WASHINGTON – On Tuesday the Department of the Army announced force structure and stationing decisions associated with the active component end-strength reduction of 80,000 soldiers, resulting in an Army end-strength of 490,000 by 2017. These reductions are consistent with fiscal constraints resulting from the Budget Control Act of 2011 and defense planning guidance issued in 2012, but do not reflect additional reductions that will be required if sequestration-driven funding reductions remain unmitigated.
Based on extensive analysis, the lessons of a dozen years of combat and the need to increase operational capability and flexibility, the Army will make the following changes to its force structure:
-Reorganize infantry and armor brigade combat teams (BCTs) to restore the third maneuver battalion and increase engineer and fires capability.
-Reduce active component BCTs from 45 modular to 33 reorganized BCTs.
-Continue growth in aviation, special operations, missile defense and cyber capabilities.
This active component force structure, in conjunction with Army National Guard and Army Reserve capabilities, supports the current defense strategy and meets combatant command requirements through regional alignment of forces and global responsiveness for contingencies. The decision to restructure armor and infantry BCTs helps mitigate the loss of BCTs by eliminating the headquarters but preserving 13 Armor and Infantry battalions that would be lost without the reorganization.
Stationing decisions necessitated by the reductions and reorganization were based on a comprehensive analysis of installation quantitative and qualitative considerations to include training, power projection, well-being, expansibility, regeneration, geographic distribution, environmental and socio-economic impacts, cost, and alignment with the defense strategy. Opportunities for community input were included through both the programmatic environment assessment public comment period and community listening sessions conducted in parallel with the military value analysis and qualitative stationing analysis, prior to the final decision.
Based on this comprehensive analysis, a BCT will inactivate at each of the following locations by 2017: Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Campbell, Ky; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Knox, Ky.; Fort Riley, Kan.; Fort Stewart, Ga., and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Two BCTs, stationed at Baumholder and Grafenwoehr, Germany, will complete their inactivation in Fiscal Year 2013, leaving two BCTs in Europe to fulfill strategic commitments.
The reduction of 80,000 soldiers from the force represents a 14 percent reduction across the AC force. The specific impacts of these decisions on individual installations are being provided to affected Congressional delegations. The Army will conduct Congressional notification in accordance with Section 993, Title 10 U.S.C. prior to taking any irrevocable actions to implement these decisions.
You people who support downsizing the best military in the world must not be following the world news very much. our military has been the only thing that has kept us safe over the years. If you think for a second that Russia, North Korea, China or some of the South American country’s won’t take advantage of our weakness you are dead wrong and will be mostly dead. There are a lot of Hawks out there that will not turn the other cheek and will look at this as a weakness. Look at what Russia and China are doing right now. Thanks to Osama Obama we have lost all respect around the world.
It’s about time the military downsized. It’s a top heavy, inefficient organization whose leaders use it to satisfy their childish little ego trips.
And this is coming from someone who is an expert? Pardon me if I don’t take everything you say as relevant.
@maybe – Why are you addressing me? My comment focused on the article. Why can’t yours do the same?
I agree. Can’t we give an honest opinion without being attacked? I’m seriously considering not commenting on this site anymore.
First of all I did read the article, I don’t think the military is top heavy and needs to be downsized at all. I do believe that politics need to be taken out of the military though. Too many officers playing politics put the soldiers at risk. Not only that but the administration talks about wanting to create more jobs and they are putting 80,000 on unemployment and that’s ok? There are more people on food stamps in the military than any other business. If you compared the job descriptions and pay to somebody doing the same job in the civilian world you will see what I am talking about. I am sorry if I hurt your feelings and if you choose to not post here anymore that is your right but you made a statement like you knew what you were talking about and I disagree with that statement, all I said was that I don’t think that you knew enough about the subject to give your statement any weight. @just, if what I said makes you want to stop posting then you really must have thin skin because I wasn’t trying to attack anybody.
