Military Downsizing Consequences After Major Conflicts

“President Obama has, conveniently, rewritten the standard of military strategy to conform to his defense-budget-cutting desires”(Bucci, 1). This quote shows how someone can manipulate the budget to make people think it is going to be for the better, but there are always two sides to a story. The defense budget cuts are causing the military a plethora of stresses because it’s taking away some training programs, benefits from soldiers, and even making America look tenuous.

The most important imperative of four in the Army Campaign Plan is “develop leaders to meet the challenges of the 21st century” because in the future leaders will deal a “tough realistic environment” and must be willing to adapt to the mission, threat or operational environment. We must “train soldiers and leaders to ensure they are prepared to accomplish the mission across the range of military operations while operating in complex environments against determined, adaptive enemy organizations . This is the eighth of twenty Army Warfighting Challenges enduring first order problems, the solutions to which will improve current and future force combat effectiveness. These challenges are reviewed and updated as needed to remain applicable for the future force.

When the demands for a large military decrease there are several ways to reduce the strength. The bonuses decrease, or go away entirely depending on how aggressive the reduction is. The new recruitment standards get tightened back to pre-buildup times. The retention boards crank back up. There are always members of the military that are not meeting the common standards, such as height and weight or the APFT. Members failing to meet the standards are the first to get sent home during board cycles.

Renowned historian and classicist scholar Victor Davis Hanson’s January 11, 2012 commentary entitled “Heavy Price of Defense Spending Cuts: Nations That Choose Butter over Guns Atrophy and Die” warrants a thoughtful analysis of its merits and shortcomings by U.S. military officers entrusted with leading this nation’s youth while implementing our national strategy.

The U.S has compared forces with its enemies to determine its strengths and weaknesses, but now with the developing of weapons and the advancement of technology have made the comparison harder. Technologies advances have been included into U.S weapons, platforms and operating concepts and this make it possible and easier than before with just fewer assets. These advances allow some military tasks like seizing, holding and occupying territory. In other hand, this will require the presence of soldiers no matter what and with the presence of smaller forces each soldier will represent an individual power. A war is like a chess game, each piece has its own power and function. Our military forces should be able to protect us in three key areas: capability, capacity and readiness. U.S Army is classified as weak among Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Nuclear (All of them represent U.S military power). Military strength has been reduced and corroded. One example is that the Army has been cut to 490,000 from 566,000 in 2011. Another example is the reduction of the Air Force’s tactical aircraft (26 down from

remember back in May of 2013 when we were all told that the “BIG ARMY” doesn’t know what to do with us, because we were one of two Air Sault Artillery units in the whole military. So like in this article soldiers found themselves again up in the air waiting for further orders to come down the chain. I wound up going to 308th BSB (Brigade Support Battalion) unit the following January. Now I was with them from January through of March 2015. While I was with them it didn’t take long before they too started to shrink. My company shank from a three-platoon size down to a two platoon. Then it shrank even more. This time they halved the remainder of the company and created a special platoon that was attached to brigade as their support. Everyone started to come down on orders to either inner-post transfer, PCS or ETS out. While this happening “BIG ARMY” sent out a letter stating that all fourth brigades nationwide will be disbanded as part of the reduction of force. Meaning that all these units now will have to find a new “home” or disappear. So, with all of this said between this article and my first-hand experiences, my question is whether the incoming president elect will take charge and find way to rectify this or not on an economic stand point.

On August 2, 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 which cut $487 billion from projected defense spending over the next 10 years.1 The act also established a system of sequestration, which would cut an additional $495 billion from the defense budget.2 Altogether, the BCA would cut almost $1 trillion dollars from the Department of Defense (DoD). The passing of the BCA and the subsequent loss of funding mark an end to a 13-year period of robust budget allocations to support the global war on terrorism. From 2001 to 2013 over $1.6 trillion has been allocated to the DoD to support preparations for and execution of operations in various overseas areas.3 Within this $1.6 trillion, 94% of the funding was allocated to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.4 This robust amount of funding cultivated a culture within the DoD that there would always be funding available to cover costs at home and abroad. This culture is deeply entrenched within the United States Army due to large budgets provided to the Army over the past 13 years. In today’s environment of shrinking budgets, this culture can no longer stand true and must be changed. Establishing a cost-conscious culture (CCC) within the Army is critical to our ability to sustain the current Army force structure and make the needed modernization investments to ensure our capability to fight and win our nations wars.

