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Implications of a Garrison Bound US Army

Kirkhill

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If The Army Comes Home, Its Job Will Be Harder


(Source: Lexington Institute; issued March 21, 2013)


(© Lexington Institute; reproduced by permission)



1941 was the last time the Army really was at home. After World War II, most soldiers came home but only to be demobilized. The remainder of the Army was doing occupation duty and patrolling the borders of the Free World. In the post-Cold War era the Army shifted its posture from one based on forward deployment to one centered on expeditionary operations in support of a power projection strategy. But there were relatively large formations still based in Europe and Asia. Moreover, events overseas, particularly in Southwest Asia, kept the Army heavily deployed abroad for most of the last 20 years.

Now it appears likely that by the end of 2014 the Army will have come home. Not surprisingly this is a difficult situation for the Army's leadership to accept. When it was last truly at home, the Army’s end strength was 270,000. Equally important, there is not much excitement in a garrison Army or a lot of work for it to do. It simply waits. It must be very hard for an Army that has been at war for a decade, doing remarkable things and demonstrating incredible skills and heroism, to contemplate a future of relative inactivity. In addition, having come home, when the Army must again deploy overseas, it is likely to be in response to an imminent or even ongoing conflict of major proportions. This will require, in turn, large scale mobilization, possibly a return to the draft, the creation of new formations and lots of time.

The Army is doing everything it can to highlight its ability to address the challenges the U.S. is likely to face overseas and by so doing avoid being homebound. There are lots of discussions in Army leadership circles about “phase zero” operations, activities it can perform “left of the bang” and the creation of regionally aligned forces. These initiatives reflect the Army’s interest in, some might say infatuation with, what it calls the “human domain” in strategy and doctrine.

Briefly put, the Army’s argument is that the objective in war is influencing the behavior or affecting the will of a target government, population or group; destroying targets and seizing terrain are merely means to that end. It follows that if behavior or will can be changed prior without the need to engage in hostilities, perhaps even before a crisis develops, this is a very cost-effective use of military power. The Army asserts that a significant overseas presence and continuous global engagement offer opportunities to shape regional security environments, build trust, improve partnerships, enhance deterrence, influence behaviors and, ultimately, affect will.

Maybe. But it is difficult to demonstrate the causal link between phase zero activities and a reduced requirement to engage in conflict, what the Army calls “phase three” or “right of the bang.” This is particularly the case when the focus is on prevention of civil unrest, terrorism and insurgencies. Moreover, it is hard to differentiate these peacetime activities from the work of the Department of State. Also, much of the influence achieved through peacetime overseas presence and global engagement has to do with the recognition by those whom the Army seeks to influence that “over the horizon” there resides an Army (and a Joint Force) fully capable of destroying targets, seizing terrain and imposing limits on unacceptable behavior.

It is with respect to future capabilities to achieve decisive results in the event of conflict that a homebound Army is most challenged. Army experiments have demonstrated that it lacks the ability to rapidly project significant land power at extended distances. The Army at home rather than forward deployed will require additional time to stage into theater before conducting decisive operations, unless it alters force structure, lift and logistics capabilities so as to make itself much more deployable. An Army that needs to stage forward will require additional air and missile defenses. In either case, an Army at home will require significant new investments to make it capable of projecting decisive land power. The idea that an Army at home is cheaper than one forward deployed is in error.

The Army is just beginning to grapple with the implications of coming home for its organization, training and equipment. For example, how will the Army square its belief that it needs to be able to project power globally and rapidly and operate from austere bases with its desire to acquire the 60-70 ton Ground Combat Vehicle? What about the Army’s rejection of the mobile MEADS air defense system and its insistence on sticking with the heavy and more difficult to deploy Patriot system? More broadly, if the Army focuses on rapid strategic maneuver based on lighter forces and prepositioned equipment sets, how will it differentiate itself from the Marine Corps?

I can just see the bumper sticker: The U.S. Army – America’s other Marine Corps.

-ends-

LinkLink


This applies to the US Army specifically - but equally it applies to the Canadian and British Armies.

How do you keep troops motivated in garrison?
How do you recruit new troops to sit around in barracks in Manchester?
How do you ensure you have a viable force when you need it?
How do you get a viable force where you need it in a timely fashion?

The Brits' and the Yanks' problem is compounded by the existance of their specialist expeditionary forces - the Marines.  A problem compounded by Special Operations troops that deploy lightly and rapidly in small numbers.

Is the Regular Army merely a training ground for Special Forces?

