U.S. Army Reinforcement Plan for Europe

[Reality Check]

Under the Obama Military Plan the size of the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Reserve is "just perfect" for Obama's interpretation of current U.S. Peace time Commitements, plus one "Spare Division".

The Army will have exactly one Armored Brigade, in the U.S., 87 tanks, dedicated to the defense of Europe.
Tanks can be pre-positioned in Europe, but the troops will be permanently stationed in the United States.
The plan was that one Battalion ( 1/3 of a Brigade ) might deploy to Europe for training each year.

One Armored Brigade equals 87 tanks. One Armored Battalion equals 29 Tanks.

Each Division can support one Deployed Brigade. ( Roughly three Brigades in each Division ).

One (1) Brigade is resting in the United States, One Brigade is Training in the United States, and One Brigade is in the United States ready for deployment overseas if needed. That rotation requires an entire division in the United States to just have one (1) single Brigade available ( 24 x7 x 365 ) to deploy to Europe for the defence of Europe with just on U.S. Brigade of 87 tanks.

As of September 30th, 2015 the United States will have just 10 Divisions ( down from 16 half way through the Obama administration - in 2012 ).

Nine ( 9 ) of those ( 10 ) Divisions are committed to supporting the current PEACE TIME oversease commitments of the United States to our allies.


All the Brigades, in all the Divisions, except one Division, are totally committed to meeting current, Overseas, peace time defense commitments.

Obama has calculated 87 main battle tanks, One Brigade based in the United States, meets the legal NATO treaty commitment of defending Europe as part of NATO.

If the U.S. needs to send a second Armored Brigade to Defend Europe, the "spare division" will be required, and that will deplete the available resources without the U.S. defaulting on another peace time defense commitment to other allies.

Russia has at least 1,500 third generation main battle tanks in active duty units. Thousands more Russian third generation main battle tanks are stored in the military districts of Russia adjoining NATO.

The entire U.S. Active Duty Army will include only 10 Armored Brigade Combat teams with a total of 870 tanks, and they are all permanently based.


Even if you accept the most pessimistic scenario (rosy scenario from NATO's point of view ) of the Russian military, that all the stored tanks and the units that would be assigned to them are worthless, that would still allow Russia to start a medium size war with NATO, rather than the major war with NATO they could start if reserve units and reserve third generation tanks were semi-competent.

For many decades the U.S. Military was sized to fight two major wars and one small war at the same time in different parts of the world.

As of September 30th, 2015 the U.S. Military will be perfectly sized to fight only one war, and nothing else, using the current Obama rotation plan above.

If the U.S was forced to fight a medium size conventional war in Europe, all the U.S. based troops would have to be deployed full time, no training breaks, and no rest breaks, and if China were to take the opportunity to attack Vietnam, South Korea, The Philippines, Japan or any other region where the U.S. has peace time sized U.S. forces are deployed, the U.S. troops would be on their own with no hope of reinforcement from the United States.