Army can’t do much more with less

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The Army is warning it’s nearing the limit of its ability to do more with less. The Army already has its fewest active-duty soldiers in nine years. The Pentagon announced plans last year to dial back to 450-thousand soldiers, the fewest since World War Two.

General Malcolm Frost was deputy director of operations at the National Military Command Center and deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne before being named the Army’s public affairs chief in March. He warns the planned troop levels are about as low as the Army can go while still maintaining the ability to fight a war in one part of the world and maintain deterrent capacity elsewhere.

Frost says the Army has 170-thousand soldiers already assigned to troop commitments in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East and Korea. Frost says the reduction is a result of budget-cutting. He says Congress should repeal the 2013 sequestration law which mandates a 10-percent cut in military spending over eight years.

Frost acknowledges technology can fill the role of diminished manpower to an extent. But he says there’s no substitute for soldiers’ ability to form face-to-face relationships with leaders and the general population.