Thirteen years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen the Regular Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve work and fight shoulder-to-shoulder as a true Total Force. Now the Budget Control Act which cut $1 trillion from projected defense budgets over the next nine years threatens to undermine the Total Force and set the Regular Army and National Guard\/Reserve at each other\u2019s throats. There can be no winners in such a fight, only losers and among them the nation\u2019s security and the American people.<\/p>\n
Both the Regular Army and the National Guard grew during the war years in terms both of budget and personnel. The Army\u2019s budget went from $77 billion to $140 billion (82 percent) while that of the Guard more than doubled from $7.4 billion to $16.2 billion (119 percent). The Army grew its end-strength by 90,000 while the Guard increased by only 8,000. However, the Guard also acquired more than 13,000 full-time support personnel for a total of about 22,000.<\/p>\n
Now, facing draconian budget cuts, the Army has produced a fair and balanced plan that reduces end-strength and restructures the Total Force to address prospective future threats while also maintaining the ability of both the National Guard and Regular Army to support civil authorities in the homeland. In fact the Regular Army is absorbing the vast majority of the cuts in end-strength and force structure. The Regular Army will shrink from 570,000 to between 450,000 and 420,000 (21 and 28 percent). The plan is to cut 21 brigade combat teams. By comparison, the current proposal is to reduce the National Guard from 350,000 to 315,000 and the Army Reserve from 205,000 to 185,000 (10 and 12 percent respectively). In addition, the Guard stands to lose only six brigade combat teams, less than one third what the Regular Army has to give up.<\/p>\n
A similar situation applies in aviation. The Army wants to reduce its sustainment costs by eliminating three types of fleets of helicopters including the Kiowa Warrior. Divestiture of these older systems will free up money to modernize remaining helicopters in both the Regular Army and the National Guard. The Army also wants to consolidate all its AH-64 attack helicopters in the Regular Army and, in return, transfer over 100 UH-60 Black Hawk transport helicopters to the National Guard as well as more than 100 used and new Lakota utility helicopters. The net result is that the Regular Army will lose nearly 700 helicopters or 23 percent of its total fleet while the National Guard will lose only 111 helicopters or 8 percent of its fleet.<\/p>\n
Rather than seeing this as a relatively good outcome in a time of severe budget reductions, the National Guard and its supporters are campaigning against any cuts to their organization. The National Guard is opposing the exchange of combat for utility helicopters even though the latter would be much more useful in missions to support civil authorities. They have enlisted supporters in Congress to propose legislation that would require an unnecessary national commission on the structure of the Army. An interesting feature of the proposed legislation is that it would prohibit cuts to the National Guard until the commission finishes its work but not to the Regular Army. If they get their way, the result will be bad for the Regular Army, bad even for the National Guard, and even worse for the American people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thirteen years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen the Regular Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve work and fight shoulder-to-shoulder as a true Total Force. Now the Budget Control Act which cut $1 trillion from projected defense budgets over the next nine years threatens to undermine the Total Force and set the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n