Posted on 02/23/2014 11:24:29 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to shrink the U.S. Army to its smallest force since before World War II, Pentagon officials told the New York Times.
The plans, to be laid out in Hagel's first defense budget Monday, call for the entire fleet of Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft to be eliminated, the newspaper said, citing Pentagon officials ahead of Hagel's release of the spending plan.
The twin-engine jet is the only Air Force aircraft designed solely for close air support of ground forces. It was developed in the 1970s to attack Soviet tanks in case of a European invasion -- capabilities the Pentagon deems less relevant today, the Times said.
The proposed budget includes limits on military pay raises, higher fees for military healthcare benefits and less generous military housing allowances, the Wall Street Journal said.
Pentagon officials describe the cuts as a modest and realistic plan to save billions of dollars needed to protect other critical portions of U.S. defense spending, the Journal said.
The proposed changes, which will be subject to congressional approval, are intended to comply with the Bipartisan Budget Act reached by President Barack Obama and Congress, the Times said. That deal, which passed the House Dec. 12 and the Senate Dec. 18, imposes a military spending cap of about $496 billion for the 2015 fiscal year.
The changes, endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are also intended to conform to Obama's pledge to end two costly and exhausting land wars.
A result will be a military capable of defeating any adversary, but too small for prolonged foreign occupations, Pentagon officials told the Times.
"We're still going to have a very significant-sized Army," an official said. "But it's going to be agile. It will be capable. It will be modern. It will be trained."
The Army, which did the most U.S. fighting and had the most casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, is proposed in Hagel's budget to drop to 440,000 to 450,000 troops, the smallest force since 1940, the Times said.
It was already scheduled to drop to 490,000 troops from a post-Sept. 11, 2001, peak of 570,000.
Money saved by cutting the number of personnel would assure U.S. fighting soldiers would be well trained and supplied with the best weaponry, the officials told the newspaper.
The cuts in housing allowances and other benefits, such as less support for grocery stores that offer discounts to military families, reflect economic realities, the Defense Department said.
"Personnel costs reflect some 50 percent of the Pentagon budget and cannot be exempted in the context of the significant cuts the department is facing," department spokesman Adm. John Kirby told the Journal.
"Secretary Hagel has been clear that, while we do not want to, we ultimately must slow the growth of military pay and compensation," Kirby said.
Hagel's plan calls for a one-year pay freeze for the Defense Department's top military leaders -- a gesture the Journal said was meant to show that even the best-compensated leaders would make sacrifices.
And that shrinking helped to bring about WWII
Nothing new here, just Obama's butt-boy doing the job he was hired for.
And when they ramp up the troop numbers again, it will be with the “correct” breed of members who will not hesitate to fire on American citizens.
Got to cut those taxes somewhere, so says Grover Norquist and his Muslim wife.
..and this is why A-10’s are no longer needed. American citizens don’t have tanks.
Hagel is one of the people on this earth that I despise. He’s a veteran who, like his buddy McCain, turned traitor against his fellow veterans.
I wouldn’t serve this CIC for any reason. People should stop enlisting. Of course, that’s probably what they want.
Gee, where have we seen this before......
Now let’s take the rest of the government back to its pre-WWII low.
I recall a series of Army exercises, called something like the Louisiana Maneuvers or something like that back before WWII. They were really prepared. The picture I recall most is an old truck with a sign on it that read “TANK.”
So is this what we’re gonna go back to?
“We’re still going to have a very significant-sized Army,” an official said. “But it’s going to be agile. It will be capable. It will be modern. It will be trained.”
It will be so busy that the men and women in it will be dropping dead from overwork and being assigned away from friends and family for so long that they lose it all, Friends, Family, health, etc. For many if not most people in the service, it’s the ‘support network’ outside the bounds of the service that keep them sane and healthy. Not the PC, keep a watch on your mouth and keep watching your back for the knives that will eventually come for you.
Yep.
I will be for military cuts only, and ONLY, if all other entitlement programs are cut equally.
Otherwise, I am vehemently against it.
We need to cut spending. That much is clear. But I’ll be DAMNED if I will support cutting only the military, which is what I see.
Damn all of them to Hell. This makes me angry. I despise liberalism, which is really at the root of this.
Yep. Nothing breeds aggression like weakness.
This is supposed to prevent us from getting into prolonged foreign entanglements,I guess the lying National security advisor,Susan Rice has not gotten the message,she is going around warning Russia not to send troops into Kiev,ok,Miss Rice,what are you going to do about it without an Army or Air Force,IDIOT
The defense budget is considered discretionary spending. But I agree that cutting defense alone will not solve our problems. Entitlement spending must be gotten under control. But I don't see the courage to do that on either side of the aisle.
http://news.yahoo.com/u-military-size-civil-war-today-003500646.html
“”Before the Civil War began in 1861, American Military History states the regular U.S. Army had 1,080 officers and nearly 15,000 enlisted men as of June 1860...
By the end of the war, there were over 1 million volunteers serving in the U.S. military. Within two years, the force was reduced to just over 11,000, a size even smaller than before the war. Adding part-time enlistees, a regular force of 57,000 men was realized for about five years. By 1876, there were just over 27,000 personnel in the military.
World Wars
When World War I started, the American military was in the process of increasing in size. Congress authorized an increase to 400,000 members in the National Guard to augment a regular Army size of around 175,000 in peace time. When President Woodrow Wilson called for the United States to enter World War I in Europe, volunteers to the force topped 2 million.
The Information Please Online Almanac states the U.S. military reached its highest enlistment in 1945. By the time World War II ended, there were over 12 million military personnel in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps combined. The U.S. Army had about 1.5 million people at the start of World War II.
Modern Times
Since the Vietnam War, troop levels decreased from about 3 million to roughly 1.4 million active personnel over the past two decades. PBS reported in 2004 that there were 499,000 active duty U.S. Army personnel backed up by 700,000 part time National Guard troops. Those numbers were about a third less than the force available during the Persian Gulf War in 1991...””
The other entitlements are growing out of control, which is why they need the military to shrink.
Eventually, we won’t need a military. We’ll have just the Free Sh!T Army keeping order—just like in Venezuela.
Our government is in the pocket of the student loan liberal mafia. It only contracts now libart libtards for the war on poverty, not the hard sciences.
On the other hand, national defense is a job mandated to the federal government in the Constitution.
There is no mention of Entitlements...
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