No more Baden-Baden.  No more Larnaca.  No more Cawnpore.  No more Kabul.  No more Lakenheath. 

Instead:  Oromocto, Manchester, Glasgow, Tulsa, Butte.

If ever there were a case for a conspiracy theory this surely presents one:  I can think of no better way to emasculate the nascent entity occasionally described as the Anglosphere.
 
Oh ye of little faith!

The Canadian Army was garrison bound for decades yet managed to shake off its slumber in the 1990's to serve in the Balkans and in Afghanistn starting in 2002. The British Army had a fairly long hiatus between the Falkland Islands War and Iraq; the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland were largely a dirty and dangerous constabulary job.

The US Army we see today is largely an artifact of the Cold War; large standing armies are traditionally disbanded in the aftermath of a war in the United States; the Regular Army of the "Indian Wars" period is perhaps a better indicator of what the "American Army" should look like. There is a school of thought that the proper military force of a Republic should be based on a Navy and a Marine Corps which can hit the beaches and give the right people a bloody nose, with a warning to cease and desist lest the Marines come back and do it again.

Victor Davis Hanson also offers a different perspective on the forces a Democratic nation can raise and utilize. His thesis is democracies are capable of raising "Armies of a Season" that can smash evil in a swift campaign, only to disband and return to their civilian trades once the deed is done. This is explored in his book "The Soul of Battle", and a book reveiw is available in the CAJ here: http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_06/iss_2/CAJ_vol6.2_12_e.pdf

how true this is may be the subject of debate, but the historical evidence is that the Liberal Democracies do not "need" to have large standing armies to be effective, and of course the changing modalities of warfare suggest that the character of militaries need to change as well. Perhaps small SoF units backed by the Marines if heavy lifting is needed is the ideal model of the future. Certainly the "occupation" and reconstruction phase is difficult to carry out with forces of the size and TO&E as we currently employ, but this iss also a matter for debate.

Edit - Fixed your link.
 
In truth the US Army was largely garrison bound from post Vietnam to Gulf 1, albeit with large forces in Europe and to a lesser extent Korea. There was the Grenada mission in 1983, which revealed deficiencies in the army's expeditionary capability, and not much else until Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Here is a link to a fairly-balanced account of Grenada.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada

 
I'm of the school of thought that suggests that the US should have a much smaller Regular Army and rely more on a very robust Navy (and Marines) and USAF to carry out their defence tasks.
 
Old Sweat said:
There was the Grenada mission in 1983, which revealed deficiencies in the army's expeditionary capability, and not much else until Iraq invaded Kuwait.

There was also Panama / Operation Just Cause in 1989/90,  and Honduras / Operation Golden Pheasant in 1988.  Plus some smaller missions in the Middle East/Persian Gulf, Libya and Central America.
 
Historically in America, Britain and Canada large standing armies have been unpopular.

British (mainly English) kings were constrained, since the dark ages, by some sort of parliament (the witenagemot in Anglo-Saxon Britain) that restricted the monarch's right to levy the taxes necessary to support an army. England, by the time of Elizabeth, was a very rich country with a (relatively) poor monarch and a well established custom of doing without much of a standing army. Elizabeth - driven by a combination of ambition and parsimony - adopted a maritime strategy that served Britain well until the middle of the 20th century when economics, again, intervened.

But the British were also informed by their reading of history - especially Roman history, and the examples of their continental cousins. Small standing armies seemed, to the English, to be more consistent with individual and political liberty.

In the 1770s and '80s the American Founding Fathers were equally suspicious of a national standing army and for most of the same reasons.

It is fair to say that one of the reasons Canada was pressured into independence was Britain's reluctance to continue paying for our defence. When we became a country we tried, essentially, to do without a standing army. Even after we had one we took great pains to spend as little as we could on it. We still do.

The US experience of the past half century is sui generis; it is not an analog of Britain's colonial experiences of the 19th century. I'm not sure what history will make of America from, say 1960-2010, but I'm afraid it will not be kind to the Pentagon.
 
<off topic>
All very true, ERC - but I'd amend that Elizabeth's "maritime strategy" wasn't exactly parsimonious: I've seen numbers that suggest that the equivalent of about 10% of England's workforce was in the Royal Navy at its peak (though, to be fair, the majority of these were not actually English citizens). However, it would be fair to say that it was mostly self-financing by the funds raised through privateering.
</off topic>

Edit to add: ERC, you're quite right. The number was 1% vice 10%, and even that was later in the 17th C and the statistic still relies much on comparison to the "labour force" (i.e. males between a certain age range). Mea culpa. Still - not exactly cheap.
 
