One of three things that the Army chief of staff worries about most is the possibility that at some point a combatant commander will request forces that are either not properly trained or are simply nonexistent, said his planning and operations point man.
Of 36 brigade combat teams, only about one-third of them have a level of readiness necessary to deploy, said Maj. Gen. Gary Cheek, assistant deputy chief of staff for Operations and Plans, G-3/5/7.
There are 10 brigades now deployed, and a major contingency could require about 20 additional brigades, so there's a discrepancy between what's available now and what would be needed, he added.
Cheek and other senior Army leaders spoke at the Veteran and Military Service Organization quarterly summit at the Pentagon, Nov. 20.
He elaborated further.
Today, command-and-control elements of five of the Army's 10 divisions are deployed overseas, and there have been more than 50 requests from combatant commanders around the world asking for forces that include Soldiers, he said, so with the force already stretched thin, a conventional conflict would exacerbate the Army's ability to effectively respond.
What's driving all of this is sequestration, which already has forced manning levels down to 508,000 active now and 490,000 by next October. Should sequestration continue, that would result in 420,000 by 2019, he said.
At 420,000, the current 36 brigades would be cut to 27. As it stands now, the Army is in the process of inactivating six brigades.
Getting back to the chief's first worry, he's uncomfortable even now with a force of 508,000, saying it's already shallow with no margin for error and that discussions with Congress over manning levels took place before events unfolded in Ukraine, West Africa and the Levant, Cheek said.
With a force that's now beginning to hollow out, what would happen if a war were added to all of the other crises Soldiers are currently respon
