Hagel Wants Pre-WWII Size Army

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is seeking to reduce the U.S. Army to a size unprecedented in recent decades, according to a report from The New York Times. Under his budget proposal, the Army force will be its smallest since before the World War II buildup. The Army would drop from a post-9/11 peak of 570,000 active-duty soldiers to less than 450,000. Also as part of the plan, an entire class of Air Force jets will be retired. “You have to always keep your institution prepared, but you can’t carry a large land-war Defense Department when there is no large land war,” one Pentagon official said.