Russia rising as U.S. Army is ‘on ragged edge,’ top leader says

(NationalSecurity.news) As the U.S. Army continues to shrink, the Russian military is on the rise and is threatening to offset what has been for years the American military advantage in NATO-dominated Europe, outgoing Army Secretary John McHugh said recently.

Speaking to the annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army in Washington, D.C., McHugh said the past few years in particular have been “frustrating.”

“The thing that is most frustrating for me… if the last 18 to 20 months haven’t proven the necessity of a viable land force, I’m not sure what will,” McHugh said at his valedictory AUSA press conference, alongside the new Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, as reported by Breaking Defense.

He was referring to Russia’s assertiveness in Crimea and Ukraine, and Moscow’s involvement in the Syrian civil war.

At present Congress has not presented a plan to staunch the Army’s drawdown to 450,000 regular active duty troops, McHugh told reporters. At the same time, President Obama has not asked Congress to increase the force.

Meanwhile, the service has been tasked to do more in Europe under the 2017 budget just submitted to the Secretary of Defense.

“What I hear once more is a growing discussion in this town that questions the very need for an army at all,” McHugh told the AUSA conference. “We would budget, size, and train for a fight that may never come” — a likely reference to a high-tech war with China — “ignoring the threats that have come and we’re facing each and every day.”

Asked to explain that persistent attitude, McHugh responded: “At it its core, it’s probably an unsupportable abundance of optimism. We’ve heard repeatedly [throughout history] that the sanitization of war was possible…. that we could win wars totally from the air and from the sea.”

That’s not a realistic expectation, said Milley.

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“My father landed on Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division,” he said. “That island was pulverized by naval and air gunfire for over 60 days prior to the assault landings by the Marines, and the Marines were told it would be a cakewalk…. In 19 days, 7,000 Marines died and some 30,000 were wounded. ”

Milley also noted that today, the Islamic State is holding up well under aerial bombardment.

“Unfortunately, we have well over a century of historical evidence to indicate that if your opponent has strong will and is cagey and cunning, they are likely to dig in and withstand bombardments from afar,” Milley said. “The first and opening shots of any conflict are likely fired from the sea and from the air, but the final shots are usually fired on the ground.”

“We’re on the ragged edge, and we’re in the extraordinarily rare position in American history where our budgets are coming down but our missions are going up,” McHugh added.

If Congress and the president give the Army less than what the White House’s budget has requested, or if another unexpected crisis crops up — perhaps with a great power like Russia or even China — it will “put this Army and this nation in a very dangerous place.”

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See also:

BreakingDefense.com

CyberWar.news