Pentagon to propose shrinking US Army

The United States is to cut the army's overall troop numbers as it withdraws from Afghanista in an austerity drive long predicted by defence officials.
Chuck Hagel, the defence secretary, is on Monday expected to recommend shrinking the army to its smallest size in decades. The AP news agency says the numbers on active service will fall from 520,000 to 490,000 by 2015, and then will fall further to about 450,000 after that point.
The US spent $682 billion in 2013 on the military - more than the next 10 big-spending nations combined.
There were no indication if other areas of the US armed services - the navy and airforce would face cuts.
The newspaper said it would leave the US military capable of defeating any enemy but too small for long foreign occupations, and would involve greater risk if US forces were asked to carry out two large-scale military actions at the same time.
"You have to always keep your institution prepared, but you can't carry a large land-war defence department when there is no large land war," the Times quoted a senior Pentagon official as saying.
It added that some of the plans may face political opposition in Congress, but quoted the officials as saying that they had the endorsement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff