Obama administration faces hard choices in managing ground troops

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments on Monday released three new reports aimed at informing the next administration as it makes difficult decisions in shaping a new military strategy.

The nonpartisan center's analysts laid out detailed accounts of the recruiting, equipping and organizational challenges confronting the ground services and recommended the Obama administration cut some weapons programs, reorganize special operations forces and reconsider plans to substantially increase the size of the Army.

The reports were the latest installments in the center's "Strategy for the Long Haul," a comprehensive look at how the services are poised to face the most likely strategic challenges in the coming years. The 15-volume collection of monographs seeks to inform the Pentagon's upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review, which will get under way in early 2009, as well as guide the Obama administration.

CSBA's analysts believe the primary strategic challenges the United States faces include defeating the Sunni Salifi-Takfiri and Shia Khomeinist brands of violent Islamist radicalism, hedging against the rise of a more openly confrontational or hostile China, and preparing for more nuclear-armed regional powers.

Special operations forces, which all the military services provide, are becoming increasingly important in responding to emerging threats. The value of those troops, which bring unique cultural and language skills as well as specialized expertise across a range of areas, is likely to grow, said CSBA senior fellow Robert Martinage.

Among other things, Martinage recommended that units be realigned along the same regional jurisdictions the CIA and the State Department follow, and that the services place a greater emphasis on developing troops with Chinese, Farsi and Pashtu language skills.

The United States doesn't have a very good track record of predicting where military intervention will be required, said Andrew Krepinevich, CSBA's president and a retired Army officer. "If we can't predict [future conflicts], that means we've got to adapt quickly to emerging threats," a risky proposition in the current strategic environment, he said.

While Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks often of an era of "persistent conflict," Krepinevich said he would further define it as an era of "persistent irregular conflict" with its emphasis on manpower-intensive operations. The Army, which aims to be able to handle the full spectrum of military conflicts from high-intensity conventional combat with massed forces to low-intensity irregular warfare of the nature it now confronts in Afghanistan, is in danger of becoming a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, he said.

Krepinevich recommended the Army refocus its forces to deal more effectively with irregular warfare and improve its ability to rapidly build partnerships with allied and indigenous forces to restore stability to threatened areas. "The Army must maintain a significant standing training and advisory capability that can be deployed on short notice when necessary," he said.

More than the other services, the Army's success depends on manpower more than on military equipment, Krepinevich said, which makes the widely reported decline in the quality of recruits especially troubling. Reducing the manpower requirements would allow the Army to focus on the quality of its troops over quantity, quality being essential for the kinds of irregular warfare and training and advisory missions the Army increasingly is taking on.

"There are risks in reducing the Army's projected force structure," Krepinevich said. But the "risks of continuing down a path that leads to declining officer and NCO quality, a lack of capacity to support the defense strategy's focus on building up the capabilities of allies and partners, and the flawed assumption that an Army heavily weighted toward conventional warfare can easily shift to conduct irregular operations" are even greater, he said.

The Obama administration also should reconsider the Army's flagship modernization program, Future Combat Systems. Fiscal, technical and operational risks together raise serious questions about the program. "So much of the success of Future Combat Systems depends on a network that has never been demonstrated," he said.

As for the Marine Corps, Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at CSBA and a retired Marine Corps officer, said the service has not addressed the specifics of how it and the Navy will meet the challenges of the emerging security environment. For example, while the 2006 Naval Operations Concept calls for more "distributed forces" to operate deeper on the battlefield, the Corps' acquisition programs do not reflect that change in operations.

"Words are fine, but what matters in the end is the [Marine Corps'] thoroughness in orienting and committing itself intellectually, institutionally and organizationally to solving real-world operational problems," Wood said. He specifically recommended canceling the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, which is slated to replace the 35-year-old family of amphibious assault vehicles now in the force. The EFV does not offer the kind of capability the Corps will likely need to move troops ashore in future conflicts, he said.

Wood also recommended that the service consider truncating the MV-22 Osprey aircraft program. The Osprey, which can fly like a plane or a helicopter, works very well for specific missions, but truncating the $20 billion, 20-year program would allow the service to use the remaining program funds to purchase a greater number of less expensive helicopters needed to replace its rapidly aging helicopter fleet.