Donbas is driving the localized restructuring of the Ground Forces and the need for improvements in artillery and armor. ...
Essentially, this is the argument in favor of divisions over brigades. In late December, Colonel General Oleg Salyukov, the commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces, noted that both divisions and brigades will be retained in the future for these reasons, but he made no mention of the continued reliance upon battalion tactical groups or explained the circumstances in which an entire division would be deployed.
Years ago (pre-9/11), I argued for more but smaller American divisions based on two brigades (See "The Path of the Future Army") that would be easier to deploy but which would accept a third brigade in case more depth and resilience was needed. If divisions were bulked up to three brigades, the Army would have extra division headquarters and divisional units to expand the Army more easily, pulling in National Guard brigades in the short term and forming new active units in the longer term.
In case of heavy combat I wanted the depth that the division could provide to support subordinate brigades rather than the "Breaking the Phalanx" independent brigades offered as an alternative and which we did adapt to ease rotation of units in Iraq.
I've noted the resurrection of the army headquarters in Russia, with divisions within it, and find it interesting that based on their combat experience in Ukraine the Russians think the division is useful.
America crushed the Iraqi army with divisions in 2003.
Was the decision to go to self-contained brigades, which made it easier to rotate units, just another example of how the counter-insurgency campaign unbalanced the Army away from conventional warfare?
Today our "divisions" are more like the corps of old that commanded self-contained divisions, but now with self-contained brigades augmented with higher level assets as needed.
Is the Russian lesson something the United States Army should consider? Should the Army again be division-based if the anticipated mission is high-intensity conventional warfare?
As an aside, the lack of mention of the battalion tactical group is interesting given the rage that the BTG seems to be experiencing with Army discussions.
I have never seen the Russian BTG as some miracle unit that crushes American battalions as much as I've seen it as the only usable portion of Russian brigades.
So the proper measure of comparison is what our brigades can field versus what the Russian brigades can field--a full brigade versus a reinforced battalion team.