I would object to the standing army of the Cold War being sui generis; the United States considered itself to be at war with the USSR so required a large and robust military force to pressure the USSR in all directions and to be able to respond to provovations and countermoves by the Soviets. Historians in the future may well disagree if this was the correct strategy, or even if this was the best use of available resources, but this is how the Americans chose to use their resources as part of the "containment" strategy.

Perhaps the really interesting question is why, in spite of long standing precedent in American history, there wasn't a truly massive demobilization in the 1990's of the Regular Army?
 
hamiltongs said:
<off topic>
All very true, ERC - but I'd amend that Elizabeth's "maritime strategy" wasn't exactly parsimonious: I've seen numbers that suggest that the equivalent of about 10% of England's workforce was in the Royal Navy at its peak (though, to be fair, the majority of these were not actually English citizens). However, it would be fair to say that it was mostly self-financing by the funds raised through privateering.
</off topic>


:eek:ff topic:

The self-financing thing is very true. In fact Elizabeth and her Lord Treasurer and closest confident, Lord Burghley (William Cecil), addressed their personal financial problems* by "investing" in Drake's privateering enterprises.

England in the 16th century was still an agrarian society and the wool trade was the main source of the nation's wealth, so I, personally, find it hard to imagine that so large a share of the available male workforce could have been involved at sea - recognizing that England had large fishing and merchant fleets. I'm not at home right now (and will not be for another couple of weeks) but I believe I have some data on the number of ships in HM's commission and the number sailing under letters of marque and my sense is that both were (relatively) small and, given that English crews were also fairly small, the 10% figure seems high - by an order of magnitude.

_____
* And they both had plenty - living rather "hand to mouth" for many, many years: Elizabeth thanks to a strict parliament and Cecil thanks to his famous but spendthrift son-in-law the Earl of Oxford, the noted poet (who is often though to be the 'real' author of Shakespeare's plays); Cecil's colleague, and fellow investor, Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's Principal Secretary, was likewise short of funds thanks to his even more famous son-in-law, Sir Philip Sydney, the famous soldier and poet. The revenue from Drake's raiding was most welcome at Elizabeth's court.


Edit: typo
 
The world isn't what it was. I can't foresee the US Army staying in garrison for long. More people hate them more now than ever.

"Is the Regular Army merely a training ground for Special Forces?"
This would seem to be the shift as armies world wide are building large parts of their forces to support those kinds of units. As was the opposite just a short while back.


 
hamiltongs said:
<off topic>
All very true, ERC - but I'd amend that Elizabeth's "maritime strategy" wasn't exactly parsimonious: I've seen numbers that suggest that the equivalent of about 10% of England's workforce was in the Royal Navy at its peak (though, to be fair, the majority of these were not actually English citizens). However, it would be fair to say that it was mostly self-financing by the funds raised through privateering.
</off topic>

Edit to add: ERC, you're quite right. The number was 1% vice 10%, and even that was later in the 17th C and the statistic still relies much on comparison to the "labour force" (i.e. males between a certain age range). Mea culpa. Still - not exactly cheap.

:eek:ff topic:

Drifting further off topic. I did a bit of digging and found this:

Facts:

    1. Population of England and Wales in 1588: about 4,000,000
    2. English ships engaging the Armada: 197
    3. Royal Navy warships in commission: about 50 (35 were engaged against the Armada)

Extrapolations:

    1. Male population: 2,000,000
    2. Males "fit sea" (aged 13-50) = 60% = 1,200,000
    3. English ships = warships * 20 = 4,000, includes fishing boats and coastal traders
    4. Average ship's crew = 30 (that's probably high, but it works out neatly)
    5. Total men at sea - all ships, not just Royal Navy: 120,000 which equal to about 10% of all the available men
        BUT the Navy's share was tiny, maybe (high end quesstimate) 50 ships at 240+/- men each = 12,000 which is 1% of the available workforce

 
UnwiseCritic said:
The world isn't what it was. I can't foresee the US Army staying in garrison for long. More people hate them more now than ever.

"Is the Regular Army merely a training ground for Special Forces?"
This would seem to be the shift as armies world wide are building large parts of their forces to support those kinds of units. As was the opposite just a short while back.

We also have more ways than ever to deal with such people, from unfortunate "accidents" to computer malware, and the ever popular angel of death descending from the sky via a drone launched missile. Very few of these require large standing armies to execute.

