US to cut almost 100,000 troops

Comet · #1 (**permalink**) 01-26-2012, 09:43 PM

Big changes coming up for the armed forces. Will be interested to see how this plays out and what the exact effect will be, if any.

Quote:

The US will cut almost 100,000 troops as part of its plans for a "smaller, leaner" military, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has announced.

Unveiling a restructure of the armed forces, Mr Panetta said the US would boost special forces and retain the ability to defeat "any enemy on land".

The Pentagon is facing cuts of $487bn (£310bn) over the next 10 years.

In five years, the Army will drop from a peak of 570,000 to 490,000, and the marines be cut by 20,000, to 182,000.

The military's budget would rise, albeit at a slower rate, to $567bn by 2017.

Floating base

Mr Panetta said the US would continue buying F-35 jets, but would slow its purchase of the stealth fighter planes.

Leon Panetta admitted this had been tough work, but he called this a strategic turning point, arguing the changes were necessary to meet 21st century challenges.

A decade of war has seen ballooning defence budgets. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, it makes sense to take stock and see how best to reconfigure what is still the world's most formidable military.

In a way, what Mr Panetta is doing is what one of his more controversial predecessors, Donald Rumsfeld, wanted to do ten years ago: create an agile, highly versatile but substantially smaller military better suited to taking on a variety of threats.

By presenting a detailed plan to reduce future spending by almost half a trillion dollars over the next ten years, Mr Panetta hopes to avoid another $600bn of arbitrary cuts which could be imposed on his department should Congress fail to reach a deal on deficit reduction by the end of the year.
Focus would shift from large-scale conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to areas of key national interest, he said, including a strengthened commitment in Asia.

US special forces that were previously committed to Iraq will now be used around the globe, Mr Panetta said.

Such elite teams have become a key part of US strategy, killing Osama Bin Laden last year and rescuing hostages this week in Somalia.

Mr Panetta said there would be funding for a floating base that would serve special operations forces as well as drone units.

This would consist of a giant barge that can transport special operations or other forces at quick notice, reducing demands on aircraft carriers.

"Our approach was to use this as an opportunity to maintain the strongest military in the world, to not hollow out the force,'' Mr Panetta said in a statement.

Some members of Congress did not agree that such a budget would maintain a strong US military.

"Taking us back to a pre-9/11 military force structure places our country in grave danger," said Texas Senator John Cornyn, a member of a committee that will hold hearings on the budget plan.

Amid a shrinking budget - put at $525bn for the fiscal year 2013 - the US military as envisioned by the new plan would still be larger than it was before 9/11.

The defence budget could also lose another $500bn at the end of this year after Congress failed to agree on deficit reduction following a debt-ceiling deal in August.

'Technical edge'

Mr Panetta told reporters at a press briefing that the budget plan would give Congress the opportunity to act responsibly on reducing the deficit.

It is all but politically inconceivable that America is going to fight a ground war and occupy another country - at least under this president”
End Quote Mardell: Deflating a spending balloon
"This is a tough challenge, and nobody ought to underestimate just how difficult it will be," he said. "It's very easy to talk about deficit reduction, it's very tough to do something."

He stressed the need to retain a "decisive technical edge", citing increases in military technology including an expansion of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

In addition to the troop reductions, the Air Force will retire older cargo planes, while the Navy will keep their fleet of aircraft carriers but retire cruisers.

Submarine purchases will be delayed, including a two-year delay on building a new generation of ships designed to carry long-range nuclear missiles.

Mr Obama is expected to ask Congress in the near future to consider closure or combining additional US military bases, following a round of closures that began in 2005.

Republican hopefuls for president have pointed to the defence cuts as an argument against Mr Obama's re-election.

"We simply cannot continue to cut our Department of Defense budget if we are going to remain the hope of the Earth," Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said in a debate on 16 January.

BBC News - US to cut almost 100,000 troops

SwissMan · #2 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 03:28 AM

Wonder what they are thinking!

cnredd · #3 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 03:38 AM

I don't mind if this was simply a cost cutting measure, but the military should be a last resort, and this is being done right after Obama proposed to give public union workers a RAISE!!!...

Federal Worker Pay Increase Proposed By White House

Quote:

An Obama administration official says the White House is proposing a 0.5 percent raise for civilian federal employees in its 2013 budget.

If Congress approves the measure, it would mark the first pay increase for federal workers since the two-year freeze President Barack Obama ordered in 2010.

Republican lawmakers have suggested extending the freeze for federal workers as one way to pay for a full-year extension of payroll tax cuts. A short-term, two-month extension of the tax cut is due to expire at the end of February.

Military?...You're fired...

Bureaucrat?...here's a little extra something in your paycheck as your shop foremen hand over millions to my campaign...

Comet · #4 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 04:06 AM

With a Leaner Military, a Long List of Potential Threats

Quote:

Following his long-awaited announcement detailing a proposal for massive defense spending cuts and an overall reduction in military personnel, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta revealed his list of the risks and the most pressing threats to America's security.

"This is going to be tough," Panetta told reporters Thursday. "Obviously it will be a smaller force, and when you have a smaller force there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond."

So in the near future where will the world’s strongest military need to respond?

Panetta says there's a long list of potential problems. Among his top concerns, he says, are: the ongoing war in Afghanistan; the threat of terrorism; the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan; Yemen; a nuclear-capable Iran; a nuclear-capable North Korea; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; turmoil in the Middle East, and the potential for cyber warfare.

The U.S. military's ground forces, specifically the Army and Marines are slated to lose nearly 100,000 troops. The Army will shrink to 490,000 troops down from the current 562,000. The Marines will shrink by 20,000, down to 182,000.

But retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales says the Pentagon is ignoring the lessons of history.

