Balancing Risk: The Tension Between Current and Future Demands

To be able to execute the National Defense Strategy (which includes the military requirements of the National Military Strategy),the Army must maintain readiness to deal with current challenges, while developing the capabilities to be ready for future challenges.  Now five years after 9-11, the Army continues to fight the long war with high levels of force deployment. 

This sustained demand for Army forces continues to exceed the demand envisioned in the National Defense Strategy established during the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review.  This level of demand is placing enormous strain on the Army’s All-Volunteer force.  Time between deployments for our active component has been steadily decreasing over the last five years, and is now approaching less than one year, on average.

The Army is incapable of generating and sustaining the forces required to wage the Global War on Terror, to respond to emerging challenges, and to sustain the full range of U.S. global commitments without all of its components – active, National Guard, and Army Reserve – fully available to deploy together.  At current levels of demand, without recurrent, assured, and predictable access to our reserve components, we will be unable to manage current and projected requirements for Army forces. 

The recent decisions by the President and the Secretary of Defense – to assure access to all components of the force – will fully enable our reserve components to perform their new role as an integral part of our operationally deployable force.  In addition, these new policies will facilitate the deployment of  our best led, and best equipped reserve units – as whole cohesive units.  We are working rapidly to implement these changes and will require continued Congressional support to do so. 

The decision to expand the size of the Nation’s ground forces reflects clear recognition on the part of the President, the Congress, and the Secretary of Defense of the dangers we face, the importance of our mission, and the stress our Soldiers, families, and Army Civilians are enduring.  This decision will enhance the depth and breadth of Army capabilities, yet will require several years and considerable resources to bring to fruition. Over time, the decision will alleviate strategic risk, as we assess it today.

In recent years, we have received considerable support to improve our capabilities; yet we still have much to accomplish to establish the levels of readiness – across all components of the force – needed to maintain risk at acceptable levels in wartime.

Since 9-11, we have used our resources carefully, making numerous decisions to allocate resources to immediate wartime needs, and to better prepare and protect our Soldiers.  We have drawn upon the entire Army to meet requirements for forces and equipment.  We have cancelled countless investment programs and deferred both maintenance and required investment in our infrastructure.  To free human and financial resources for our most compelling operational needs, we have undertaken major Army-wide business transformation initiatives.  We have also received the support needed to accelerate our schedule for modular conversion that will enable two Brigade Combat Teams to deploy much earlier than planned.

The combined effects of continuing high levels of strategic demand for Army forces, at home and abroad, compounded by longstanding deficits in equipment, modernization, and infrastructure investment place current and future readiness at risk.  In addition, our capacity to meet current force requirements, and to grow our forces, depends on adhering to an extremely complex, intricate schedule to realign our entire global infrastructure of bases, depots, arsenals, and other facilities.  Our ability to remain on schedule is jeopardized by our inability to execute a diverse range of military construction projects and supporting activities (e.g., environmental assessment studies and remediation projects).  Timely passage of military construction appropriations is required to stay on schedule and to prevent the effects of construction delays from cascading into many other areas of Army activity that will unintentionally put at risk our ability to accomplish our mission – to provide trained, ready forces to meet the Combatant Commanders’ needs. 

The Army will require additional base and supplemental appropriations to achieve the levels of readiness needed to fulfill the requirements of the National Defense Strategy.  Without sufficient resources, the Army cannot continue its current pace of operations and implement the changes required to prepare for the future – in the face of growing threats to the Nation posed by state and non-state extremist movements and organizations.

To build readiness to sustain the current mission, to remain relevant and ready to meet future challenges, and to maintain risk at acceptable wartime levels the Army needs to:

• Obtain Full, Timely, and Predictable Funding to Sustain the Army’s Global Commitments.  Full, timely, and predictable funding of the Army’s Fiscal Year 2008 President’s Budget request and supplemental appropriations is required to build readiness needed to execute the National Defense Strategy and to pay for the costs of war.  Full funding is needed for the Army to fulfill its global responsibilities in the face of traditional, irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges; to provide adequately for Soldiers, families, and Army Civilians; to accelerate key aspects of our transformation; and to maintain the momentum of vital training programs, modernization, and stationing initiatives.

• Grow the All-Volunteer Force to Sustain the Long War.  Support and full funding is needed to continue to achieve our goals for attracting and retaining high quality peopleArmy Retention Program
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   in each of our active and reserve components.  This funding is enabling the expansion of our operational, deployable force pool, which is vital to sustaining the effectiveness and health of the All-Volunteer force, now being tested for the first time in a long war. 

