This is nothing new. It happened after World War I, after World War II, after Korea, after Vietnam, after the First Gulf War. The politicians decide that they don’t need an Army and the cuts begin. In every single case, every single case, the threats to this country raise their ugly heads and the Army is called upon once again to do their duty. The price of buying votes for the politicians is the lives of the young men and women that are sacrificed as the Army gets back to level needed to do its job.
Soldiers, not politicians pay the price.
Your history is exactly on point - I got to see how it worked for two of those iterations and saw how it affected the Army. It always creates paroxysms in the officer development and promotion system, only to repeat it again when the politicians can’t see beyond the end of their nose. One iteration you left out was the round of post-Cold War cuts that affected personnel issues in the run-up to Gulf War One.