KB
01-06-2005, 10:36 PM
The Force Structure Problem
By George Friedman
A memo written by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, head of the U.S. Army Reserve, was leaked to The Baltimore Sun. Addressed to the chief of staff of the Army, the memo stated that the Army Reserve was in danger of becoming a "broken force," due to personnel policies adopted by the Army and the Department of Defense. Helmly wrote, "The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability . . . to meet mission requirements associated with Iraq and Afghanistan and to reset and regenerate its forces for follow-on and future missions."
When a three-star general writes a memo containing these words to the chief of staff, and then leaks the memo to the press (it did not arrive at the Sun through telepathy), what you have is a major revolt by senior Army commanders. Helmly may have been more incautious than others, but he is far from alone in his view that the force in general is broken. More directly, if the Army Reserve is unable to carry out its mission, the same can likely be said for National Guard units. This means that the Army in general, which is heavily dependent on both to carry out its mission, won't be able to do so. What the generals are saying is that the Army itself is unable to carry out its mission.
Part of this is a discussion of several procedures governing call-ups and other issues that have not changed since the Sept. 11 attacks. Some of it has to do with the extreme stress that reserve components are experiencing. All of it has to do with a revolt against Donald Rumsfeld and his policies toward the Army, policies that go back to Rumsfeld's view of warfare.
Rumsfeld believes that there is a revolution in warfare under way. As the author of The Future of War, I completely agree with him. However, as I stated in that book, the revolution is just getting under way and will not be mature for generations. It is not ready to carry the warfighting burden of the United States, although it can certainly support it. Until that revolution matures, traditional forces, particularly the Army, will need to be maintained and, in time of war, expanded.
Rumsfeld's view is that the revolution is more mature than that and that warfare can now be carried out with minimal Army forces. In some ways, Rumsfeld was right when he focused on the conventional invasion of Iraq. A relatively small force was able to defeat the main Iraqi force. Where he made his mistake, in my opinion, was in not recognizing that the occupation of Iraq required substantial manpower and that much of that manpower was in the reserves.
He compounded that mistake enormously when he failed to recognize that an organized insurgency was under way in Iraq. Counterinsurgency operations is one area in which the revolution in warfare has made little progress, and Rumsfeld should have hit the panic button on Army force structure when the insurgency picked up steam. In Iraq, Rumsfeld was going to fight a guerrilla war, and he was going to need a lot of infantry and armor to do it. If, in addition to fighting the guerrilla war, Rumsfeld planned to carry out other operations in the region and maintain a strategic reserve, he needed to expand the Army dramatically.
Rumsfeld made three mistakes. First, he overestimated the breadth and depth of the revolution in warfare. Second, he underestimated the challenges posed by counterinsurgency operations, particularly in urban areas. Mistakes are inevitable, but his third mistake was amazing: he could not recognize that he had made the first two mistakes. That meant that he never corrected any of the mistakes.
There is another way to look at this. The United States is in a global war. Personnel policies have not been radically restructured to take into account either that the U.S. needs a wartime force structure or that that force structure must be congruent with the type and tempo of operations that will be undertaken. Not only doesn't the force stretch, but the force is not built to stretch. Hence, Helmly's memo.
Essentially, this memo is an open challenge by Army generals to Rumsfeld, with the chief of staff caught in the middle. The situation is now officially out of hand. If the commander of the Army Reserve says that his command is not capable of carrying out its mission, and says it publicly, there is no way to cover that up. He is either going to be relieved of his command, or he is going to be given the tools to fix the problem. If he is going to be given those tools, then Rumsfeld's view is being repudiated and Rumsfeld has to go.
There is something more than politics at work here. It's called reality. Helmly is right. It seems to me that the handwriting is on the wall. Once the elections in Iraq are completed, dramatic changes will take place. Bush will call for an expansion of the Army and the reserves. In Iraq, U.S. forces will be shifted out of security responsibilities, where they are not effective anyway. And, incidentally, Rumsfeld will retire. Or, Rumsfeld will purge the senior ranks of the Army. Since that is not a viable option, we expect Bush will be forced to act on their recommendations.
www.stratfor.com
By George Friedman
A memo written by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, head of the U.S. Army Reserve, was leaked to The Baltimore Sun. Addressed to the chief of staff of the Army, the memo stated that the Army Reserve was in danger of becoming a "broken force," due to personnel policies adopted by the Army and the Department of Defense. Helmly wrote, "The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability . . . to meet mission requirements associated with Iraq and Afghanistan and to reset and regenerate its forces for follow-on and future missions."
