In his own words, the G-8 reiterated what the secretary of the military and chief of staff have both said about downsizing Soldier levels to under 450,000 — “even at 450, it’s a high risk for the mission sets and mission tasks which were given to us.”
Presently, the military has about 564,000 Soldiers on active duty, but that number have been mandated to come back all the way down to 490,000 by 2015.
“We’re on a glide path, and the monies are laid out to present us a 420,000 Army by 2019,” said Lt. Gen. James O. Barclay III, the Army’s deputy chief of staff, G-8. “That doesn’t mean we’re set on going to 420, we’ve got some decision points in-built, getting into the ’16, ’17 timeframe, so we’re taking a tough examine what’s the right set.”
What leadership is calling at in regards to manning is how the military will look around the force; from the brigade combat teams, enablers, the engineer forces, reconnaissance and clearance forces and the way the combination is worked, Barclay said. He added BCTs will come all the way down to 32 made of three battalions.
Addressing the Army’s overall shape on the Association of the U.S. Army’s Aviation Symposium & Exposition, Jan. 15, in Arlington, Va., Barclay didn’t specifically concentrate on the military aviation community, but rather on what he called the 3-legged stool of readiness, modernization and force structure.
“The final analysis of all that is that over the subsequent five years, the military goes to have a major challenge with a view to balance our end-strength, our modernization, after which maintain the readiness of the force we keep,” he said. “With the challenges we’re facing today, it’s going to take an innovative way to how we’re solving the issues and issues.”
On the readiness side, Barclay said there has been an apprehension of returning to tiered readiness, it’s something leadership would not need to do as a military since it would create a military of “haves” and “have nots.” The goal, he said, was to have a military that may be flexible and adaptive, and may be backed up by pushing resources in no time and be capable to do mission sets.
“On the modernization side, 2014-2019, we’re staring at incremental improvements across different systems and programs and the way we’re going to speculate in science and technology and get after the joint military role,” he said, noting the military didn’t take as large a whack in S&T programs because the Navy and Air Force.
Barclay also said because the Army works during the issues and challenges ahead, it also has to examine the joint nature of a smaller overall force and keep in mind what’s happening because the other services also are facing cuts.
“If you’re taking a Navy carrier group out, and also you take plenty of cruisers and destroyers out abruptly they don’t need as many Seahawks,” he said. “That has an impact at the Army’s program.” The SH-60 Seahawk is the Navy version of the UH-60 Black Hawk.
“Same thing with the JLTV, the joint light tactical vehicle, that’s a military and Marine vehicle,” he said. “It can’t be a military discussion by ourselves; we need to ensure we include the opposite services for those programs that impact each service, and we need to be sure we protect programs that we want.”
Barclay concluded his address by saying that balance would not likely be achieved until the 2020 to 2022 timeframe.
“By then, we’ll have the selections on what the ultimate end strengths can be, where we’re going and a clearer picture of truly, truly what sort of equipment sets, amounts and quantities may be required after which we’ll also understand how much money we’ll have left to position into the readiness piece of that,” he said.
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