2014 Green Book: Sustaining the Army of 2025 and Beyond

By Gen.Gen. Dennis L. Via, Commanding General, U.S. Army Materiel CommandSeptember 30, 2014

As we close a very dynamic Fiscal Year 2014, the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) remains focused on supporting our Army's strategic priorities, while continuing to deliver Readiness to forward-deployed forces engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan and other contingency operations around the globe. Concurrently, we are closely aligned with U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) in setting the conditions required to sustain our Army and the Joint Force of 2025 -- a force fully prepared to meet future contingencies in an era of uncommon global instability and uncertainty. At AMC, our bottom line remains the Soldier.

Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno said recently, "We must ensure our Army has the ability to rapidly respond to conduct the entire range of military operations, from humanitarian assistance and stability operations to general war…It is incumbent on us to ensure [our forces] are organized, trained, and equipped to answer the Nation's call at home and abroad whenever and wherever they are needed."

Faced with the prospect of protracted budget reductions and declining troop end-strength, going forward, the Army's reliance on having the most advanced, effective, and efficient capabilities will only increase. We must be faster. We must be agile. We must be responsive to the point of need. Above all else, we must be expeditionary. The decisions and investments we make today will directly translate to the type of Army we'll have in the next ten, twenty, and thirty years, and while we may not get it exactly right, in the words of former Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, "We must not get it too wrong." Getting it right will require increased collaboration and transparency with our strategic partners, industry, and academia, while leveraging our collective strengths and unique capabilities.

To ensure our Army remains the best equipped land force in the world, AMC is actively engaged in restructuring towards a leaner, more flexible and agile organization, optimized for delivering logistics capabilities. Working in concert with the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (ASA (ALT)), we are enhancing innovations, developing military and civilian leaders, and aggressively reshaping the command now to meet the challenges of delivering global readiness to the Warfighter in the future.

Predicting the requirements of a future Army is not an exact science; however, at AMC, we've identified three critical Lines of Efforts (LOE) deemed essential to establishing the sustainment foundation for the Army of 2025: Providing Responsive Global Logistics Support to Combatant Commanders; Optimizing the Army's Organic Industrial Base; and Assuring the Army's Technological Advantage through Innovative Research and Development.

Providing Responsive Global Logistics Support to Combatant Commanders

As our Army transitions to regional alignment, we're engaged with providing Combatant Commands with an expeditionary, scalable, tailored force in support of COCOM priorities and mission sets. AMC provides assets and resources through a team of teams that includes Army Field Support Brigades (AFSBs), Contracting Support Brigades (CSBs), Transportation Brigades (TBs), and Field Assistance Science and Technology (FAST) Teams.

AMC continues to receive, store, maintain, and issue Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) across the globe, ensuring APS capabilities are modernized and prepared for operations and contingencies when needed. Along with airlift and sealift, APS constitutes one leg of the Strategic Mobility Triad essential for meeting force projection timelines, and plays a critical role in rapidly equipping forces deploying to contingencies, stability, or support operations.

This year saw the development and first utilization of the European Activity Set (EAS). The EAS, comprised of equipment pre-positioned in Germany that rotational units can "fall-in" on, provides an equipment set that enables U.S. regionally-aligned forces in Europe to participate in contingency operations and multinational training exercises. In April, elements from the 1st Cavalry Division deployed from Fort Hood to Europe and utilized the upgraded combined arms battalion-sized set of armored fighting vehicles during multinational training exercises in France, Latvia, and Germany.

New operational realities require new approaches to support Army missions, approaches that include AMC's contingency contracting capabilities. AMC has a proven track record supporting the types of likely future scenarios -- low-density, short-duration missions where organic and traditional sustainment assets are not available, such as support to humanitarian assistance and disaster response efforts, and special operations support missions. The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) is one such capability, with its contractor-provided service and support capabilities, such as food service, facilities, infrastructure, maintenance, and laundry. We have also seen success with Operational Contracting Support (OCS), integrating commercial sector support into military operations. AMC is developing processes and techniques to integrate this type of support into operational plans and contingency operations in support of COCOM and Army Service Component Command requirements.

