Closure

had ®nally overtaken costs in closing or realigning 803 of its installations worldwide. This milestone occurred in the ninth year of a 13-year program approved by Congress and Presi-dents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. The cost of this program is $5.3 billion, and when complete, the army expects annual sav-ings of $996 million in perpetuity. A mixed-integer linear pro-gram, BRACAS (base realignment and closure action schedu-ler), helped the army budget for the 29 closures and 11 realignments approved by Congress and President Clinton in 1995. The army used BRACAS to schedule optimally the $2 billion in BRAC costs for these 40 installations over the six-year period mandated by Congress; associated annual savings will be $360 million. The post-Cold War United StatesArmy is smaller than its predecessor; 30 percent smaller than the force of 1989, the current active force of 495,000 is the smallest since 1939. A smaller force re-quires fewer installations, and reducing the number and changing the use of army installations increase ef®ciency and reduce costs. An army installation is much like a small city, in that maintenance and operat-ing costs continue even when its popula-tion decreases. Closing an installation and relocating its inhabitants is costly, but the bene®t accrues forever once th