The U.S. Army is standing up a pilot task force to try out multidomain battle concepts next year, according to the Army secretary and the service’s Forces Command commander.
The task force will operate in PACOM to focus on Asia-Pacific "due to its complex and demanding environment."
The location is a problem. I suspect that rather than really thinking truly "purple" in using the core competencies of each service in a single joint campaign where each service supports the other through the synergy of doing what they do best, this is all about using the Army to help the Navy with the core Navy mission of sea control, with a nod to air defense to assist the Air Force and Navy.
Like this:
“I’d like to see the Army’s land forces sink a ship, shoot down a missile, and shoot down the aircraft that fired that missile – near simultaneously – in a complex environment where our joint and combined forces are operating in each other’s domains,” Commander, US Pacific Command, said last year at the Association of the United States Army LANPAC Symposium and Exposition.
Not that I am exactly against Army fire units sinking ships or against Army air defenses shooting down threats to the Navy.
But it fills me with dread about what the Army isn't expected to do in the Asia-Pacific region. Because the Army simply has no role granted to them in the Asia-Pacific region that even hints at using the Army for its core competency.
And that's despite the proven role of the Army in creating multi-domain synergy in a true joint campaign 75 years ago in the Pacific.
If the Army really wanted to harness multi-domain capabilities to win ground wars, the task force would be in EUCOM to focus on European land defense problems. But it isn't. It's in PACOM. Which says a lot.
I fear that the task force is simply all about making the Army less of an army and more of a Navy or Air Force auxiliary. Which seemed to be the path prior to 9/11 when a smaller Army was seen as the force to mop up after the high tech weapons made mincemeat of enemy troops and morale. The hard fights in Afghanistan and Iraq that rested on the ability of Army and Marine troops to master everything from high speed conventional warfare to counter-insurgency might just be an interlude of combat mission sanity.
I swear, I fear the Close Combat Lethality Task Force will be subverted and ultimately result in Army infantry squads lugging around Harpoon anti-ship missiles or Patriot air defense missiles.
