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Army shrinks to smallest level since before World War II...

Thanks obama, for being an inept putz!
 
Those jobs are being outsourced to computers and drones. Men are not good enough anymore. This is the 21st century in case you forgot.


Drones and computers can't do the ground combat needed to extricate the enemy. Building to building, house to house....they are doing it in Syria right now.....and in Iraq and Afghanistan. So what, if it's the 21st Century!! Have you forgotten how to fight?
 
Thanks obama, for being an inept putz!

You may not realize it, but it is also the most powerful fighting force it has ever been.
 
The Army’s latest headcount shows that nearly 2,600 soldiers departed active service in March without being replaced, an action that plunges manning to its lowest level since before World War II.
It’s not really “plunged”, it’s been slowly reduced in a controlled manner. While it makes for good headlines, raw numerical comparisons for the Army with history don’t really mean all that much given how different a modern fighting force needs to be these days with ever increasing influence of naval and air power and increased requirement for specialist and technical roles meaning the balance, training and experience of the members of the armed forces being ever more significant than pure headcount.
 
this happens after every war. The Military always reduces. It happened after WW1 & 2, Korea, Viet Nam. It happened during the BRAC phase when H.W.Bush closed all those bases. No big deal.
 
what can the military not do today that it could yesterday?


i will concede that its parades will be smaller
 
You may not realize it, but it is also the most powerful fighting force it has ever been.
...being used ineptly. Might as well be similar to England's military might.
 
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this happens after every war. The Military always reduces. It happened after WW1 & 2, Korea, Viet Nam. It happened during the BRAC phase when H.W.Bush closed all those bases. No big deal.
No big deal that the military has shrunk to levels on par with WW2?
 
Just as the US and NATO are doing their very best to provoke a war with Russia, the government lets troop levels continue to drop.

Yeah, we have the government we deserve.
 
Just as the US and NATO are doing their very best to provoke a war with Russia, the government lets troop levels continue to drop.

Yeah, we have the government we deserve.
It's not the government America needs, but the government it deserves...

-Batman Quote [emoji41]
 
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the reason it shrunk is because we don't need a huge army. Not only do we have technology but we also have allies
 
Drones and computers can't do the ground combat needed to extricate the enemy. Building to building, house to house....they are doing it in Syria right now.....and in Iraq and Afghanistan. So what, if it's the 21st Century!! Have you forgotten how to fight?

I have not forgotten how to fight, I have scars to prove it, not vague references to 'an agency that doesn't exist'... :roll:

Our military since the fall of 'The Wall' have built itself away from light infantry, the type needed to fight house to house, now we need 100 REMFs to support one grunt.

That 99.99% of Americans don't want to join the Army is typical. Usually men don't volunteer in large numbers for the Army in times of economic stability. Apparently there are enough jobs that men don't see the Army as a good career choice. Whoever is POTUS matters not. BushII's DoD had to offer HUGE bonuses to lure men into the Army during Iraq- Not a lot of guys saw the Army as a life affirming career choice... ;)

FYI as a grunt I can tell you the job isn't to 'extricate' the enemy but to exterminate him... and a bomb does the job just as well from my POV...

But then again it would be my ass in the grass... :peace
 
what can the military not do today that it could yesterday?


i will concede that its parades will be smaller

It can't field as many soldiers to the field.
 
I have not forgotten how to fight, I have scars to prove it, not vague references to 'an agency that doesn't exist'... :roll:

Our military since the fall of 'The Wall' have built itself away from light infantry, the type needed to fight house to house, now we need 100 REMFs to support one grunt.

That 99.99% of Americans don't want to join the Army is typical. Usually men don't volunteer in large numbers for the Army in times of economic stability. Apparently there are enough jobs that men don't see the Army as a good career choice. Whoever is POTUS matters not. BushII's DoD had to offer HUGE bonuses to lure men into the Army during Iraq- Not a lot of guys saw the Army as a life affirming career choice... ;)

FYI as a grunt I can tell you the job isn't to 'extricate' the enemy but to exterminate him... and a bomb does the job just as well from my POV...

