Gen. Ray Odierno, U.S. Army chief of staff, plans to discuss current world events with Congress and ask legislators for budget relief as the Army responds to global threats, DoD News reported Thursday.
Jim Garamone writes the number of the Army’s active force will shrink to 490,000 in 2015.
“When we developed the new defense strategy in 2012, we all agreed that 490,000 was the right strength to execute the strategy,†he said at the Defense One Summit Thursday.
“Then what happened on top of that was sequestration, which has caused the Defense Department to make more difficult decisions,” Odierno added.
In a conversation with NPR reporter Tom Bowman at the event, Odierno said he believes the Army will still be able to perform its missions across the world amid declining budgets, but faces higher risk as threats continue to increase, according to the report.
He said sequestration will force the service’s leaders to reduce the force to 420,000 soldiers if sequestration resumes in fiscal year 2016, the report says.