Optimizing the Army's Organic Industrial Base

The Army's Organic Industrial Base (OIB), consisting of 23 Depots, Arsenals, and Ammunition Plants, is a national security asset, providing a critical capability in delivering readiness, not only to the Army, but to the entire Joint Force. During Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, the Army's OIB reset more than 3.8 million items, a workload three-times that of the Vietnam War. Since 2003, the reset workload constituted $29.5 billion of Army equipment and $5.7 billion of equipment for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Navy.

Key to our ability to sustain the force of tomorrow is to preserve the Industrial Base of today. As we conclude the war in Afghanistan and workload declines, we are optimizing our OIB processes to rapidly acquire and divest capabilities to meet materiel and sustainment needs in a timely manner. This year, we established a team of experts to review the organizational structure and processes in order to increase readiness by providing high quality products, on time, and at the best value. We are establishing materiel enterprise structures and protocols for leveraging the innovation and production capabilities of the private sector to support rapid equipping and fielding initiatives. Our end state is an efficient and competitive OIB that is shaped for success in support of Force 2025 and beyond.

With fewer resources, industry partners are essential to maintaining and sustaining the OIB, preserving organic skill sets, and maintaining core workload. Public-Private Partnerships play a critical role. Establishing partnerships with industry to keep the lines running and the skilled workforce employed not only benefits the Defense Industrial Base, including small business suppliers, but also enhances our national security. AMC currently has 205 Public-Private Partnerships with 114 more projected. In FY13, these projects generated more than $203 million in revenue, and $158 million for FY14.

Along with building partner capacity in support of COCOMs, AMC also continues to leverage Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to help sustain the OIB. In FY13, AMC's U.S. Army Security Assistance Command generated more than 4,600 cases in support of 145 countries, totaling more than $10.6 billion in FMS. FMS cases in FY14 generated more than $18 billion, and we expect continued growth in the future, especially with increasing requirements for maintenance support and training.

Assuring the Army's Technological Advantage

Opportunities with industry and academia continue to expand within science and technology and research and development. As Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said recently, "Defense policy reviews have shown us that the development and proliferation of more advanced military technologies by other nations means that we're entering an age when American dominance of the seas, skies, and in space can no longer be taken for granted." Working together, we've developed some remarkable technological capabilities; however, our focus must remain on developing the next generation of systems that will dominate and ensure technical overmatch in the future.

Modernization, break-through concepts, and game --changing technologies will continue to be critical components as we transition from a military force of adaptation to a force of innovation. Focused S&T investments aligned against perceived future threats mitigate the risk of overmatch, and provide the required capabilities for the future Army.

Developing Leader Logisticians for 2025

As our Army develops the next generation of Leader Logisticians, we must reset and redefine the basics. Sustained Readiness requires reconstituting the logistics capabilities that were present within the Division and Brigade Combat Team structure prior to 2001, striking a balance between contracted support and organic maintenance and sustainment. Reset operations at depots provide a unique opportunity to train our future leaders; we must leverage these resources to link AMC's national-level capabilities to our tactical-level mechanics and operators.

Our future Leader Logisticians must have dynamic career paths with professional development and assignment opportunities across the materiel enterprise that expose them not only to tactical-level logistics operations, but to contracting and the Industrial Base as well. The Leader Logisticians of 2025 must be progressive, forward-thinking professionals, with a diverse skill-set, experience, and expertise. AMC is committed to shaping a multi-skilled workforce, guided by capable, proficient leaders, with knowledge, capabilities, and skills in support of a rapidly deployable and sustainable force.

The next decade will see considerable change in our Army. But what will not change is our collective mission of supporting the Soldier. We must look at today's challenges as opportunities to responsibly shape the Army of 2025. We must be creative, bold, and visionary. We must offer innovative solutions that in the past met resistance.

Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. John Campbell recently said; "if we don't have the logistics innovations to match our combat initiatives, we will fall short of our strategic objectives." I could not agree more. With a presence or an impact in all 50 states and more than 140 countries worldwide, AMC stands ready to perform our critical role in helping to reshape our Army as it transitions to a smaller, globally deployed, regionally engaged, expeditionary force, while balancing readiness, end strength, and modernization.

In close alignment with the senior Army leadership, along with continued strong collaboration and teaming with our strategic and industry partners, I'm confident AMC will continue to successfully meet the challenges of delivering Readiness to the Warfighter today while preparing to sustain the Army of 2025 and Beyond.