flag draped coffins come home. Obama’s show shine is more important to him than the deaths of troops.
Make that “shoe shine” please. Sorry.
Sparks, ‘show shine’ works for me. A slip of sorts, but there’s that unconscious reference to ‘shining someone on’, and you know what that means.
So, I want to borrow ‘show shine’ and ‘dumber than a dog’s foot’.
Ex-PH2 They’re all yours m’lady! 😀
Sparks,
I posted that early this AM, and meant it to be a semi-rhetorical question. But thanks for the analysis.
PS- I’ve been reading your Comm site. Thanks.
I’ll put this here, partly to support Pinto Nag’s reference to reinstating the draft, and partly because Putin is most likely completely aware of just how much RIF is going on in the US military now and will be in the near future.
Putin is rubbing his hands together over this, you know. He’s probably even reading this blog. Dobraote, tovarisch. How the hell are you?
“In Soviet America, Army downsizes you!’
Sorry couldn’t resist. 😉 Have a good day guys.
Yep. It’s called the Weight Control Program.
I have read many different takes on the size of our military versus other militaries, but the main marker they all look at is how much we are spending versus other countries. This has always annoyed me, because we can’t do an equalcomparison based on GDP or flat out Benjamins. The reason we can’t do the GDP thing is because it will vary from country to country in terms of percentage and not correlate equally with ours. Percentage of budgets would be a nice thing to equate, but we can’t do that, either, because I don’t believe I have ever seen the budget layout of China or Russia, but I can find ours everywhere. So, anyone that claims that as a percentage of overall budget we’re x and they’re y is lying, because they don’t have China’s budget, either.
What we have to do is look at who is increasing their military outlay and who is decreasing theirs. China and Russia are increasing theirs while we are decreasing ours. It’s that simple. Obama told us he didn’t want us being a superpower and he is working to achieve that goal. China and Russia don’t want us to be a superpower, either, and fully support Obama’s goal of turning us into an “also ran”.
Man, the 1st Infantry lost two teams? That sucks, and not just because we’re losing more power.
If I could pick on divison to serve in, it’s the 1st. It breaks my heart to see them get slashed like this.
Old Trooper, that’s a good point that’s not often articulated. It also doesn’t take into account the societal/governmental philosophy towards warfare. Americans have ALWAYS preferred to spend money on gear/armament/training versus spending lives in the field. Our military spending might be WAY larger than (insert country here) but our forces will be the best trained, equipped and supported troops on the field, and our tactical/strategic successes reflect that. It’s also reflected in our logistics systems, med evac and combat casualty survival rates. So, you’re right; There’s a lot of glossed over intangibles when it comes to the blanket comparisons. And I also agree that we now have political leadership that has never had to face down an external threat. They see peace here at home and think it’s because there’s no threats, or small enough threats to begin to slash military spending. However, there were no threats because no one wanted to f*ck with us. Now that’s going away, we’re going to start getting tested. Pax Americana only works if you can enforce it. You’d think we’d learn by studying the end of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The problem, ANCCPT, is that below a certain level of available forces even the best-trained military in the world is ineffective. The Zulus proved that at the Battle of Isandlwanda – though less-than-stellar British leadership contributed greatly to that debacle.
As Stalin put it, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
“Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it.” times 10.
It would be interesting to compare the military cuts with the Federal para-military spending (EPA, IRS, BLM, etc.) and Homeland Security spending for state and local police. Seems like that side of things has been ramping up over the past few years.
BINGO!
Speakin’ a’ which, has the USG even remotely tried to crack down on welfare and SSI fraud since B.Hussein 0bama & Company moved in?
Like they said in Casablanca…
Rick: “It’s December 2, 1941 in Casablanca– what time is it in New York?”
Sam: “I dunno– my watch stopped.”
Rick: “I’ll bet they’re asleep in New York, I’ll bet they’re alseep all over America… “
I’m glad the force is being reduced. The old American defense model of no large standing Army is a good and proven one. The idea is that a core of top tier warfighters, true military professionals, are living the military life and always ready to lead and train draftees if we ever need to raise the forces.
Our current military has no clear mission. Our nation should reduce military manpower, equipment, and costs until the president and his SECDEF can produce a METL. Then we can provide to that end.
I’m on my phone at the jobsite now, but I have two great books from the Army WarCollege on this very subject.
*two books at the house that I will reference later
You can argue that it worked in the past (poorly – remember the beginning of Korea?) but wars nowadays tend to ramp up and down quicker than the year to two years plus it would take for your trained cadre to turn out a sufficiently equipped and trained force. I’m not buying it.
Three words: Task Force Smith.
Korea is a strong example of how terrible it can go when we cut too deep. Have you read “This kind of War” by Fehrenbach? In Task Force Smith’s first defense they had brought all four of the AT 105mm rounds that were in the entire 8th Army’s arsenal. Terrifying battles those men had to execute.
So of course we ought not decimate our Armed force. But what do you think the mission ought to be, and maybe more importantly, what it shouldn’t be?
How long did it take to ramp up for WWI and WWII and how many lives were lost because we sent a bunch of draftees in unprepared and with only rudimentary training? In Korea, they recalled many skilled warriors from WWII out of necessity, since we did a draw down at the end of WWII that left us poorly trained and equipped. Same can be said for the debacle at Desert 1. Ronald Reagan saw the vacuum created by wishful thinking and started to rebuild the military. It didn’t happen over night, but it did get done. The mission of the military is to be ready for anything, but to have an ranking of the various scenarios, so that there can be some prelim planning in place. Yeah, it costs money to maintain a trained military, but that’s the price you pay for being the best. Why did it only take 100 hours in the ground war of Desert Storm? Because while Saddams army was setting up their equipment to be close to shade, so they could sit out of the sun; the allies were training.
You go to war with what you have. Wouldn’t it be better if what you had was highly trained and maintained?
Farewell 3rd BCT. 10th MTN.
Thanks, Obama!
You’d think the world’s superpower which didn’t have enough trigger pullers to combat a bunch of illiterate jihadists would keep or increase the level of troops they had to gain in order to fulfill that mission. Instead while Russia and China are building up we cut.
You want to save some money? Cut the F35 and LCS and put the scammers in jail that perpetrated and allowed that nonsense to occur.
Then again, we don’t have a national strategy worth a damn, either. So that does beg the question of why we should spend as much as we do on the military–we’re either not going to use it, or we will grossly misuse it. Might as well not spend the money in that case.
“we don’t have a national strategy worth a damn, either”
No, but we do have John sKerry and Jay Corndog and they know how to make things all better. Don’t they?
Other than Manifest Destiny has our nation ever had a national strategy that lasted longer than 8 years max?
I don’t even think our political system is set up to allow a sufficient national strategy and the world is beginning to realize how quickly our word and guarantees will be obsolete.
Our national strategy would improve if we could get our national IDENTITY back.
Or if we had someone in charge with a clue how the real world works . . . .
To me the whole issue of a “Standing Army” is in the “Standing” part. It is not so as to always be in a war but to be always prepared, particularly in the eyes of all potential adversaries to be “ready” and “standing at the ready”, when and if needed. To show the world and the likes of Putin that we have “lost the heart” to maintain a standing, well equipped, well maintained, armed force is the worst possible message to send. I see this as the message which is “screaming” from the POTUS, the Pentagon and the SoS at this moment. I believe it is one of the most dangerous positions I have seen an Administration put our nation in since the “surprise” we received at the onset of the Korean Conflict. I was just a grunt, so this is just my one humble, opinion without the advantage of being a military theorist or historian.