I attended the same interview at the Pentagon with Colin and Greg Grant where MGen. Terry met with a select group of reporters. It’s too bad he didn’t say much, but I’ll go ahead and give Colin some props for spinning out a story on it and getting the debate started.
The incoming commander of the famous 10th Mountain Division, Maj. Gen. James Terry, sat down with defense reporters today to talk about the future of Army modernization. Terry, a very personable commander with a refreshingly candid approach, wouldnt offer specific answers about what the Armys Brigade Combat Team Modernization would look like. After all, its one of the biggest acquisition decisions the service will make for years and its not unreasonable for him to go slow. But there is a larger issue that a major general dares not address in public are the Pentagon and Army moving in the right direction when it comes to redesigning the force? The answer we got from a respected analyst is a resounding No!
Terry knows a great deal about the past and future of Army modernization from his job as director of TRADOCs Future Force Integration Directorate, known fondly as FFID. But he is also an officer in the chain of command and the Army is in the midst of deciding just what the successor to FCS will be, so he couldnt say much.
Terry did say that the Army is probably going to do more of taking Operational Needs Statements from commanders in the field and turning them into programs of record, those wonderful budgeting tools that allow the service to build a program into its regular annual funding plan. At the end of the session, I asked him if the Army was moving from a force bent on fundamental change which the service declared was the case with the development of FCS to a more incremental approach. Terry said he thought the service was probably headed to something much closer to a step by step approach.
Eager to get some perspective on whether the service is generally headed in the right direction since the demise of the Manned ground Vehicle program, I called one of the best outside analysts who follows the Army, Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute. Goure was adamant. The Army has, under enormous pressure from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, begun to turn into an institution planning for the last war one of the greatest sins of which a military can be accused.
The Armys current course almost guarantees surprise, technical and operational surprise in our next conflict because the service is rebuilding to cope with the wars it has most recently fought Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates has declared repeatedly that he is acting to rebalance the US military in light of the lessons he has learned since coming to the Pentagon.
Why would you think you are going to get yourself in the same situation in five years” Goure asked. On top of that, Army officials have said repeatedly they are planning for uncertainty and for the long war. The Army uses the term uncertainty thats not a plan for the future, he said. Instead that leads the service, Goure opined, to operating without a greater vision, a greater purpose than the immediate fight. And that takes us back to his initial premise, that the current course of the Army will place the country in peril because it will be vulnerable to an enemy able to target our technology that has been developed with the current fight in mind. You dont have a core purpose for the Army, whether it might be developing the capability to read and react to an enemy attack, mobilize quickly and stop the enemy in its tracks almost anywhere in the world, pacify the Indians or stop the Soviets at the Fulda Gap.
Read the rest of this story and join the discussion over at DoD Buzz.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Famous, as in how they were famously sent to Afghanistan to capture bin Laden, but arent real mountain troops, so he got away…
After awhile I get the feeling whenever I hear someone say a military beaurocrat’s plan is “fighting the last war” they’re doing the military equivalent of calling. People against the F22 are saying they F22 supporters are trying to fighting the cold war etc. Every weapon system (aside from the cyber) have antecedents in past wars so all weapons programs are examples of some sort of fighting the last war. It’s become a meaningless exercise.
Personally me, I’m on Gates’ side as from my point of view he’s not trying to fight the last war, he’s trying to fight the current one.
This story is deceptive. You lead the reader to belive that MG Terry is the one opposed to the Army’s course and not some think tank expert who is calling the war we are currently fighting ‘the last war’.
Just my personal opinion, but I think we should actually FINISH the war we are in before we declare it to be old news. That way we might put in the resources we need to do the job. Once it’s done we can decide how likely we are to see this type of war again.
Again, just my personal opinion – Since this is the only type of warfare the US has even come close to losing, I think that is very likely indeed.
>Famous, as in how they were famously sent to Afghanistan to capture bin Laden, but arent real mountain troops, so he got away…
As one of them said – “We don’t do mountains”
The army will do everything possible to escape having to fight one quagmire after another, including losing. It’s their ultimate nightmare.
I agree you don’t equip specifically in the future to fight the last war, but you certainly need to look at the past if you want to make an intelligent informed decision about the future. I think taking a historical look at the conflicts we have actually been involved in, compared to what we thought we would be involved in will enable us to make smarter procurement decisions.
Without getting into specific systems, I think some basic principles hold true regardless of the specific conflict or terrain. Reducing weight of systems while maintaining or improving capability is a good thing logistically. Being able to deploy faster is a good thing. I think if you just apply the basics and then field good equipment that you’ve trained on tirelessly, the conflict will go our way regardless of the exact systems chosen.
Putting in place a responsive procurement system open to fast off the shelf solutions for unforeseen threats, will help mitigate any shortcomings.
Goure argues that the Army lacks a vision for the future. Makes you wonder what his vision of the future is & what he thinks the Army should be doing to implement that vision. Is his vision so likely to be realized that the Army can disregard the possibility that things might turn out differently?
There’s so many MRAPs that it would be irresponsible NOT to see if they can be adapted to other uses – even if that means new chassis. And isn’t it going too far to say they CAN NOT be networked?
There aren’t any current nations that have an armor force remotely close to ours that aren’t friendly. Most countries we would go to war with are going to quickly adopt insurgency style warfare. The more experience we have fighting this the better. I think that STemplar is right. Give the troops great equipment and great training with that equipment and they’ll do fine.
And if it comes to a slug it out conventional war, we’ll adapt just as quickly.
Hey Mr. Goure, odds are we’ll still be in the current fight in 5 years! I’m with Rick, let’s finish this war before complaining about the next.
I’d say we will probably be in both Stan and Iraq for 5 to 10 more years, and that’s if things go well. I would say the ‘vision’ for the Army is going to have to do with the ability to conduct occupations and counter insurgency missions. Which really is pretty much what they’ve been doing the last 20 odd years.
I’m not sure why we continue to play this game of the future being so uncertain. At the end of the cold war/desert storm time frame, the talk was all about how we needed to focus on low intensity conflict capabilities. That is exactly where we ended up. Seems to me that where we are wasn’t so uncertain then. I think if all the bought off dunces in DC will just accept reality and stop pushing systems that cost a fortune, and start buying what we need, the Army will be just fine.