President Obama’s choice to be the next Army Secretary said he has concerns about plans to scale back the branch.
Eric Fanning said that he does “worry about the size of the Army today,” when asked Thursday by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Army is planning to reduce troop levels by 40,000 by the end of next year.
The reductions to a 450,000-strong fighting force were mandated at the start of the decade by the so-called sequestration deal. Plans to execute the downsizing were laid out in 2014, in President Obama’s Quadrennial Defense Review.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 could see the Army reduced further, by 30,000 troops, at the end of 2020.
“Two years ago, when we targeted 450, we didn’t have ISIL,” Fanning said, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “We didn’t have Russia as provocative as it is.”
Fanning also told Ayotte that Army readiness has not improved since July, defining it as being prepared for a “big large land fight that we might face against Russia or North Korea or what have you.”
“The Army has in plan ways to get there. But there are many impediments in place,” he said. “Demand on the force, the size that it is, makes it difficult to keep it trained.”