To implement the recommendations the organization needs to maintain the current force mix and capability distribution currently allocated in TAA 18-22 and future TAA 20-24 must maintain a balanced force that would provide necessary flexibility to maintain an operational reserve. In spite of recent force turbulence, the current force sizing and rebalance initiatives should stabilize RC formations to preserve the Army’s strategic depth while providing enough balance to complement operational capabilities across all components. The current force mix and structure appears to meet current joint demands and the RC cannot afford to reduce the already lean force if they are to keep up with the operational demand. Leveraging the operational reserve current capacity is more responsive and less costly than generating new

To spend or not to spend, that is the question. America is torn, not sure whether it should increase military spending or if it should considerably slash the budget. Advocates for a higher defense budget claim more spending will lead to a stronger, better trained military, which would in turn help secure our status as the superlative military power of the world. However, supporters of the defense budget cuts argue for a reduction in troop size, which they believe would save the country billions and allow the nation to focus those savings on next generation technology for protection. This argument has raged for decades with no solution in sight. Maybe we have been approaching this problem all wrong. Perhaps, instead of the shortsighted approach of either raise or lower the budget, we try a smarter, more efficient method of spending to ensure every dollar of our annual military budget positively impacts our national defense.

The Budget control Act of 2011 has forced the DOD to reduce spending significantly to meet the $487 Billion ten-year cut. This also requires a sequestration mechanism of $50 billion annually. While it is imperative to be fiscally responsible, the DOD needs to protect the security interest of the US and prioritize spending on combat power. Additionally the DOD is reducing major headquarters budgets by 20%. There have been cutbacks in civilian and contractor positions and seeks to lower military health care expenditures.

The Army should maintain its current level of reliance on contracting support to their ability to deploy quickly, execute missions that the military can’t, and reduce troop levels.

I agree that our active duty force will become smaller over the next five years. Even though the active duty Army is programed to become smaller, the Chief of Staff of the Army has stated that size of the Army will not be 450K, but will be 980K. This suggests integration, or operationalization, of the guard and reserves. If the Army does integrate, it may also affect acquisition strategies and fielding plans of weapon systems that have already been programed. Synchronized operationalization of the reserves will require coordination of capabilities to ensure the total force is able to shoot, move and communicate effectively. Currently the reserves are not on par with the capability sets being fielded to active duty units. This may take years

During the mid-to-end of the 1990s, during my career in the US Army, we had a reduction in force (RIF) that was conducted very poorly. The perceived best interests (Washington politics) for the organization and centralized decisions were implemented without regard for the work units spread across the globe. There

This time I decided to try a search using “downsizing of the military” as a starting point. I immediately came across an article in The Washington Times that gave me some insight about issues with having a smaller military and handling a global/world war. The article pointed out that we as a military would have no problem supporting small strike forces, but, if there were to be more than one major global conflict happening at the same time, we as a military would not have the personnel needed to support both conflicts. I knew I could trust where this information was coming from seeing as it was coming from the Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley. If anyone is to know what the capabilities of the Army is presently and will be in the future, it would be him since he oversees all operations in the Army.

This paper will discuss pressing future challenges, and how Joint Force 2025 must prepare for them. Based on our current strategic direction and today’s global security environment, discussion will revolve around the general capability requirements for Joint Force 2025 to re-balance the force. It will also explain, by service, the capability requirements while considering the associated advantages and disadvantages of these requirements. This essay also articulates the risks involved in rebalancing Joint Force 2025 within the context of a fiscally constrained budget environment.