• Improve Wartime Authorities and Resources for Soldiers and Commanders in Combat.  Changes are needed to eliminate unintended constraints on programs such as the Commanders' Emergency Response Program, the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, and in administering security cooperation and assistance programs, as well as furnishing humanitarian assistance. Sufficient funding for programs to enhance security cooperation and provide assistance to friends and allies is required to build partner capacity and institutions that prove to be cooperative and enduring.  In addition, continued Congressional leadership will be required to support programs and initiatives to protect Soldiers (to counter Improvised Explosive DevicesArmy Asymmetric Warfare Office
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  , to provide up-armored vehiclesUp-Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle
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  , to field individual body armor, etc.) and to better equip Iraqi and Afghan police, security, and military forces.       

• Reset
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  Reset the Force to Ensure Readiness for Current and Future Challenges.  Full funding is needed to restore units – a process with both materiel and human dimensions – to required levels of readiness to execute projected operational deployments, while remaining prepared for likely future contingencies and homeland defense missions.  To be ready, we must not only ensure that battle damaged items are repaired, recapitalized, or replaced; we must also enable our Soldiers and families to recover from the stress of combat and prolonged separation.  The requirement to reset our units will not be satisfied with a one-time infusion of funds; it will require a sustained, predictable commitment of funds for several years beyond major deployments. 

• Transform the Force to Sustain the Full Range of our Global Commitments.  Full funding for Army transformation is needed to create an operational, deployable pool of 76 modular Brigade Combat Teams and approximately 225 Support Brigades. By increasing the depth and breadth of our overall capacity, through conversion to more capable modular formationsModular Force Conversion
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  , our transformation is improving our ability to execute and support protracted campaigns.  Our ability to meet the levels of force availability envisioned in the National Defense Strategy depends upon an Army-wide readiness model to support expeditionary deploymentExpeditionary Capabilities
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   on a rotational basis.  It is designed to improve the readiness of our non-deployed forces across all components; reduce stress on Soldiers, families, and equipment; improve predictability for employers; end the need to extend deployments in theater to provide active component Soldiers at least one year at home before redeploying them; and manage the force to achieve our goal of one year deployed with two years at home station for these Soldiers.  This model depends upon assured, predictable access to our reserve component units who – because of strategic decisions and operational necessity – have become a vital part of our deployable force pool.

• Modernize by Accelerating the Fielding of Advanced Technologies to our Soldiers TodaySpiral Technology and Capabilities Development for Rapid Transition to the Army
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  .  Full funding of the Army’s modernization program is needed to accelerate aspects of Future Combat Systems (FCS) development, aviation programs, and over 300 key modernization initiatives.  FCS is our first major modernization program in several decades and is our most critical investment program.  In 2008, to enhance combat effectiveness today, FCS will begin to “spin out” key technologies to our current forces – a

  

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  process projected to continue in roughly two-year intervals.   FCS is enabling Soldiers – from our active and reserve components, all U.S. ground forces, and our allies that support ground campaigns – to understand battlefield conditions in unprecedented ways.  These improvements are better preparing them to deal with the full spectrum of traditional, irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges they will face for the foreseeable future.  Despite the benefits FCS will provide, as a result of the combined effects of budget cuts over the past three years, and fiscal guidance that will reduce resources programmed for future years, we will adjust the scope and schedule for fielding FCS.  We will continue to develop the core operational capability envisioned for FCS, yet will do so with 14 instead of 18 interconnected systems. These adjustments will result in delaying development, acquisition, and delivery of this much needed capability to our Soldiers and the Nation.  

• Station the Force to Meet Emerging Strategic Demands While Providing Infrastructure and Services to Enable Mission Accomplishment. Full funding is needed to achieve the framework of a new global basing posture by 2011 and to enable our installations to deliver a quality of life for our Soldiers, families, and civilians that matches the quality of the service they provide to the Nation.  Our plan will improve our ability to fulfill national strategic requirements in an uncertain environment.  Due to extensive streamlining and consolidation of facilities and activities, it will also improve our overall efficiency.  Moreover, the funding provided to the Army will enable us to allocate significantly greater levels of resources to improve the quality and effectiveness of the facilities we depend on to: train, maintain equipment; house and care for our soldiers, and provide safe, modern working conditions for our Army Civilians. The resources and support provided to the Army will have a pivotal outcome on our ability to execute our stationing plan, to meet the schedule established by law, and to sustain our All-Volunteer Soldiers and their families, now bearing the prolonged stress of more than five years of war.
  

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• Transform Business Practices to Better Enable Army Transformation.  Continued support is needed to execute Army Business Transformation to achieve targeted efficiencies through management reform; acquisition reform; comprehensive redesign of the organizations and business processes that generate, deploy, and reset forces; consolidation of bases and activities; military to civilian conversion plansitary-to-Civlian Conversions
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  ; performance measurement enhancements, and more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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