Are these changes enough, or do we need more growth and worldwide Stationing of troops?

2017-06-16T07:24:45-04:00

https://www.army.mil/article/189082

Department of the Army announces force structure decisions for fiscal year 2017

WASHINGTON -- The United States Army announced today how it will allocate thousands of additional troops that are part of an end strength directed by Congress in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 16 at 2017 8:50 AM

2017-06-16T08:50:15-04:00

I personally don't want a worldwide Army. I do see the benefit of having posts overseas. Having "homes away from home" is a good thing when we do deploy somewhere but I'm not sure if having combat ready units permanently stationed all around the world will really deter anything. I could be wrong though. It's happened before.

Response by 2LT Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 16 at 2017 8:57 AM

2017-06-16T08:57:06-04:00

It seemed fairly vague to me only saying "reduce the capabilities gap against near-peer, high-end adversaries; reduce modernization gaps; and improve readiness in existing units. ". Of course, these are good things to do.
If you mean we, as in the United States, I would say managing our relations with host nations will be more important before any significant growth. As we have seen with Philippines, keeping people on our side may prove more useful at the moment and basing there wont fix it, that's just a foreign policy issue.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Jun 16 at 2017 10:24 AM

2017-06-16T10:24:12-04:00

"Worldwide" is pretty much pushing a rope. First, the US has no inherent right to be stationed anywhere outside the US. So we have treaties, SOFAs, etc. that provide a time limited access. Some were frankly imposed such as Japan after WW2. Some are at the behest of the host or lesser of two evils such as Korea. Time runs out on these things which is why we are not in the Philippines anymore. There's a shift going on where we are not as welcome as we used to be. Japan comes to mind. So the trick is to make sure if we want to stay somewhere, it needs to be in the best interest of the host country as well. We tend to go bonkers over the notion of competing powerful country establishing a base in another country. We do the same when a missile system is set up that can reach us when we've done the same thing. Be careful what you wish for.