"Every administration since the fall of the Berlin wall has been trying to cut heavy forces," Scales said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday. "So should we ever face a conventional enemy again - and we will - the chances are very high that we'll march off to war with a force that isn’t heavy enough to fight sustained land combat."

The Pentagon says its new emphasis will be on smaller more nimble Special Operations forces, like the Navy SEALs who carried out the Usama bin Laden raid last year and a daring hostage rescue in Somalia this week, the latter carried out as the president and Defense Department prepared to announce the new cuts.

Among those threats on the horizon, Panetta did not mention China, despite the fact that much of the new military strategy is focused on an increased force presence in the Asia Pacific region. U.S. officials have watched closely as China rapidly grows its own military. In the past year, it managed to test fly a stealth fighter jet and launch its first aircraft carrier.

Even so, mentioning China as a threat would be a mistake. Not only is the U.S. military shifting away from an ability to fight a land war in Asia, it also maintains a very fragile military relationship with China, often soured by U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

If one thing is for certain in the Pentagon, it's uncertainly. As Panetta's predecessor, Robert Gates, often said, the Pentagon has a consistent record in predicting wars. “We have never once gotten it right.”

With a Leaner Military, a Long List of Potential Threats - Fox News

Mikeyy · #5 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 09:42 AM

I don't see what the issue is. The title makes some see a reason to make a complaint. That is about the only reason for controversy.

rivrrat · #6 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 11:05 AM

Okay wait... so he's going to make 100000 people unemployed and then give some other ones a raise? wtf?

GeekyGirl · #7 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rivrrat

Okay wait... so he's going to make 100000 people unemployed and then give some other ones a raise? wtf?

I'm willing to bet that most of the troop reductions will be achieved by not filling billets that are left empty because of natural attrition from the military. Both branches involved will still have more members then they did before 9/11.

Mikeyy · #8 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rivrrat

Okay wait... so he's going to make 100000 people unemployed and then give some other ones a raise? wtf?

Oh give it a break. Geeez

rivrrat · #9 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikeyy

Oh give it a break. Geeez

Give what a break?

Comet · #10 (**permalink**) 01-27-2012, 04:52 PM

More drawbacks to the upcoming cuts. Military personnel are obviously not the only ones that will be effected.

Military plan to delay submarine, engine projects could hurt Connecticut towns

Quote:

The sweeping defense cuts outlined by Pentagon chief Leon Panetta will likely be felt all across the country, as the military moves to shrink the Army and push off several equipment purchases.

But Connecticut companies could be particularly hard hit, as the Defense Department looks to postpone the ordering of submarines built along the state's southern coast, as well as fighter jets whose engines are made by an East Hartford-based aircraft company.

Several members of the state's Connecticut delegation also expressed concern about a new round of base consolidation -- with an eye on the vital submarine base in New London.

"The proposal is dead on arrival," Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., as well as Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said in a statement.

But while the impact on the New London base is unclear, officials expect the next Pentagon budget to at least delay the purchase of two types of submarines which are in development at a nearby facility in Groton, Conn. The company that makes them, General Dynamics Electric Boat, has already gone through several rounds of layoffs. The Pentagon proposal muddies the company's future, even as it looks to hire hundreds of engineers to begin designing the newest sub model.

Tony Sheridan, president of the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce, said the local community is watching to see how the cuts play out, since final details have not been released.

"Are we concerned? Of course we're concerned. We're always concerned," he said. "But we don't want to overreact."

But he cautioned against any move that would drain the submarine-building culture in the community.

"The craftsmanship that's required to build a sophisticated machine like a submarine -- it's as much a part of the culture of the community as whaling was to New London (when it was a whaling town)," he said. "You just don't move that kind of business to another community. ... You'd have a dramatic loss of the skill sets that are required."

He said Britain tried to do that, and only now is moving to retrain submarine workers to make up for the loss. "These are family affairs," he said. "Whole families that have worked nowhere else but building submarines, and incredibly proud of that."

The Pentagon proposal would affect work on two types of submarines -- a so-called Virginia-class submarine, and the next generation ballistic missile submarine to replace what's known as the Ohio class.

Originally, the federal government was expected to purchase nine Virginia-class subs from fiscal 2014 to 2018. The new plan would push one of the purchases back from 2014 to 2018.

On the Ohio-class replacement, the original expectation was that the government would order a dozen subs between 2019 and the early 2030s. Design is already underway at Electric Boat. The new plan would delay that project by two years, presumably pushing off the start of construction to 2021.

This would, at least, mean a delay in hiring new workers for Electric Boat. Plus waiting longer to work on both types of submarines could impact the cost because of inflation.

Electric Boat spokesman Robert Hamilton told FoxNews.com the company is waiting to see what happens when Congress weighs in.

"At this point, this is something we're just going to be keeping an eye on and watching very closely," he said. "It's very early in the process."

In addition to the submarines, the new Pentagon plan would slow procurement of the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. This hits home in Connecticut, since the engine is made at United Technologies' Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut. Dozens of states, though, are involved in the production of the F-35 -- part of the reason conversations about slowing or halting the project are met with resistance.

Several other companies in Connecticut rely heavily on the Pentagon's budget decisions. Among them are Sikorsky Aircraft, which makes helicopters, and General Electric, which among other things makes engines for those helicopters.

Sheridan said it doesn't appear as if Sikorsky or GE are impacted by the latest cuts, though he said the impact on Pratt & Whitney "certainly is a concern."

While lawmakers have expressed concern about the possibility of the New London submarine base being caught up in base closures, Sheridan said he doubts that would happen. Since the latest round of cuts would be made with an eye toward deficit reduction, Sheridan said closing the sub base is unlikely as it could end up costing the Pentagon more money .

Military Plan To Delay Submarine, Engine Projects Could Hurt Connecticut Towns | Fox News

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