The downsizing of the army, if it occurs like the Navy, will be handled ineffectively and cause severe gaps in specific manning areas. The Navy tried this 3 years ago and killed many people’s careers. They kicked out some good people with the trash, and now ratings are still trying to recover. A shift in HYT (high year tenure) would seem to be a more effective way to wittle down along with volunteer seps in certain fields that you can afford to lose people in. The ERB that the Navy had will probably be used in the army and will do more harm than good.
I could see a total force reduction of 10% of the military happening to support budget and shift in technological warfare spending. As mentioned before, we have cut costs before to spend money elsewhere. The F-35s and drones will probably get more funding (especially the drones under current policy usage, despite the controversial issues with drone attacks). More spending is also being slated for special forces, which have taken sever punishment over the last 13 years.
RJPeters mentions TSP about effecting the budget. TSP is cost to the government because of the administration of it, not because of the money the government provides to people (because that is zero by the way). The TSP is more like a traditional IRA than it is a 401K. It just has to get transferred over to a 401K or IRA. If financial management was pushed in the military to our young sailors/soldiers (I do train my division regularly), the cons of TSP greatly outweigh the benefits, and I recommend NOT to use the TSP. TSP is a waste of government money because it is harmful and an adminstrative blackhole for tax money.
I would see the downsize of forces as such:
Army would reduce its forces to about 375K enlisted and about 85K officers.
Navy would eliminate its 7 CGs, cut about 10K in enlisted, 1K in officers.
Marine Corps would probably be stagnant (would not see any significant cuts)
Air Force would be looking at about 15K cut enlisted, and proably 1K in officers.
Spending would increase in drones, missles/missle defense, and other “flight” tech areas.
Due to cuts in personnel and increase in other areas, you are probably only saving about 10 billion in spending. So in essence, the Military budget WILL NOT CHANGE with this change in force posture.
And to answer Gargs question, I would say it would take about 12 months to get boots trained up and on the ground…whether they are effective, is a different story. I wouldn’t see a cut down to 250K though…The army could not survive on 250K…