Plans to reduce the size of the Army by 40,000 troops within two years likely will leave the service unable to fight a major conflict while fulfilling its current global commitments, the National Commission on the Future of the Army heard Aug. 18.
“The current trend in force planning will leave us with an Army too small to credibly sustain U.S. commitments and interests,” Timothy Bonds, vice president for the Rand Corp.’s Army Research Division, told the commission during a public meeting outside Washington, D.C.
Plans are to cut Army end strength from 570,000 active-duty soldiers to 450,000, and to as few as 420,000 with sequestration. Given the army’s current commitments, fighting even a single war could require a total force of more than 550,000 and dramatically overstretch the all-volunteer force, Bonds said.
Under current force reduction plans, the Army National Guard is scheduled to shrink from 350,000 soldiers to 335,000 (315,000 with sequestration). The Army Reserve also will shrink, from 205,000 to under 190,000 (185,000 with sequestration.)
Bonds presented a recent Rand study outlining current force structure and deployments to those needed for several contingencies not covered by the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, namely the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Army currently has 143,000 soldiers as part of force generation in the continental United States or conducting strategic activities in support of the Defense Department or other services. Another 28,000 are forward stationed in Europe and 55,000 already are based in the Asia-Pacific region.
About 44,000 soldiers are currently deployed on rotational deployments, which shorten troops’ time away from home, but is a burden on the Army, Bonds said. It requires two soldiers stateside to keep one deployed. Sustaining 44,000 troops on rotational deployments to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Asia and elsewhere, requires 132,000 total troops–44,000 conducting operations, the same amount just back from deployment and another 44,000 training for a future deployment, Bonds said.
The Rand study focused on three major commitments the Obama Administration has made: combatting global terrorism, assuring allies and deterring state aggression against NATO allies and protecting South Korea and the region from North Korea.
But the threat environment in all of those regions has changed since the QDR laid out those commitments, Bonds said. The document was published before Russia invaded Ukraine, elevating tension in Eastern Europe to the brink of war. It also did not factor in the enduring threat of ISIS and the group’s ability to hang onto large swaths of territory, which has required an ongoing, if not resurgent, U.S. presence in Iraq.
ISIL’s seeming longevity, the continued presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and other anti-terror operations worldwide, will almost certainly occupy the 360,000 soldiers already assigned to those efforts, Bonds said.
“While such forces may be sufficient, they are likely to remain busy with these missions and could not easily be pulled away—at least in the near-term—for other operations,” he said. If the mission were to change significantly—say to include combat forces to help liberate the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Ramadi from ISIL—the forces needed to accomplish the increased scope of these missions would need to increase significantly.”
The United States also has committed a sizeable force to Eastern Europe to deter further Russian aggression toward Baltic nations. Rand estimated 120,000 total soldiers will be needed to credibly deter Russia with a 40,000-strong rotational force there. That brings the total force needed for non-wartime commitments to 480,000 soldiers “to satisfy the combined infrastructure, current missions, and Baltic deterrence demands.”
Source: Rand Corp.
If Russia were to provoke a war, an estimated 14 additional brigades would be needed–at least six from the U.S. and another eight from NATO allies–for a total of 86,000 more U.S. troops.
A collapse of North Korea would create a volatile mix of problems the United States would be obligated to address, including an enormous humanitarian crisis and the need to secure “loose nukes” formerly owned by the regime.
RAND estimates that a North Korean collapse would require an additional 150,000 U.S. troops over and above the forces already stationed and presumed to be available in the Asia–Pacific region.
Bonds acknowledged that predicting the future is nearly impossible, and that the scenario outlined in the study was one of myriad possible scenarios as world politics play out over the next decade or so. For instance, the study said nothing of what China or Iran might attempt if the United States were so obviously overstretched. It also does not estimate the forces needed if war with either of those nations was joined.
The scenario laid out in the study would require at least 545,000 troops, including major commitments from the Army and Marine Corps active and reserve components.
“The demand could be met in the first year of a contingency if the Army can deploy 250,000 soldiers out of its planned 307,000 operating force,” the study said. “RAND assumed that the Army could deploy 80 percent of its active component operating forces and 20 percent of its reserve component operating forces, while RAND assumed the Marine Corps could deploy 50 percent of its active component operating force and 20 percent of its reserve operating force.”
Those are huge sums compared to the height of U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, during which 30 percent of the Army’s active component, 19 percent of the National Guard and 15 percent of the Army Reserve were deployed. The Marine Corps at the same time, between 2008 and 2010, had 31 percent of its active component and 26 percent of its reserves deployed.
Bonds laid out several possible courses the Army could take to better prepare for future contingencies. It suggested using overseas contingency operations (OCO) funds to postpone the planned drawdown to 450,000 troops until the threat of Russian aggression in the Baltics has evaporated. Commissioner Robert Hale, former undersecretary of defense, wrote that plan off. Though OCO funding is exempt from sequestration cuts, he said, using them does nothing to alleviate the national debt, on which the question of funding the Defense Department ultimately turns.
Rand also suggested funding the highest possible reserve and Guard endstregths, while planning for the possibility of the total mobilization of those components, which has not been done since World War II.
The study also suggests prepositioning forces and equipment in the Baltics and Korea in amounts that would be suitable to fight a war if necessary, a step the Defense Department already is undertaking.