In his first public remarks as the Army's new Chief of Staff for Logistics, G-4, LTG Duane Gamble said the Army will "ruthlessly prioritize available resources," including striking a more balanced approach to both strategic and tactical readiness.
He made his remarks today on a panel at the 2019 U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition whose theme is "Ready Now, Investing in the Future."
"The collective Army has moved the ball really far these last couple of years when it comes to readiness," he said. "That readiness is from strategic to tactical. But we have miles to go in terms of positioning and posturing our Army for the future."
The focus on maximizing resources is in line with Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy's strategic efforts to efficiently modernize the force to compete with Russia, China, and other adversaries who are injecting billions into their militaries.
Strategic readiness is delivered from the Army's Strategic Support Area, where combat power is generated, deployed, and sustained. It includes the Army's people, installations, industrial base, munitions, transportation capabilities, equipment and awareness of how this is all linked together.
The strategic readiness investments LTG Gamble is most interested in boosting are: power projection platform capacity, prepositioned stocks, munitions, strategic mobility and lift, and the organic and industrial base.
LTG Gamble explained that prioritizing resources will take moral courage. "I have been a supporter my whole life. No supporter likes to say no to somebody in a unit, but I have found myself saying no to a bunch of people who I respected and wanted to support. I did so because I believed at the time that we needed to prioritize and focus the resources on an intended purpose."
LTG Gamble explained that rebalancing investments does not mean tactical readiness will decline. He said if someone can improve readiness at the same expenditure it is a win.
His priorities for tactical readiness include improvements to unit readiness and deployability, operational readiness rates, equipment on-hand, and agile and resilient logistics.
"Strategic and tactical readiness investments are not mutually exclusive," he said. "You don't have to choose one or the other. We have to do both. We have to have excellence at echelon. Everyone in the Army must do their job with the resources they have. And Army leaders need to establish and maintain both strategic and tactical readiness, neither at the expense of each other. That takes ruthless prioritization."
LTG Gamble's remarks were made at the panel on "Synchronizing Installation Readiness and Sustainment for the Strategic Support Area to the Tactical Point of Need."
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