All this week, at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Army is conducting the latest iteration of its annual wargame. In the fictional future of the game, set in 2020, 120 players will wage a two-front war in the two regions that have come to dominate US strategy, with one scenario set in the Middle East -- which I'll get to sit in on -- and another in the Pacific -- which is classified. In the real world of here and now, however, what's at stake is how the largest but least glamorous of the four military services plays catch-up to the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marines in reinventing itself for the post-Afghanistan era.
I sent a paper to the people running the game on that subject for a contest. I heard about it kind of late, but I think I got the paper 90% by the deadline. I'll let you know how that worked out.
This article says that Air-Sea Battle is about enabling land forces and mentions that anti-access and area denial assets would prevent us from a safe and slow build up on land as we've become accustomed to the last couple decades:
Perhaps the best way to understand the value of the ASB concept is to imagine a future where its integrated air and naval capabilities and capacity do not exist.
In such a future, attempts to use the familiar expeditionary model of massing combat power — the so-called “iron mountain” — at a handful of main operating bases to conduct extensive mission rehearsal and subsequently seize the initiative at a time and place of the Joint Force commander’s choosing, may not be feasible. Advanced adversaries could deny secure U.S. land basing at very long ranges, preventing air and naval forces from gaining local air superiority.
That's all good. I addressed the same issues. But the article doesn't really say how the Army would be used. I did that, at least. But perhaps saying how the Army would be used isn't politically acceptable and that is why the Pacific wargame is classified.
I still think it will be too easy for politicians eager to believe air and sea power provide painless means to project decisive power to ignore the Army even if there is lip service about jointness.
The Army has its work cut out for it. Win or lose a war, the Army tends to lose out after the war.