Large armies are useful for occupation duties (hence are the hallmark of Imperial regimes in order to ensure taxes get paid to the Imperial metropole), and of course having a large pool of potential recruits for SF and SoF training is also useful, although not particularly efficient.

One of the interesting factoids about disbanding large standing armies after a war is you also tend to get rid of all that legacy equipment as well, so the next time you need to stand up a mighty army (navy, airforce) you also equip them with whatever the current generation of easily available mass producible equipment is. True, this often isn't up to the same standard as what the other guy comes to the fight with (Shermans vs Panthers, for example), but OTOH, the Germans ran out of Panthers (and Tigers, and other types of tanks, fuel and spare parts) long before the allies ran out of Shermans...During the Cold War, it is quite possible that the American response to waves of Russian tanks would not have been to try to crank out masses of M-60's, but rather to start producing jeeps and TOW launcher sets and missiles as fast as possible for the ground troops, while waves of US fighters and bombers swarmed overhead and bombed the crap out of whatever was still moving and the USN went all out to keep the seal lanes open for delivery of supplies to England and the Channel ports from Cherbourg to Rotterdam. That is a story for the alternative history thread.

 
Continuing on the tangent for the moment:

I think you would be hard pressed to determine where the loyalties of John Hawkins, Francis Drake and Henry Hudson ended and those of Cartier, Champlain and Abraham Martin began.  Elizabethan Sea Dogs or Orange financed Sea Beggars from La Rochelle.  Anglo-Moroccan and Sea-Beggar Turk alliances.  De Danskeren sailing for the Moors.  Moors slaving in Cornwall and selling in Tunis.  The Reis brothers sailing for the Turks as Admirals.  It would not surprise me in the slightest to discover Cypriots sailing for the Victualling Brothers out of Visby in the Baltic.

Rumour has it that one of the reasons Henry VIII's Mary Rose sank was that too few of the crew spoke English to be able to react fast enough to events.

I am strongly of the opinion that Britain succeeded as a nest of pirates, or a nation of shop keepers, because it put the Channel between it and the men on horseback who have controlled European politics for a couple of millenia.

In that view Britain begins in the marshes of Europe - places like La Rochelle and Ile d'Oleron of Eleanor or Aquitaine and the Templars, Brouage of Champlain - Brugges, Antwerp and Ghent with the original northern bourses - Friesland, Holland and Denmark -  the Basque Gironde of Jeanne d'Albret.

I don't think Britain is British so much as it is a construct of Huguenot Pirates.  And that is the true origin of the Royal Navy.  The state gained by coming to an accomodation with a group of individuals that expanded the island economy beyond the level of GDP that an agrarian, island bound economy could support.

The Sea Dogs may have had a personal loyalty to Elizabeth but they were no more loyal to the state than Etienne Brule, Radisson and Grosseillers or the Kirke Brothers were loyal to the French state.  (The Kirkes had as many ties to Dieppe and La Rochelle as they did to London at the time they evicted Champlain from Quebec in retaliation for Richelieu closing them out of La Rochelle).

To take this back on to the track:

Those adventurers gave outlets to young sparks from all over Europe who found "freedom" under the Union Jack.    The state ultimately became more and more powerful and heavy handed and brought the control of the men on horseback to the seas and ultimately to their foreign ports.

Youngsters in the Anglosphere have had opportunities to go awandering in service of the state for a couple of centuries now.  In the absence of that outlet where do they go now? 

Or putting it another way - what do you do when there are no more frontiers?  No more wilds?

My belief is that the effect is similar to shaking a bottle of champagne - eventually something has to give.  Is the release controlled?

 
Thucydides said:
of course having a large pool of potential recruits for SF and SoF training is also useful, although not particularly efficient.

Not particularly efficient and not strictly required. Once the war on terror started in earnest, the US Army was quick to bring in the 18X program to fast track recruits into Special Forces, and there has long been a recruit option for the Ranger Regiment (the Option 40 contract). The USN has a similar program to stream recruits into the SEALS.

On the face of it, some of the attitude of "you have to do a few years in another trade before you can apply to us", which pops up occasionally in Canada and other armies, may not be supported by the evidence. If a guy has what it takes, shouldn't he be doing it earlier? And similarly, if a guy doesn't have the right stuff, does a few years in an infantry battalion, or turning wrenches on helicopters, make him much better?

But back to the point -- the size of your SOF and the size of your conventional forces do not need to be linked. Build the structure that you need for your mission, select the right people, and train them.
 
SOF training is very expensive with a high failure rate.  Thus, using other military service as a proxy and filter saves SOF money, and likely overall military money.