When a three-star general writes a memo containing these words to the chief of staff, and then leaks the memo to the press (it did not arrive at the Sun through telepathy), what you have is a major revolt by senior Army commanders. Helmly may have been more incautious than others, but he is far from alone in his view that the force in general is broken. More directly, if the Army Reserve is unable to carry out its mission, the same can likely be said for National Guard units. This means that the Army in general, which is heavily dependent on both to carry out its mission, won't be able to do so. What the generals are saying is that the Army itself is unable to carry out its mission.
Part of this is a discussion of several procedures governing call-ups and other issues that have not changed since the Sept. 11 attacks. Some of it has to do with the extreme stress that reserve components are experiencing. All of it has to do with a revolt against Donald Rumsfeld and his policies toward the Army, policies that go back to Rumsfeld's view of warfare.
Rumsfeld believes that there is a revolution in warfare under way. As the author of The Future of War, I completely agree with him. However, as I stated in that book, the revolution is just getting under way and will not be mature for generations. It is not ready to carry the warfighting burden of the United States, although it can certainly support it. Until that revolution matures, traditional forces, particularly the Army, will need to be maintained and, in time of war, expanded.
Rumsfeld's view is that the revolution is more mature than that and that warfare can now be carried out with minimal Army forces. In some ways, Rumsfeld was right when he focused on the conventional invasion of Iraq. A relatively small force was able to defeat the main Iraqi force. Where he made his mistake, in my opinion, was in not recognizing that the occupation of Iraq required substantial manpower and that much of that manpower was in the reserves.
He compounded that mistake enormously when he failed to recognize that an organized insurgency was under way in Iraq. Counterinsurgency operations is one area in which the revolution in warfare has made little progress, and Rumsfeld should have hit the panic button on Army force structure when the insurgency picked up steam. In Iraq, Rumsfeld was going to fight a guerrilla war, and he was going to need a lot of infantry and armor to do it. If, in addition to fighting the guerrilla war, Rumsfeld planned to carry out other operations in the region and maintain a strategic reserve, he needed to expand the Army dramatically.
Rumsfeld made three mistakes. First, he overestimated the breadth and depth of the revolution in warfare. Second, he underestimated the challenges posed by counterinsurgency operations, particularly in urban areas. Mistakes are inevitable, but his third mistake was amazing: he could not recognize that he had made the first two mistakes. That meant that he never corrected any of the mistakes.
There is another way to look at this. The United States is in a global war. Personnel policies have not been radically restructured to take into account either that the U.S. needs a wartime force structure or that that force structure must be congruent with the type and tempo of operations that will be undertaken. Not only doesn't the force stretch, but the force is not built to stretch. Hence, Helmly's memo.
Essentially, this memo is an open challenge by Army generals to Rumsfeld, with the chief of staff caught in the middle. The situation is now officially out of hand. If the commander of the Army Reserve says that his command is not capable of carrying out its mission, and says it publicly, there is no way to cover that up. He is either going to be relieved of his command, or he is going to be given the tools to fix the problem. If he is going to be given those tools, then Rumsfeld's view is being repudiated and Rumsfeld has to go.
There is something more than politics at work here. It's called reality. Helmly is right. It seems to me that the handwriting is on the wall. Once the elections in Iraq are completed, dramatic changes will take place. Bush will call for an expansion of the Army and the reserves. In Iraq, U.S. forces will be shifted out of security responsibilities, where they are not effective anyway. And, incidentally, Rumsfeld will retire. Or, Rumsfeld will purge the senior ranks of the Army. Since that is not a viable option, we expect Bush will be forced to act on their recommendations.
www.stratfor.com