@maybe – So why didn’t you just give your reasons in the first place rather than direct your comments at me? You have no more real knowledge of the issue than I do, so your post is conjecture as mine was. And for as large and as well supplied as our military is, they still can’t win. We have to rely on drones to do our fighting for us, even at the cost of civilians and non-combatants. Therefore it behooves us to downsize manpower (who don’t seem to be able to do their job anyway) and instead channel money into areas that would be more beneficial tactically that can actually accomplish the mission.
I spent 12 years in the military and I saw what was going on. In Iraq we were ordered by a general that if we get attacked or ambushed we could NOT return fire unless we get HIS approval. That is politics, if they let us do what we are trained to do there is NO army in this world that could stand against us. Downsizing wouldn’t do anything but make us weak in the eyes of our enemies, more so than we already are. It is the leadership that needs to be downsized not the fighting force.
@maybe – Have you ever considered that the higher ups don’t have any confidence in the rank and file to make a tactical decision in a stress situation? And that’s why they need approval from higher to engage or not? The kind of people in the military now do not have the knowledge, experience, training or intelligence to be effective. They are given all kinds of high end, technical equipment and told they are invincible, and to go out and defeat the enemy. Truth is they couldn’t defeat themselves alone in a closet with the light off, or on for that matter. The rules of engagement go out the window the first contact these wannabes face.
@just, have you spent any time in the military? Some of the officers we delt with had absolutely NO common sense at all. I had an officer stop me in the middle of an ambush, in the kill zone, just to tell me we were getting shot at. Another officer mentioned that he likes the lasers going over us, they were pretty, I informed him that they were tracer rounds. Some officers I would follow to hell and back, some I wouldn’t follow to the latrine. You say maybe the rank and file cannot make decisions, I say it is the other way around.
@maybe-I have many friends and relatives that were in the military with a few that have just come home and they tell me the same things you are saying. I know from Viet Nam that what you say is true. Politicians have been tying the hands of our fighting men for years (Look at Korea), and there have always been bad officers. The military is very top heavy with officers that shouldn’t be in a position to make decisions.
@maybe – I guess the officer versus enlisted is an area we will never agree on. But the military complex is too large. Like so many govt. areas, it used the 9/11 scare to push advancements that were emotion rather than need. And now, like any organization, they find any reduction in workforce as a threat to their power base. In tough times, corporations find the need to cut dead weight and reduce excess overhead. The military, as with the rest of the govt. should be no different. And, yes, I was in the military. 30 years w/active, reserve and guards. One year in Viet Nam.
You mentioned the drones, if we rely so much on them then why do we need a fighting force. We don’t need the drones in the way they are using them. I can see using them to get information but not in an attack platform. With the sequestration they are gutting the maintenance sections of the military so now we have equipment just falling apart making those units not combat ready, I believe that is obamas way of reducing the effectiveness of the military so his army can basically take over.
why not just outsource the whole thing? that worked SOOOOO well with blackwater didn’t it?
Blackwater offered me a job years ago, I am so glad that I turned them down. The only problem with outsourcing the jobs to contractors is that some of the contractors are there because they were kicked out of the military for some reasons.
These posts are getting boring. Good-bye.
@Alert-you are right. This is a disgrace. The U.S. has no respect in the world anymore. We are right back where we were with Carter.
The President, family and friends just left for Africa and set to spend one hundred million $. We will be reducing the army, taking our guns (ammunition) away and how soon will we be VERY vulenerable to the other Super powers. Why isn’t there riots in the streets? We are slowly slipping away and it seems to be what the left wants. You never hear anything from them. I feel sorry for the young among us. It will be there problem.
Yes it will be their problem. (Typo before). How can we just sit here and have our President spend us into oblivion. Look at the IRS. Making a mockery of us. We are being taken advantage of and most gov. Depts. are sticking it to is. And now Obamacare. It’s so GREAT and YET the Gov. Officials, families and friends are able to opt out. We again are the suckers. Good day!!!