By: Patrick Wheat
After the Second World War, there was a fundamental shift in U.S. society’s view towards the military. Before Pearl Harbor was attacked, the armed forces were judged on their ability to wage war. But after the dust settled in Nagasaki, the military was judged on their ability to defend U.S. citizens. While these two statements seem to describe the same goal, military policy-makers have approached them in vastly different ways from an organizational standpoint. However, after the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, we once again began to judge our armed forces on their ability to wage war to secure land and power rather than on their ability to act solely in the defense of our nation.
Earlier this week, the U.S. military took a significant step away from the presupposition of war that it labored under for the last 13 years. It was announced by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that the Department of Defense’s budget would be reduced so that the military will undergo extreme downsizing in numerous areas. The most significant sign of this is the plan to reduce the United States Army from its current size of 520,000 active duty personal to 440,000 for fiscal year 2015. This would be the smallest number of active duty personnel since before World War II. Additionally, the Marine Corp will shrink from 190,000 active units to 182,000, with increased reductions likely if sequestration returns. To demonstrate this in real world deployment numbers, a reduction of Army personnel at this level would result in a pullout of all army personnel in every theater across the globe except for Afghanistan and the Continental United States, including in our bases in Japan, Germany, Hawaii, and South Korea. This historic drop in the level of military activity is being attributed to the scale-back of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, the proposed budget for the Department of Defense will include a reduction of $75 billion over the next two years, a drop from $830 billion allocated to the Defense Department in 2014.
Beyond the personnel and financial reductions, there has been a wide call for the retirement of different military equipment programs to allow for more cost-effective equipment to be placed into general service. The A-10 , an aircraft designed to take out ground targets such as tanks, and the U-2 surveillance plane, a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft made famous for its prominent use during the Cold War, will be retired completely to be replaced with by the F-35 fleet and the unmanned Global Hawk respectively. The Navy will also place half of its cruiser fleet (11 ships) on reduced operating status while they are modernized to increase their operational ability and lifespan, with a warning that any future cuts to the naval budget will require the retirement of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The Army will also cancel the Ground Combat Vehicle Program, a highly anticipated prototype armored fighting vehicle program designed to increase effectiveness on the ground by replacing older armored vehicles. Finally, the Defense Department is going to request another round of Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) hearings in 2017 to offset continued budget cuts.
While many areas of the military will be placed under a great deal of scrutiny in the hunt for more places to cut spending, several areas are secure with funding or are receiving more in light of administration priorities. An additional 900 Marines will be allocated for the sole purposes of securing U.S. embassies around the globe, foreseeably a reaction to the backlash of the 2012 Benghazi Embassy attacks. The funding for special operations forces will grow slightly, with an increase to 69,700 troops, re-emphasizing the importance of small tactical missions rather than full scale invasions in the eyes of the Defense Department. Finally, the cyber warfare division of the military has been completely protected from further cuts.
These cuts represent the new thinking of the military, which has shifted from a focus on long-term overseas deployments to focusing on smaller and more effective missions. While this shift is popular with a war-weary American public, they are likely to face opposition in Congress. While Congress does support cutting spending in the government, some congressmen are likely to oppose the proposed cuts if they involve shutting down contracting jobs that provide jobs for their district. They are also likely to fight even harder against these cuts if another round of BRAC hearings threatens to remove jobs from their districts with the closing of different military bases. Additionally, there are concerns that if these cuts are not initiated soon, there will be a reduction in margin of error in military operations. A senior official in the Department of Defense was quoted as saying: “For every efficiency that’s denied, every program cut that’s overturned, and every element of old force structure or unnecessary base structure we’re required to keep, there’s going to have to be a decrease in readiness or modernization somewhere else that will only add to risks that we might be taking in the future.”
With budget reductions becoming a universal event within the federal government, the vast amount of reductions that the military now faces is likely to have a long-term impact on the U.S. military policy for years to come. With the presentation of the first military budget not written to address a military on a “War footing”, it can be assumed that we are looking at a slimmer more efficient military in the near future. This transformation may take time and is dependent upon the cuts being passed through Congress, where they will doubtless face opposition, but these budget cuts appear to indicate the same thinking that spread through the military at the end of World War II; that the United States military should not be a force for war, but an instrument of peace.