 
Ostrozac said:
Not particularly efficient and not strictly required. Once the war on terror started in earnest, the US Army was quick to bring in the 18X program to fast track recruits into Special Forces, and there has long been a recruit option for the Ranger Regiment (the Option 40 contract). The USN has a similar program to stream recruits into the SEALS.

On the face of it, some of the attitude of "you have to do a few years in another trade before you can apply to us", which pops up occasionally in Canada and other armies, may not be supported by the evidence. If a guy has what it takes, shouldn't he be doing it earlier? And similarly, if a guy doesn't have the right stuff, does a few years in an infantry battalion, or turning wrenches on helicopters, make him much better?

But back to the point -- the size of your SOF and the size of your conventional forces do not need to be linked. Build the structure that you need for your mission, select the right people, and train them.

I'm going to slip my helmet on for a second,

In the case of the 75th RR its preferred to be brought up in Batt instead of coming from big army in their point of view, a lot of the guys coming from big army have a higher RFS number than those coming in right from the Opt-40 don't ask me how that makes sense, just how its been. A majority of personnel in the regiment are organic to the regiment the exception being some senior NCOs, specialist MOSs and the upper echelon of officers.

That being said the 75th is strictly a Direct Action, Special Reconnaissance and SSE unit whilst the job is demanding it takes what some have termed a dedicated yet simpler mindset than what a unit like the Special Forces Group  (Green Berets) would need. Whom not only can do DA, SR and SSE, but are responsible for FID, UW and CT. That broader skill set takes a different mindset and from the numbers applicants from big army tend to do better there opposed to the 18-X applicants, granted guys coming from 75th tend to have a hard time switching from the Ranger Standard to the Unconventional mindset.

Thus an argument could be made that an Air Assault Light Infantry Regiment (or Battalion in the CF's case) would be better to have volunteers apply right to said unit first completing basic, airborne then moving to the selection process and further training for said unit. Whilst a SF Battalion (not JTF-2) could exist that draws from the whole forces and members of the Air Assault Battalion for retention of skilled personnel.

Helmet off.
 
IRepoCans said:
That being said the 75th is strictly a Direct Action, Special Reconnaissance and SSE unit whilst the job is demanding it takes what some have termed a dedicated yet simpler mindset than what a unit like the Special Forces Group  (Green Berets) would need. Whom not only can do DA, SR and SSE, but are responsible for FID, UW and CT. That broader skill set takes a different mindset and from the numbers applicants from big army tend to do better there opposed to the 18-X applicants, granted guys coming from 75th tend to have a hard time switching from the Ranger Standard to the Unconventional mindset.

Given the current fiscal realities on the US Forces I would not be surprised if the SFGs lost their formal DA elements and started to focus on FID/UW.  Likewise the various SEAL Teams could go back to being SEALs.

The AUS have a program similar to the 18X program - back in '06 they had a total of one guy who made it through the pipeline and into a Cdo Regt....but it did prove a bonus to the RAR.  Canadiates who were unsuccessful during their Cdo trg had already signed up for the Army so were transferred to the Infantry.
 
little jim said:
Given the current fiscal realities on the US Forces I would not be surprised if the SFGs lost their formal DA elements and started to focus on FID/UW.  Likewise the various SEAL Teams could go back to being SEALs.

Funny thing is that more SFG CIF (Counter Insurgence Force) Companies are being stood up, maybe that will change with the mounting budget cuts, SFG is a big group in USASOC and could see a lot of the Special Operations cuts coming their way.
 
Currently the US military is shifting back to a Pacific posture. The threat is the PRC and North Korea. The US has a treaty obligation to the ROK and Japan. The PRC is laying claim to any rock they can find in the Pacific.The Pacific is a USAF/USN show.If the shooting starts in Korea then the Army will go to work. If it werent for the Guard and Reserve we could not have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.The drawdown in Germany helps.CONUS based forces will stage and deploy to any hotspot.Its like Back to the Future.
 
tomahawk6 said:
Currently the US military is shifting back to a Pacific posture. The threat is the PRC and North Korea. The US has a treaty obligation to the ROK and Japan. The PRC is laying claim to any rock they can find in the Pacific.The Pacific is a USAF/USN show.If the shooting starts in Korea then the Army will go to work. If it werent for the Guard and Reserve we could not have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.The drawdown in Germany helps.CONUS based forces will stage and deploy to any hotspot.Its like Back to the Future.

Like Shampoo: wash, rinse, repeat......
 
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