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"Go Army. com"
As
an Army Veteran, and having worked in Aerospace over 3 decades to support Army programs, I found the below article by
John Keller, Editor in Chief, "Military & Aerospace Electronics"
magazine an objective and disturbing piece.
Note the references to mission vacuum and lack of civilian leadership in
Washington D.C.
John
highlights that as the nation is struggling with stagnated politics the
services are hampered by a lack of hard information to plan ahead.
Mr.
Keller introduces a historical perspective and an excellent view of the hard
issues, challenges and uncertainty that the Army and industry in its supporting
role are facing today.
"MILITARY
AND AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS":
"A
variety of factors are gathering into a potential perfect storm that could threaten the U.S. Army's future
mission, the continuing relevance of the
oldest American military service, and how the defense industry can move forward
to support the Army's needs.
Some
of these factors are well-known: sequestration, dim prospects for budget growth, and substantial technology
research and development that for most
practical purposes has come nearly to a dead-stop.
Perhaps
most serious, however, is how top military and civilian leadership define the Army's role moving into
the future, the top threats the Army
will evolve to meet, and the very relevance of a large standing Army in an era when large-scale,
big-iron military land battles appear to
be part of the past.
Here's
where we are today: U.S. military forces are finishing their exit from Iraq, where they have operated for
more than a decade. Their final exit
from Afghanistan is but a few years off, or less. When operations on Southwest Asia are completed,
where does the Army go from there?
The
Army has had a clear set of missions since
the U.S. entered World War II in 1941. Although the close of the
Second World War in 1945 saw a rapid
drawdown in U.S. military power, the
strengthening Soviet Union was on everyone's mind.
Less
than five years after World War II ended, North Korea invaded South Korea, which created another sudden and
dire mission for the Army. That mission
grew from containing North Korean forces to containing Communism around the world, which continued
until the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1990. One year later, Iraq invaded Kuwait, which gave rise to Operation Desert Shield, and eventually the
military ouster of Iraqi forces from
Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm, in which the Army played a central role.
For
the next decade, keeping an eye on a contained-but-restless Iraqi military, on ethnic strife in what then was
Yugoslavia, and on other simmering hot
spots throughout the world held the Army's attention and helped define its mission.
Today
things are different. Counter-insurgency operations are nearing an end in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia does
not pose the immediate military threat
that did its predecessors of the Soviet Union, and Europe has been relatively quiet.
Still,
trouble spots persist in areas like Syria and Iran, but with no open conflict yet involving U.S. Army
forces. There is no immediate and dire
threat in these areas, and hence no clear Army mission-at least not yet.
So
how does the Army move forward? Counter-insurgency, certainly. Special Forces
capability, of course. But what's the
role of the large Army infrastructure involving
large combat infantry units, main battle tanks, armored fighting
vehicles, and other organizations designed for large ground conflicts?
I'm
not sure there is a role, and I'm not convinced that the top Army leadership today knows what its role in the
future will be, either. Maybe the Army
is at a moment of transition, and leaders will get a handle on the Army's core mission sometime
soon. With the civilian leadership
vacuum we have in Washington, I'm not sure the Army will be able to do so. If Army leaders are unable to
define the Army's long-term mission
clearly, then the defense industry will have no idea how to proceed, other than to guess.
These
factors were on display just below the surface last month at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA). What
was striking in exhibits was a lack of
direction in where we go from here. It was as though the industry were pointing out to the Army
officers walking the aisles how far
technology has led us to this moment, yet pleading for direction on where the industry should go from here."
http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-11/news/trends/the-army-s-future-mission-is-vague-leaving-industry-with-little-direction.html
About
the Author:
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military &
Aerospace Electronics magazine, which
provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in
military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military
& Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr.
Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
