Reducing force, maintaining muscle
Matt Alderton, Special for USA TODAY 9:19 p.m. CST February 20, 2016
http://www.pnj.com/story/news/military/2016/02/20/reducing-force-maintaining-muscle/80684750/As the U.S. military continues a rebalance to the Pacific from Iraq and Afghanistan, it finds itself waist-deep in transition, and for the U.S. Army, perhaps the most significant challenge in the immediate future is a restructuring that will reduce its total force.
Driven by budget constraints — including the Budget Control Act of 2011 and subsequent sequestration, which together mandated nearly $1 trillion in defense spending cuts over the next 10 years — the reduction includes 15,000 active-duty soldiers in fiscal year 2016, another 15,000 in fiscal year 2017 and 10,000 more in fiscal year 2018. The Army will be left with an active-duty force of 450,000 soldiers, down from 490,000 currently and a war-time high of 570,000 several years ago.
“This is not a reduction the Army wanted to make; it is congressionally mandated,” said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, who noted that cuts could get even deeper if sequestration returns. In that case, the Army could shrink to just 420,000 active-duty soldiers by the end of fiscal year 2019.
Currently, cuts announced in July will be heaviest at three Army installations losing 2,500 soldiers or more apiece:
•Fort Benning, Ga., will lose 3,402 soldiers.
•Fort Hood, Texas, will lose 3,350 soldiers.
•Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), Alaska, will lose 2,631 soldiers.
At Fort Benning and JBER, smaller battalion task forces will replace larger infantry brigades.
“We’ve cut a significant amount of fat and a significant amount of bone,” Buccino said. “Next, we start cutting into muscle.”
It takes approximately five years to build and train a brigade combat team (BCT) from scratch, and over a year to turn a battalion task force into a brigade, said Buccino. Downgrading brigade combat teams could represent a hit to the Army’s ability to scale up quickly in response to new and emerging threats.
Indeed, Army leaders worry about their capacity to address an increasing number of threats with a diminishing number of soldiers.
“(Former) Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno and I have testified repeatedly that we are on the ‘ragged’ edge,” then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh told the Association of the U.S. Army in October. “Our BCT readiness level right now is at some 32 to 33 percent. Our standard is 60 to 70 percent.”
Strykers above the Arctic Circle
Stryker armored vehicles were deployed north of the Arctic Circle for the first time during Operation Arctic Pegasus in November, demonstrating the Army’scold-weather capabilities and testing readiness. The joint, multi-agency exercise took place just weeks after Russia announced plans to permanently install a military unit in the Arctic by the end of 2018. (Photo: CAPT. RICHARD PACKER/U.S. ARMY ALASKA PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
McHugh said the department has been “increasingly diligent in using scarce dollars more efficiently, more productively, while simultaneously preparing for that next big thing.” But, he added, “a force can only be cut so much before it becomes ineffective. If America hopes to continue to rely on its Army, those limits, my friends, have been reached.”
“The challenge in the future is … resourcing to meet the myriad requirements we have, which continue to go up,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, commander of the Army’s I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash., which focuses on the Pacific mission.
Although the Army will retain most of its combat capabilities, he said, it could risk force readiness by eliminating the capacity for programs like Pacific Pathways, which keeps the U.S. engaged in the Pacific through small, forward-deployed units that participate in military and humanitarian exercises with allied nations.
“My concern is: In the future, as you lose resources, what comes off the table?” Lanza said.
“The world is more dangerous when the U.S. is not leading, and we cannot lead as effectively when we are shedding tens of thousands of people from our military,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
If the Army must face more threats with fewer soldiers, it wants to ensure its remaining forces are ready for anything. On Oct. 1, it introduced changes to basic combat training to better prepare troops for an increasingly diverse mission set.
“The basic combat training program of instruction was redesigned, frankly, because the world has changed and we have changed,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony Funkhouser, commanding general of the U.S. Army Center for Initial Military Training. “We’re moving away from being an army at war to being an army in preparation. We’ve got to be prepared to go whenever and wherever our nation asks us to.”
As a result, the training will be viewed through a global lens. “In the past, we were doing very theater-specific tasks (tailored to Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom),” such as operating in the desert, countering improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and conducting convoy operations, said Funkhouser.
“Now we’re replacing a lot of that to train soldiers on the fundamentals to be more versatile, adaptive and proficient in their foundational warrior tasks and battle drills,” he said. “We’ve increased the rigor in general.”
CHANGES TO THE ARMY’S BASIC COMBAT TRAINING
•Modifying rifle marksmanship to include fewer weapons and to incorporate optics such as scopes and lasers.
•Implementing phase testing, which requires soldiers to master one set of skills before being cleared to move on to another.
•Revising values and discipline to include additional sexual harassment and assault response training, and the use of peer evaluations.
•Updating training in hand-to-hand combat, land navigation and first aid.
•Reincorporating camouflage training for better concealment.
