Pentagon Plans to Reduce Size of Army to pre-WWII Levels.

Report: Hagel plans to reduce size of Army to pre-WWII levels

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to reduce the size of the United States Army to its smallest force since before World War II, according to The New York Times.

Hagel reportedly will unveil the plan Monday in his 2015 budget for the Pentagon, which will also call for an entire class of Air Force attack jets to be retired.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Army peaked at 570,000 troops, the Times reports. Hagel wants to shrink the force to between 440,000 and 450,000. That would mark the Army’s smallest force since 1940.

Several Pentagon officials confirmed the budget plan to the Times on condition of anonymity. They say it would be large enough for the U.S. to defeat any enemy, but too small to carry out longer-term foreign occupations.

"You have to always keep your institution prepared, but you can't carry a large land-war Defense Department when there is no large land war," a senior Pentagon official told the newspaper.

The budget comes as the Obama administration prepares to pull out most American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The U.S. has been considering a complete withdrawal if Afghan President Hamid Karzai refuses to sign a bilateral security agreement that would outline how many residual forces would remain after 2014.

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No more war of choice.

IMO they shoud reduce the reserves and not touch the regular forces.

i don't see a problem with this

While I don't agree with these cuts...this makes no sense, the reserves are the most cost effective ready to fight force we have. This isn't the old 1980's "weekend warrior" reserves.

I say don't reduce any of it before reducing the other waste this government produces. Coming after our military is ridiculous when we are still giving millions in grants for stupid studies for shit like shrimp treadmills and examining squirrel droppings to find out acorn preference.

Let's see.....non-American or Democrat?

Oh look, 120k+ more unemployed.

Yea that is another aspect few even think about. I am sure there are plenty of quality jobs waiting for that infantryman out here.

Yes, this is the work on job that our government should be doing. For fucks sake, does either side look out for the American public?

lol at assumption that looking for a reduced size of military is automagically tied to nationality or political association.

Well this should make republicans looking for deficit reduction quite happy. Given that military spending takes up about 50% of our annual budget this is the type of reduction in spending that would be made of real substance.

All that being said it means more unemployed people. I can't wait to watch republicans turn around and defend such large spending.

Not to mention it would mean defending a government agency, which last I checked is supposed to be an incredibly inneffective body that always needs its spending reduced.

It will be kind of sad to see the Warthog retired.

This should help the American people first and foremost. The American military sucks huge amount of capital without generating any value whatsoever. Its a win-win situation. The U.S would most probably benefit from this economically and it would hopefully stop warmongering once and for all. I don't know may be the world is finally getting fed up with war and is finally realizing what humankind is capable of if it gets its shit together, continues and consolidates the current historically unprecedented scientific and technological advancement, and manages not to self-destruct.

Regardless, warfare is no longer about sheer volume of armies, that's a thing of the past.

About damn time! Our military budget has been so psychotically big. I remember reading that they can also save a lot of money through the military by looking into correcting a lot of inefficiency.

Now lets make sure this money we save is going back to help the people here, especially those who will be unemployed by this move.

Once the various state governments learn about how many jobs this will cost their representatives will fight it. Already some have vowed to fight it.

The military budget doesn't exist just because America wants a huge military. It exists because the money is funneled into local economies that produce for the military. If the budget gets cut then jobs will be lost. You can sit there and blame the military industrial complex and corporations for lobbying to keep the budget so they can make more money, but the fact remains that money does result in jobs being created and jobs will be lost with a cut military budget.

It's not so black and white and will probably not go into effect. Between the lobbying and the potential job loss, the US government will keep the budget high.

We've known for years our military doesn't need nearly the budget it has to keep up its strength. However that's not the only factor playing. The Pentagon has called on more than one occasion to halt the production of tanks, but that would really impact the Ohio economy and people don't want those jobs to be lost.

We need to increase the size of the army but no more war. These soldiers have amazing abilities to grow America. These are our renaissance, people

The United States spends less than 5% of its GDP on military spending. But yea....just like a typical liberal go ahead and defend wasting tons of money elsewhere and neutering our military. People like you make me sick. What kind of tool relishes in this type of news just to laugh at the other side? You are part of the problem and why this country sucks now, thank you. Move to fucking Iceland if you don't want a military.

Not assumption, deduction (learn the difference)....never heard of a Republican crying about military spending., and if you were not American why would you have a problem with this?

No need for a bigger army if you're not going to war.

lol what?

republicans cry about military spending all the time. they cry whenever anyone ( even the military itself ) suggests decreasing it. as wasdie pointed out. it stems not from some noble desire to protect a nation, but from politicians' fear of having to explain to their constituents why their jobs refurbishing obsolete equipment are no longer needed. the modern military is as much a jobs program as it is a national defense program.