But then again it would be my ass in the grass... :peace

Bomb it all you want, but you'll have have infanttrymen to take that real estate and hold it.
 
I have not forgotten how to fight, I have scars to prove it, not vague references to 'an agency that doesn't exist'... :roll:

Our military since the fall of 'The Wall' have built itself away from light infantry, the type needed to fight house to house, now we need 100 REMFs to support one grunt.

That 99.99% of Americans don't want to join the Army is typical. Usually men don't volunteer in large numbers for the Army in times of economic stability. Apparently there are enough jobs that men don't see the Army as a good career choice. Whoever is POTUS matters not. BushII's DoD had to offer HUGE bonuses to lure men into the Army during Iraq- Not a lot of guys saw the Army as a life affirming career choice... ;)

FYI as a grunt I can tell you the job isn't to 'extricate' the enemy but to exterminate him... and a bomb does the job just as well from my POV...

But then again it would be my ass in the grass... :peace

I mean I'm planning on going into the service, and so are several of my friends.....

There's still people who want to make it career anyway.
 
Thanks obama, for being an inept putz!
:roll:

When Obama refuses to send ground troops to Syria, he's vilified by conservatives. If Obama said tomorrow he was sending ground troops to Syria, those same exact people would spit the same exact amount of vitriol at him. I'm convinced that if Obama said "2 + 2 = 4" in a speech, his opponents would blast him for promulgating "socialist math." At this late date, opposition for the sake of opposition is wholly unconvincing.

So:

We're not at war. Americans don't want to commit ground troops. We should be cutting military, and adapting it to current threats, not keeping the army big for the sake of making the army big. We have more than sufficient troops to handle almost any serious infantry threat. The US Army is incredibly powerful, even if it's got 2600 fewer troops than last week.

These figures also don't include available contractors.
 
The Army’s latest headcount shows that nearly 2,600 soldiers departed active service in March without being replaced, an action that plunges manning to its lowest level since before World War II.
Army shrinks to smallest level since before World War II

Yeah? And?

Take a WWII division and put them up against a modern-day Army company with all the comms and training and air support they normally get, who wins? The modern-day Army company...and they maybe don't lose a man in the process. Just because a force is smaller does NOT mean that force is in any way less capable.

Your post reminds me of Romney's gripe that our Navy in 2012 was smaller than it had been at any point since 1917...and it never occurred to him that even given that fact, if our Navy had to fight all the rest of the world's navies all at once, we'd easily win, hands down.

Concerning our Army, it's certainly not the biggest on the planet, but it's still the strongest and by far the most capable - and nobody else comes close when it comes to being able to deploy anywhere else on the planet. And that in itself is something to think about: is it better to have a Really Big Army, or is it better to have one that is strong enough to defeat any other nation's armies in the field, but small enough to not only be able to deploy WHEREVER it needs to go, but WHEN it needs to go there, how quickly it can get there. No other nation's army is anywhere close to as capable as ours...so as far as I'm concerned, anyone who complains that our Army is too small is nothing more than the same kind of Chicken Little that Romney was in 2012.
 
There is at least one problem with the Army getting smaller.
As long as we as a country are asking the same amount of work from the Army as we currently are but now there are less people to do it then it puts that much more strain on the folks in and their families. As long as we are expected to do the same number of unaccompanied tours overseas, the same number of training exercises with foreign nations, the same number of the various away from home taskings but we are spreading it through a smaller pool more guys will burn out and leave. There will also less time for maintaining unit training, less time for career progression and less time at home with the kids. I saw it happen where I am at with Iraq and Afganistan. We had to maintain all our PACOM commitments but now we also were doing rotations into the combat theaters. So guys went from doing 3 to 4 months away a year to lots of guys 6 months on 6 months at home and part of that home time was a month long trip to Asia. You can only do that for so long before it takes its toll.

Now I am not saying our Army is to small or to big. That's something really hard to judge. But there is without a doubt a downside to shrinking the military. Something most folks probably don't think to much about.
 
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