Base Realignment and Closure Decisions for the Army in 2005

What is it? "BRAC" is an acronym that stands for "Base Realignment and Closure."  It refers to the process the Department of Defense (DOD) has used to reorganize its installation infrastructure to more efficiently and effectively provide the Army with the authority to dispose of excess facilities and installations while realigning and reconfiguring the remaining infrastructure to increase operational capacity, warfighting capability and to take advantage of the efficiencies presented through consolidation and joint activities. This allows the Army to redistribute resources from closed installations to other high priority requirements. BRAC provides the Army with a comprehensive review of its installation inventory and realigns base facilities with the modular units of the future force.

What has the Army done? As the Army implements BRAC 2005, it must simultaneously maintain its ability to execute each of its primary missions:

• Conduct, support, and sustain the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT);
• Support homeland defense initiatives;
• Maintain the ability to win decisively where necessary;
• Provide force protection for soldiers, civilians and families;
• Continue transformation from Divisions to the Brigade Combat Team construct; and
• Be a responsive member of the Joint Force.

All BRAC activity takes place within the context of supporting these Army missions.  Indeed, BRAC is designed to tailor the Army “physical plant” to facilitate efficient execution of these missions.  The recommendations of BRAC 2005 go further into realigning to support these missions than merely disposing of excess Cold War capacity as was the thrust of BRAC 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995.  BRAC 2005 is a comprehensive restructuring of the Army infrastructure not only to achieve optimal use of physical resources, but also to accommodate Army Transformation, the support and security demands of the Global War on Terrorism, the integration of Army infrastructure with that of other services to facilitate joint power projection, and the efficiencies (and savings) of multi-service headquarters and schools.

 

What efforts does the Army plan to continue in the future? The Army is developing implementation plans to execute the BRAC 2005 decisions. BRAC execution should satisfy the following Army goals:

• Reduce cost and generate savings of $2 billion annually
• Optimize military value
• Advance the Army Modular Force Initiative
• Accommodate the rebasing of overseas units
• Enable the transformation of both the active and reserve components as well as rebalancing the forces
• Contribute to joint operations

Why is this important to the Army? ? With regard to overall Army transformation, it is important to note that Army BRAC recommendations are linked inextricably to the Army future force initiatives. BRAC realignments will provide the optimum infrastructure to stand up, train, support and rapidly deploy our Brigade Combat Teams. BRAC provides the primary mechanism and basis for locating our forces on installations that facilitate rapid deployment in support of global requirements against potential adversaries who threaten our security.

 

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