Nordic Model > American government

Also,

Nordic women >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> American women

We are already feeling the budget cuts on the inside. We have less money to train and a lot of people are on edge whether or not they will have a job next year with the latest round of involuntary separations. It sounds easy to just cut numbers and call it a day but the end result is 5,000 less troops at a particular base is 5,000 less people pumping money into the local economy. That may not mean much to a place like Fort Sam Houston with San Antonio being such a big place on its own but for Fort Riley in Kansas that would devastate Junction City.

I see it is the army and not the whole military that is getting reduced. Then i think it isn't that bad. I wish my army had these numbers anyway.

@Nibroc420: It's the renaissance, don't ya feel it happening in our culture today?

Finally someone with sense, a good change to the warmongering backwards "human" beings that post in here.
Instead of advancing and researching science, health care and technology, we as humanity (not only Americans) waste tons of money on creating tools to kill each other.

This is a common fear that people have, but it is not necessarily a bad thing for the economy. If the we have more troops then are needed for the Army's current operations, then that means there are a lot of assets that are being used unproductively. If we can lower our defense spending, then in the long-run those assets are being put to better use in other areas of the economy (whether through lower taxes or lower deficits), which on the net could mean more jobs & wealth. So, while the initial unemployment problem appears scary, it is not necessarily a long-term problem.

No surprise. Wars aren't fought by numbers of troops anymore.

People talking about unemployed military staff. Well realize one thing, those jobs to exist, someone created them and invested in them. So instead of investing and creating jobs for the military industry consider the possibility of creating jobs in an actually productive field. Invest in education. Isn't it absurd that many young people don't have the opportunity to study in the USA, and those that do, have to pay tons of money or get huge debts cause of loans. and why? because they wanted to study.
To me it is totally unfair and stupid, because knowledge is power, educate people and they will pay back the society double time by creating jobs, discover innovative technology and much more. In other countries education is free or at least the expenses are kept so low that everyone that wants to study can afford it. You produce young graduates that by the time they finish the school they have a debt of 100k+...

@vfibsux: Liberals are the devil and Conservatives are saints. We get it.

No.

Just No.

Yeah let's ignore the amount of people it puts in the unemployment line competing for jobs with the rest of the unemployed

@fueled-system: Stop being ignorant and naive and read my post like 2-3 posts above!

this is a terrible argument in support of a large military.

@vfibsux:

Department of defense gets about 50% of the budget. The 2014 budget is for the DOD alone is 615.1 billion dollars. The army gets 129.67 billion of that money.

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0177/6150/t/2/assets/WATERMARK-DNT-0712.png?160

Spending will probably go up regardless, they're just trying to cut on one end to increase spending in corrupt defense contracting.

Eventually we were going to have to force shape the military. They've been doing it for quite some time since Obama took office.

Why not cut taxes instead? I'd rather have that money to spend myself.

I did and I disagree oh woops I am naive and ignorant because I have a different opinion... SORRY so so sorry

This would eventually come, this is a liberal mantra: "BUT WHY DON'T WE CUT TEH MILITARY!". There is always space to cut wasteful spending and the Department of Defense isn't above, also you should always analyze how to adapt the military to whatever the current mission is.

With that say, lets keep in mind that the military is one of FEW things explicitly stated on the Constitution under the Enumerated Powers. A lot of the other junk that we isn't.

Now we cut the DOD, next we are coming for everything else.

While I do agree that reducing military spending is a smart idea, this isn't the right way to go about it IMO. Before you start discharging a bunch of men and women from the force, why don't you look at where all of the military budget is actually being spent on? Such as all these experimental projects and military weapons that end up going nowhere. All the unnecessary missile projects and experimenting that DRAINS most of our money and has no productive results. The military is as much a bureaucracy as our Senate and congress. What about all the military lobbying for the private industry making deals with military management to sell them overpriced ammunition and arms to get support. Firing a soldier making $40,000 is nothing compared to the spending on the useless experimental weapons industry in which billions go into. It's truly ridiculous.

Given the nature of modern warfare, an incredibly large military force is unnecessary. Drones, guided missiles, Air support, advanced training and weapons make a much smaller force much more effective and deadly then the forces that were used in WWII for example. There should be no reasons to oppose a decrease in military numbers.

BS. We want a strong military because some of us actually learned our lessons from the past.

What people keep failing to realize is the military is an easy target, there is much more waste out there we should be tackling before cutting our military back. There is all kinds of shady spending going on that has politicians buying votes left and right and linging their pockets with green. But yea....let's go after the military because there will be no more wars....

@vfibsux: then why do the republicans in congress refuse to cut spending in the instances when the military itself requests it?

Is the pentagon against freedom

How much of the Pentagon funding is used for research and development of new weapon systems?

With the defense budget is shrinking, I would like to see at least $5 billion put to NASA in effort of staying a leader in space and rocket technology. Develop a long term goal of the Moon and asteroids in space to mine for minerals.

It seems like people want spending cuts without the immediate consequences.

Recognizing a needlessly bloated system but not willing to fix it because it would have costs.

Want a free lunch