Shrinking budgets have forced the U.S. Army to cut 80,000 troops from its rolls since 2010.
Officials plan is to reach 120,000 by 2017.
A report to Congress obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Washington Free Beacon says roughly 450,000 active duty U.S. Army soldiers will remain in 2017. That translates to a 21 percent reduction across the board.
Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told the Army Times prior to his Aug. 14 retirement that planned troops cuts pose a gave threat to U.S. national security.
“If we get small enough where some of these [world] leaders don’t believe the Army can respond or deter them, if you can’t … deter them from believing they can accomplish something … that increases the threats and danger to the United States,”
Gen. Odierno told the newspaper Aug. 11. “And I don’t know what that level is, but I think we’re getting dangerously close to that level now.”
