By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
WASHINGTON: More than any other service, the Army’s future is uncertain under Trump. On the upside, the President-Elect has promised to boost the Army‘s budget and grow its ranks by almost 15 percent. On the downside, Trump seems deeply skeptical of what has become the service’s driving mission: deterring Russian aggression in Europe.
More than any other service, the Army runs into an apparent contradiction in Trump’s campaign promises. The President-Elect wants to build up the armed forces — by an estimated $93 billion a year above the level set by the Budget Control Act, which he wants to repeal — but he wants to pull back from many of the missions, notably NATO, that the US uses its armed forces for.
More than any other service, the Army has struggled with the question of what its mission should be. It’s struggled since at least 1991, when after almost a century of worrying about first Germany and then the Soviet Union, there was no great land power threatening America’s interests in Europe. When the Russian threat reappeared, however, it gave the Army new focus.
Read the full story at Breaking Defense