ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee has expressed concern about the Army and Marine Corps having the lowest troop levels in more than 60 years.

The current National Defense Strategy was developed when the Army had 485,000 active-duty soldiers and the Marine Corps had 178,000 active-duty personnel. The fiscal 2024 budget is dramatically smaller, with Army end strength set at 452,000 and the Marines at 172,300.

The Army’s acquisition czar says his many priorities include recruiting top people into the workforce and addressing salary disparities that can cause some talented people to leave.

Bruce Jette, assistant Army secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology since December 2017, told a House subcommittee that getting top minds to leave academic institutions to work for the Army may require some new solutions, such as creating partnerships that combine government and university employment. The Army also is looking at how much it should pay for partial jobs.

The Army needs to modernize recruiting so that it has a competitive edge not just on the battlefield but also in finding and keeping the best talent, according to a new paper from the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.

The Army has made progress in rebuilding readiness lost during a period of declining end strength, but still faces challenges filling slots in cyber and electronic warfare units, maintenance depots and ballistic missile defense units, according to a new government report.

The February Government Accountability Office report also says unit manning shortages lead to longer periods away from home on official duties for soldiers, which negatively affects readiness.

A new American Enterprise Institute report calls for a $672.1 billion increase in defense funding over the next five fiscal years to repair and rebuild the armed forces, with $157.8 billion earmarked for Army programs.

The Army needs the money to expand Total Force troop strength, create new armored cavalry regiments in Europe and increase lethality and survivability, according to the report by defense analyst Mackenzie Eaglen, a resident fellow at AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies.

A new report assessing deployment readiness reveals why Army leaders have made full unit manning their top budget priority, ahead of weapons modernization.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, testifying about the 2018 Army budget request, said the biggest “drag” on readiness is that “many of these units are not at the full manning level. We want to make the force structure that does exist complete, whole and fully ready before we move on to the next step, which is expanding the Army,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.