So we expanded the brigades we had from 33 to 45 (and had planned to go to 48, actually). Now, with the experience of Iraq behind us, what are we doing?
The reduction of five more brigade combat teams is necessary to add a third maneuver battalion and an engineer battalion in each brigade, the Army’s top officer said Feb. 24 at the Association of the U.S. Army Winter Symposium.
The Army will cut another five brigade combat teams in addition to the eight already on the chopping block, bringing the total from 45 to 32 teams.
Well that's just effing great. We'll have fewer brigades than before 9/11. Granted, each brigade will be bigger (I assume--or will we go back to triangular battalions of 3 maneuver companies each rather than the four maneuver companies our non-Stryker battalions have now?) and self contained. But rotating brigades will now be back to pre-Iraq levels.
When you wonder why we must go to war with the Army we have and not the Army we wish we had for the crisis at hand, remember that whatever Army we have was once designed to be the Army we wished to have.
And right now we wish to have 32 combat brigades. That's just effing great.
