Pentagon to shrink US army in 2015

One of the most significant changes proposed by the Obama administration in the 2015 budget is a reduction in the size of the military, as the focus shifts to the capabilities of modern technology, and capability is prioritized over capacity, the Pentagon announced Monday. If approved by Congress, the world's strongest military would shrink to pre-World War II levels, going from 522,000 active-duty soldiers to somewhere between 440,000 and 450,000. "Since we are no longer sizing the force for prolonged stability operations, an army of this size is larger than required to meet the demands of our defense strategy," said Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at a news conference. "Given reduced budgets, it is also larger than we can afford to modernize and keep ready." "Our analysis showed that this force would be capable of decisively defeating aggression in one major combat theater, as it must be, while also defending the homeland and supporting air and naval forces engaged in another theater against an adversary," he added. A drawdown would also affect the Army National Guard and Reserves, who would go from numbering 355,000 and 205,000 soldiers, respectively, to 335,000 and 195,000 by 2017. "Guardsmen and Reservists performed well in Iraq and Afghanistan," noted Hagel. "But experience shows that specialties requiring greater collective training to achieve combat proficiency and service integration should reside in the full-time forces where these capabilities will be more ready and available to commanders." "The forces we prioritize can project power over great distances and carry out a variety of missions more relevant to the president's defense strategy, such as homeland defense, strategic deterrence, building partnership capacity and defeating asymmetric threats," he explained. "They're also well-suited to the strategy's rebalance to the Asia- Pacific region, to sustaining security commitments in the Middle East and Europe and our engagement in other regions." Special operations forces such as counterterrorism units, however, would grow under the budget proposal from 66,000 soldiers to 69,700, as Hagel looked "to protect capabilities uniquely suited to the most likely missions of the future." "We are repositioning to focus on -- new technologies, new centers of power, and a world that is growing more volatile, more unpredictable, and in some instances more threatening to the United States," he stressed. President Barack Obama is expected to declare his 2015 budget proposal next week, including the "Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative" which will provide additional funding to the Pentagon on top of the USD 496 billion recently mandated by Congress. "It would provide an additional USD 26 billion for the Defense Department," said Hagel. "Additional funds would be paid for with a balanced package of spending and tax reforms and would allow us to increase training, upgrade aircraft and weapon systems and make needed repairs to our facilities." "We are paring back contract spending, making targeted cuts in civilian personnel, improving the quality of financial information and taking other steps to become more efficient, in addition to continuing to implement the more than USD 200 billion in overhead cuts the Pentagon has submitted in the last three budget proposals," he stated. As for military hardware, the Air Force's entire fleet of A-10 jets would be retired and replaced with F-35s, in an effort to save USD 3.5 billion. "The A-10 is a 40-year-old single-purpose airplane originally designed to kill enemy tanks on a Cold War battlefield," said Hagel. "It cannot survive or operate effectively where there are more advanced aircraft or air defenses. And as we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, the advent of precision munitions means that many more types of aircraft can now provide effective close air support, from B-1 bombers to remotely piloted aircraft." "The Air Force will also retire the 50-year old U-2 in favor of the unmanned Global Hawk system," he added. "With its greater range and endurance, the Global Hawk makes a better high-altitude reconnaissance platform for the future." Congress has rejected several of these proposals before, but Hagel simply insisted, "This is a different time." "This is the first time in 13 years we will be presenting a budget to the Congress of the United States that's not a war-footing budget."