U.S. Army to cut 40,000 troops over next two years: USA Today

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army plans to cut 40,000 troops over the next two years, affecting all its domestic and foreign posts, USA Today reported on Tuesday, saying the Army also planned to cut 17,000 civilian employees.

The cuts would reduce the active-duty Army from its current size of about 490,000 soldiers to about 450,000, its smallest number since before the United States entered World War Two.

The troop reductions were initially announced in February 2014 when then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel unveiled the Pentagon's budget for the 2015 fiscal year. The figures were also included in the Pentagon's four-year planning document, the Quadrennial Defense Review 2014.

Defense officials confirmed on Tuesday the Army was moving ahead with the plan to reduce uniformed and civilian personnel and was expected to announce details on Thursday about which units would be affected by the cuts.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/u-army-cut-40-000-troops-over-next-195427792.html

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Are we at the end of the empire?

Or is this a change of some other kind

[jmowreader]

2. It may be the Army's too broke to afford those 40,000 troops

Defense money isn't unlimited, though it sometimes seems as if it is. With the F-35 coming on line, they'll have to economize in other ways...and one of the government's favorite things to do is to screw the Army.

[sadoldgirl]

3. Are they just reducing man power?

What about unneeded equipment? We spend much
more on a stealth bomber than on soldiers.

Ah, but I forget the benefits those guys and girls
deserve. Pardon me.

[jmowreader]

4. Soldiers don't make multimillion-dollar campaign contributions

Equipment will ALWAYS come before personnel in any military budget. Always has been that way, always will.

[uppityperson]

5. Indeed, don't just cut troops but do cut equipment money.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. The army doesn't go broke. Congress makes the decisions about manning levels with the guidance of

the JCS, Secretary of he Army, and the President.

Since the last troops withdrew from Iraq a few years back, we have downsized the marines, and army. The NAVY continues to maintain 11 Aircraft Carries, so it has yet to feel the crunch.

It appears to me that we are not planning to fight any major wars in the near future.

[jmowreader]

7. I take it you weren't in the Army in 1988

Thanks to ol' Ronnie's cut-taxes-and-spend-faster economic program, the Army ran out of money right after the middle of September 1988. We fortunately had materiel stockpiled - food, paper, fuel for MP cars, all the shit the Army needs to sustain itself in a peacetime situation - that got us through to the end of the month, when the bank accounts were refilled. My colonel put it very succinctly: If something breaks and we don't have parts to fix it, hope like hell you can accomplish the mission without it.

[Agnosticsherbet]

8. I was in the Navy in 1988.

The army ran out of money because Congress did not raise enough funds.

At the time, the Navy was working hard to build 600 ships. As an airdale working on F-14s, we spent most of our time with two Hanger Queens that were robbed to keep the other aircraft flying. Congress never allotted enough funds for spare parts.

[maxsolomon]

9. Good. Keep going.

The entire DoD needs to be shrunk by 1/3, at a minimum.

(Yes, I know this is a pipe dream and that I live in a nation where Republicans have power)