[This piece has been published in Restoring America to highlight how the Army’s decreasing recruitment numbers pose a threat to the U.S.’s national security and dominance abroad].

For the first time in 20 years, the US Army is set to dip below one million troops in the latest budget request. As with resources, there is no magic benchmark to guarantee security, but this decline reveals a worrisome trend for the Army and its sister services. Despite a modest drawdown in the Middle East, demands for Army (and other) combat power remain on the rise.