January 27, 2012

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Friday that two combat brigades being pulled from Europe will leave in 2013 and 2014 and be disestablished -- not relocated to bases in the U.S.

He and other Pentagon officials would not identify the units, but Odierno said in a briefing for reporters that formal announcement could come in a few weeks. The most likely candidates appeared to be the 170th and 172nd Infantry Brigades, both in Germany, but DoD spokesmen still would not confirm they'll be disestablished.

Odierno, for his part, said the withdrawals will ultimately be better both for the U.S. Army and its European allies. Commanders plan to begin rotating units into Germany for multi-national training exercises, and Odierno said that would give more American Soldiers international experience and increase the diversity of exercises for European troops.

Overall, Odierno said he was bullish about the Army's larger plans to shrink from about 562,000 troops to 490,000 troops over the next six years. "The time is strategically right to reduce the Army's force structure," he said. "Secretary [John] McHugh and I are committed to walk down this hill at the ready, rather than jump off a cliff."

The Army will try to draw down mostly through attrition, Odierno said, and will try to peel away Soldiers by "cohorts," or the groups in which they joined. He confirmed that the drawdown will mean the end of a total of eight brigade combat teams, but he also held open the possibility of further restructuring.

The Army is reviewing its organizational structure, so depending on where that process leads, more units could merge or go away.

As for the forces that remain, commanders plan to make their central focus on retaining as many experienced non-commissioned officers as possible, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday. That, combined with the Army's goal to increase its number of Special Operations Forces troops to 35,000, will mean tomorrow's smaller force will be more effective than simple numbers might suggest, officials hope.

Odierno said the Army is counting on those SOF troops, as well as its "niche" units, to fill the inevitable gaps left by a smaller force. So the Army will continue to send soldiers for assistance missions to Africa and South America, he said, but they might be Special Forces, engineers, medical, or aviation units.

Big Army, meanwhile, will turn its attention with the rest of the Pentagon to the Western Pacific, which President Obama has made the new focus for the Defense Department. The details of how it -- a heavy land force -- will be involved with a domain of mostly air and water are expected to be the subject of no shortage of discussion in the coming months.

Still, Odierno said he is confident the Army will continue to play a key role. The Asia-Pacific region, as he put it, "is home to seven of the 10 largest land armies in the world."

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