U.S. Army to Cut Eight Brigades, 72,000 Soldiers by 2017

With a world gripped by chaos: tensions on the Korean peninsula, civil war spiraling into chemical warfare in Syria and instability erupting across the African Continent, most would assume this would be the right time for the strongest and most powerful Army in the world to not only maintain their current strength but continue to advance our force by specialized training and greater weapons development.

But then most would be absolutely incorrect, because Washington D.C. has a debt crisis and of course the most obvious place to cut back is the number of brigades active in the U.S. Army, and as an result 72,000 active-duty soldiers as collateral damage. 

I kid you not. The U.S. Army has to eliminate eight brigades by 2017 and reduce our professional, full-time Army from 562,000 to 490,000, with six of the eight brigades to be cut domestically and two from Europe.

I'm not exactly sure what this means for the Army moving forward. Is this the first significant step towards a more technology driven (i.e. drones, cyber warfare, etc.) military at the cost of active personnel, or are they (they = military brass and useless Washington politicians) planning to use cheaper, part-time National Guard units to fill the void?

Either way, the reduction of America's professional Army in favor of relying on technology or Guard soldiers is, at least in my opinion, a great mistake. The threats rising against us and against our allies aren't going away anytime soon, and if the chaos of the past thirteen years is any indicator, probably not in the 21st century. So what sense does it make to decrease the strongest fighting force standing against evil and destruction?

 

Dare I say it, but none whatsoever.

You would think America is smart enough to learn from our previous mistakes of reducing our Army in peace time, only to be caught off guard and have to quickly mobilize more soldiers then were prepared to, but I digress... 

What say you?