US Army Chief of Staff Discusses Military of the Future

Gen. Ordierno, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, discusses the changes the army will have to make to adjust to smaller budgets.
US Army Chief of Staff Discusses Military of the Future
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno believes the U.S. Army needs to prepare for accomplishing many different objectives well. He spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on June 20. (Gary Feuerberg/ The Epoch Times)
6/28/2012
Updated:
9/29/2015
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WASHINGTON—The future U.S. Army will have a broader focus than what it has now, according to U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno.

The current focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism is not going away, nor will it be diminished in the foreseeable future, Odierno says. But the nature of warfare is changing and so “we must think about how we are going to change with it.”

Several adjustments are in store, according to the general. In the next decade, the U.S. military will see a shift in priorities from the Middle East to Asia. It will also have to learn to do more with less, as Defense Department budgets decline.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) interviewed Odierno and published his commentary, “The U.S. Army in a Time of Transition.” The article is featured in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs—an influential publication on international issues published since 1922.

Odierno, 57, became Army Chief of Staff nine months ago. He commanded the 4th Infantry Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom from April 2003 to March 2004, and later was commanding general of multinational and U.S. forces in Iraq.

He also served as assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he was the primary military adviser to Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

A thorough review of the total force was recently conducted when the joint chiefs and combatant commanders simulated “well-developed scenarios” to find the optimal solution for a smaller force. Odierno said that the primary question asked was, “Do we have the forces—ground, air, sea, and maritime—to anticipate the need?”

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In January 2013, the Budget Control Act is set to trigger a series of cuts, called the sequestration, which Odierno said is not the right way to allocate resources. He says that cutting every item 10 to 15 percent means doubling the already painful $487 billion loss the Defense Department will face over the next 10 years. He warns of defaults on contracts resources and “chaos within our system” if the automatic cuts were to take effect.

Odierno writes that the Army’s active-duty reductions in force are painful but necessary, and can be done responsibly.

“Today’s force is qualitatively different from the Army of a decade ago … It is more combat seasoned, more tightly integrated with the other military services and with special operations forces, and more technologically advanced,” he writes.

According to the general, today’s Army depends more than ever on backup from the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. Although the Reserves were developed at the end of the Vietnam War, they were rarely deployed. During the Cold War, reserve soldiers were disparagingly called “weekend warriors,” for their once-a-month duty requirements.

Reserve soldiers were originally meant to serve only in the event of a third world war. That changed in the 1990s, when there weren’t enough active duty soldiers to cover operational deployments in Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, according to John Nagl and Travis Sharp, authors of the Center for New American Security’s “An Indispensable Force.”

Reserves have performed well in the Middle East Theater, and officials believe they can rely on them more. Besides Army Reserve and Army National Guard units, equivalent reserve components exist for the Air Force, Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard. By September 2010, one-fifth of military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were reserve and guard units, according to a GAO 2010 report.

Focus On Asia

While the focus has long been on the Middle East, Odierno sees the U.S. Army’s critical role as a counter to hostile armies in Asia, presumably from China and North Korea.

“Pacific countries are dominated politically by armies,” he said, emphasizing the importance of developing relationships with those militaries.

According to Odierno, senior Pakistan military officers at one time were educated in the United States, but that changed in the 1990s when the United States broke off relations over nuclear issues. Since then, almost none of Pakistan’s officers have been to the United States, and military relations have soured.

The general writes of recent training announced between the United States and Australia, and army partnerships and exercises with South Korea, Japan, and Thailand, as well as training missions for special operation forces in the Philippines.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said June 19 that the Defense Department plans on cutting our European military presence by half, according to govexec.com. Odierno writes that two army brigades are to be removed from Europe.

While some locales will see fewer troops, the U.S. Army will continue to have a strong presence in the Middle East, particularly if additional naval assets are directed to the Pacific, he writes.

The New Army

Gen. Odierno said that the army will have to enhance its relationship with joint special operations forces vital to counterterrorism missions.

“The evolution of this partnership over the past decade has been extraordinary, and the ties can become even stronger as we continue to develop new operational concepts,” he writes.

Odierno spoke in more general terms about the transition the Army will have to make in the coming years. He spoke of integrating cyberspace warfare into the tactical and operational units.

The nature of war has evolved in other ways too, something the general refers to as “hybrid warfare.” The Army increasingly operates in environments with “both regular military and irregular paramilitary or civilian adversaries, with potential for terrorism, criminality, and other complications … Now, any activity a soldier undertakes can rapidly evolve into a combination of combat, governance, and civil support missions.”

The Army of the future will have to be ready to perform a much wider range of missions. In addition to combat, the future soldier may be involved in activities such as helping flood victims and restoring order in a collapsed state with large-scale criminal activity. Odierno sees that some units will specialize in “higher-end fighting,” while others will dedicate much of their training to disaster relief.

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