Army on Track to Meet Lower Recruiting Goal, Navy May Fall Short

The Army’s decision to lower its recruiting goal comes as the service is undergoing a massive force structure transformation, under which the total size of the force is expected to shrink. The end strength reduction is being driven by that strategy rather than recruiting shortfalls, said Kate Kuzminski, of the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C.

“The Army announced back in 2022, Secretary Wormuth announced at AUSA [Association of the United States Army] the shift in force structure in order to take on large scale combat operations with a near-peer competitor and shift away from our counterinsurgency mission in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Kuzminski told Task & Purpose on Thursday. “This reduction actually reflects the change in force structure that’s moving from the BCT [brigade combat team] model that we shifted to in Iraq and Afghanistan to the corps- and division-led model that we will need for large scale combat operations.”

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