For ‘some’ definitions of success…
The Army Times reported this weekend that the Army’s endstrength for March was 479,172. That’s 154 fewer soldiers than the service’s previous post-World War II low, which was reached during the Army’s post-Cold War drawdown in 1999.
The Army is actually lower now that under Slick Willie, who did his damnest to destroy the military too! So, according to the current administration, this is a ‘success’???
And they want to drive the number down to 450,000 people.
And the administration continues to send dribs and drabs of combatants back to the Middle East. Rough unofficial numbers are 4-5000 in ‘combatant’ roles, and another 4-5000 in ‘support’ roles. But the ‘war is over’… Yeah, right…
Full article HERE, on Fox News.
Lest anyone think it’s ONLY the Army, all services are taking hits. The Navy is now at it’s lowest ship count since 1916! Think about that, ONE HUNDRED years ago, the US Navy had more ships than it does today…
From Reagan’s high in 1989 of 592, with 125 of those being submarines, we are now down to 271 with 72 submarines.
Another ‘success’ for the administration! Damn them…
And cutting money for maintenance has had even more impact on the ‘implements’ used by the services, be they ships, airplanes, submarines, helicopters, tanks, etc…
Oh yeah, for reference, the Navy’s 1916 numbers were 245, with 44 submarines…
IF anybody has the Marine and USAF numbers, please put them in comments, if you would…
That whole two regional conflicts ability? It’s history… But even more interesting, there hasn’t been a concurrent reduction in ‘requirements’ for military presence. E.g. the administration signing up to ‘protect’ Central Europe from missiles. That has added a three destroyer presence in the Med, which hadn’t been there for 10 years at least.
And the whole ‘pivot’ to the Far East? Yeah, three ships… in 2017… Whoopie…
In another ‘interesting’ story, apparently the book of face has been caught ‘faking’ trending updates by plugging things like BLM in, while kicking anything conservative out of the trending updates. So much for ‘believability’ of the book of face’s lack of bias…
In a time of civil unrest and terrorist rise…the US should be beefing up military support and all branches should be given proper budgets to fight what is coming.
SECSTATE John (Swiftboat) Kerry was boasting that we need to take down our borders and I’m sure that is vision is an America without a military…of course that would mean that in not time at all, there would be another flag flying over it.
History repeats. Obama is like Carter (without military service in his background). The military was at a very low ebb during those years too.
Teh 0ne will be the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima.
I’m sure he will apologize and announce unilateral destruction of our entire nuclear stockpile.
The degradation of the US military is (and has long been) the goal of the Dems.
May God keep and protect our troops from enemies both foreign and domestic.
I understand and am concerned.
There is a side of me that wonders about our relative firepower per ship or firepower as a function of dollars spent.
Can the smaller navy do the relative work of the 1916 Navy?
This is all too familiar. I’ve never forgotten the reduction in force we underwent after ‘Nam, and how we all resented Carter/Congress for it. Why there’s not an equal anger about the current shameful lack of defense, I don’t know – unless it’s the bread-and-circus media refusing to tell people about it.
It is said that National Health Service ate the Royal Navy. Now we have a drastically shrinking military and an increasingly expensive and inefficient “Affordable Care Act” system. Hum.
Only 7.5 months to go before we get (hopefully) a regime change here.
Just think of all the jobs that would be created if they would beef up the armed forces instead of tearing things down!
Suz
Hopefully the next administration will take all the SJW and send them to the hot spots to indoctrinate the indigenous populations.
All- Thanks for the comments.
Posted from my iPhone.
+1 Fargo