Even as budgetary issues virtually assure that the Army will decrease in strength in the coming years as ongoing conflicts come to an end, the service’s top civilian leader promised that the service would continue to field a balanced and full-spectrum force. “We still have an obligation to preserve the strategic options for the President of the United States and to maintain modernized forces capable of decisive combat action,” Secretary of the Army John McHugh told the opening session of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting and exposition in Washington on Oct. 10.
