The Army Force Cuts: 3 Truths, 4 Fallacies

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http://breakingdefense.com/2014/02/the-army-force-cuts-3-truths-4-fallacies/



The Army Force Cuts: 3 Truths, 4 Fallacies
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on February 24, 2014 at 6:07 PM

WASHINGTON: There are three things you need to know about the administration’s new budget plan and what it means for the Army. Most importantly, the fact the Army will be its smallest since before World War II is not one of them.

In the dystopian mirror universe that is Washington under sequestration, being cut by 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers is actually a win for the Army. Everyone I’ve talked to inside and outside of the Army knew the service would go below 490,000 regular active-duty troops, the previous plan. The only question was how low. Sec. Hagel’s Strategic Choices and Management Review studied a 380,000-soldier option and many sources speculated about 420,000, while Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno entrenched himself at the 450,000 line. Hagel’s plan to reduce the Army to “440,000 to 450,000″ looks pretty good for Gen. Odierno…

….but those numbers aren’t real. They won’t even be voted on in Congress this year. That’s because the Army will only get down from its wartime peak to 490,000 — again, the previously planned level — by the end of fiscal year 2015. Further reductions, to whatever level, would have to come in future budgets. And those notoriously hazy “out years” are even more unreal than usual, because Hagel’s 440,000-450,000 figure presumes that Congress will somehow toss the automatic budget cuts called sequestration, which December’s budget deal merely delayed. If sequestration’s 10-year, half-trillion cut to defense spending stays in place, Hagel acknowledged, the Army would have to come down further, to 420,000….

… and that means this war is far from over. “The cuts usually come in threes,” Maj. Gen. Bill Hix of the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) said this morning. What he didn’t say out loud is that going down to 490,000 was the first slice; down to 440-450,000 is second; 420,000 or lower would be the third.

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