The Obama adminstration plans to reduce the size of the military. The effort will likely face strong opposition from Congress.
“What a lot of folks don’t realize is just how devastating the future defense cuts are going to be, and how much the president is going to propose shrinking our military,” said Representative Paul Ryan. “In my personal opinion, this is very dangerous for our national security.”
John Hall is a professor of military history. He said that congressional opposition is likely to make the job of cutting more difficult to accomplish.
“I doubt very seriously that the level of drawdown that the Department of Defense is proposing right now is actually going to survive Congress,” said Hall.
But it’s not just Congress. “Even within the Department of Defense and within the various services, you have projects of record with supervisors and a bureaucracy that’s established in order to safeguard these projects,” Hall said. “There will be a lot of wrangling within the services, not to mention as always, between the services.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff are supporting Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on the proposed cuts. The most controversial move is probably to cut the U.S. Army to about 450,000 active-duty troops, from the current level of some 520,000, the lowest since World War Two.