U.S. Army to Cut 30,000 Troops.

Seems excessive and unwise to me given all the areas of tension around the world involving the U.S.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/army-plans-to-cut-40000-troops/ar-AAcGezN?ocid=UP97DHP

My mistake, 40,000. Seems way excessive now.

Good. Although the money will probably be reallocated to be spent on missiles or drones instead.

Why do you say "good"?

ISIS wants to cut 40,000 US troops, too.

Why do you feign ignorance on why I say "good"?
I think that US military activity is excessive and destabalising for much of the world. You know this already.

The only problems with U.S. military activity is that there is not nearly enough of it.

But it's good to reduce stabbings. The whole world should be destabalised.

Another one for the "Greatest Hits" thread!!!

This would leave a standing soldier count of 450,000. Sorry, Dayton but I don't feel any less safe.

[Dayton]Reducing U.S. troops by cutbacks isn't nearly as effective as losing troops in a conflict. If you are going to lose 40,000 troops having them engaged in a conflict would at least be acceptable loses.[/Dayton]

That should pay for one F-35 per year.

The army has always had more troops than what is necessary. We would always joke about that eg: How many members of the army does it take to turn on the lights compared to one marine?

Tell that to the guys (and gals!) that had to do 21 month shifts during the Surge.

I think what Obama is doing is making sure there's no way his successor can successfully confront ISIS.

Increasing overall numbers in an all volunteer military is not all that easy and can't be done that rapidly.

True, a better measure of effectiveness is that in June Obama authorized 450 more troops for Iraq to fight ISIS, bringing total authorized troop levels to 3,500. In Vietnam we once had over 540,000 personnel deployed in country.

"boots on the ground" has never meant if soldiers were deployed "on the ground".

It has always meant were troops operating on the ground in independent combat formations.

That is a trick question. A marine can't even figure out how to screw in a light bulb.

And what if we need a lot more soldiers on short notice (less than six months)?

That's what "Stop Loss" orders and the IRR are for.

Drafted troops still IIRC take about 4 months to be minimally combat ready.

Stop loss won't help for soldiers you don't have.

There are a ton of people in the IRR and there are about to be 40,000 more of them.