[LTG Eric] Wesley noted that the organizational realignment needed would “probably be even a bigger problem than the materiel requirements" to create a force designed for multidomain operations.
“You will see us seek to build out echelons above brigade — the Division, the Corps, even potentially a field Army — to get into theater that can manage these theater problems that otherwise wouldn’t be achieved,” he added.
The Army will likely have to make trades across the active and reserve forces, Wesley said, “so we have the ability to have a force posture that can rapidly transition if necessary.”
I noted that Russian announcements of "new" divisions and armies signaled a focus on conventional war for Russia. Perhaps my suggestion in Military Review (starting on page 91) for how to organize our divisions and brigades across the active and National Guard brigades could be considered (This version corrects some editing errors that resulted from stripping my charts out of the published article). My proposal provided the framework for a major force expansion while increasing rotational capabilities while retaining big war focus. Recall that during the Iraq War we expanded the number of active force brigade combat teams to provide more rotation capacity.
This Army reorganization is part of the multi-domain operations (MDO) concept being developed. This is an expansion of a trend that saw the Army embrace combined arms operations with the separate branches of the Army fighting as one; to Air-Land Battle that integrated the Air Force into Army operations; and now to MDO where every service is integrated to support every other service in a seamless cross-domain campaign.
I worry that instead of working for synergy with other services that the concept will downgrade the Army--at least in the Pacific--into an anti-ship auxiliary for the Navy.
Cyber certainly must be integrated into our ground forces. But I hope we don't get so hung up on operating in cyber-space that we forget that a precision high explosive round is the best cyber-weapon that works against cyber operators who exist in the physical world.
I hope these changes are never needed and that nobody gets tempted to challenge us in a big war. It has been a long time since we've had fight-to-the death big power war. Let's not forget that even winning such a war requires death and destruction and the physical and mental crippling of even the survivors on a scale that is hard to imagine.
Have a super sparkly day.
