by Col. Patrick Lang (Ret.)
Former Chief of Middle-East Intelligence, DIA
There are some really serious things going on in the United States Army. The Army is a unique institution. It is part federal and part state. It has always been an institution close to the people. It is the oldest of the Armed Forces.
It is now experiencing a transformative period so profound that it will result in a very different Army from the one that was re-built after the end of the searing experience of the Vietnam War and the hostility which the Army as an institution received from much of the American people.
The post VN War Army was re-built as an army of volunteers, of family people, essentially middle class and oriented toward middle American "family values." Standards were made high for enlisted soldiers, and the force that emerged was filled with people who represent "mom and pop" America. The combat arms came to be more filed with Caucasians from small cities and rural areas. Anyone who looks at the pictures of the fallen in the news knows that to be true. Smoking and drinking were strongly discouraged. Drug use was virtually stamped out. Sexual mores reminiscent of the Victorian Age were enforced to the point of absurdity.
That Was Then:
CONTINUED BELOW:
That Was Then:
Now, in the age of Rumsfeld, we have a very different thing emerging. I have pieced together my understanding of what is happening and would like to offer my observations. These are informed by my 27 years in the Army and my the education as represented by diplomas from the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. I welcome informed comment.
Firstly, the Army is being made into a light force in which its primary combat units will be lightly armed Brigade Combat Teams (BCT) of about 3000 infantry soldiers rather than the 15000 to 17000 soldier Divisions which now exist (DIV). These divisions contain a great many more troops divided into a number of functions.
A typical division today contains: three ground maneuver brigades (tanks and infantry) , one artillery brigade, one aviation brigade and a large number of supply, maintenance, signal and othr support units. This is a potent force whgich can sustain itself in the field logistically for a long time and which has a lot of buit-in firepower to defeat enemies who have something other than IEDs, car bombs and rifles with which to fight.
In Rumsfeld’s Army the force will be made up of many small BCT in which there will be little in the way of organic (built in) artillery and tanks.
Artillery is the big killer on the battlefield. Artillery (with guns of caliber above 100mm) can fire day and night with great dependability and accuracy at targets so distant they can not see from the guns, and unlike aircraft are available all the time. In Rumsfeld’s Army there will be much less artillery.
Tanks. Rumsfeld evidently does not like tanks. He thinks they are too heavy, too expensive and an example of the kind of "old thinking" that he is trying to get rid of. He thinks this in spite of the fact that the Abrams tank was an indispensible element in the ligthning advance to Baghdad and the additional fact that our troops in Iraq would be severely endangered in the absence of tanks. In Rumsfeld’s "New Model" army the armored vehicle of choice will be the "Stryker" wheeled armored vehicle. This is essentially an "armored car." Any Tanker wil tell you that a "Stryker" is a poor substitute for an Abrams Tank.
Army Aviation. Rumsfeld thinks there is too much of this as well. It is too expensive, too maintenance dependent, and requires too much cubic space in aircraft to be as deployable as he would want.
Bottom Line: Rumsfeld brought Peter Schoomaker back from retirement to implement this concept. Schoomaker is a Special Operations Forces officer whose greatest achievement during his career was to command the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). This is America’s SWAT Team. Light troops, lightly armed with no tanks or artillery. They are used in air deployments overseas in small groups for short periods of time against lightly armed terrorist forces.
Get the connection? The right man in the right job.
At the same time, Rumsfeld is re-making the leadership of the Army in the same way by personally vetting all senior officer promotions and assignments. He interviews them himself. This is unheard of. Well, you can be sure that there will be no more men like General Shinseki to trouble him.
What’s the problem with this? Is this not the age of superior technology and intelligence in which the civilian academic’s theories and dreams of small forces, acting on perfect intelligence, in "surgical" attacks dependent on perfect technology has come at last?
No. We could be defeated in some future struggle.
Enemies embarrassingly do not do what you want them to do and often show up for the party in awkward numbers.
As a rule, technology usually fails at the most difficult moment possible and the more advanced it is, the more likely it is to fail.
Intelligence analysis is never perfect. It alwus done perforce on the basis of incomplete information and there for is always at least a little wrong. This usuually leaves the "grunts" holding the bag for its flawed predictions.
We will be OK so long as we don’t fight any enemies who are; numerous, continue fighting for long periods, or have tanks or artillery.
Let’s think twice before we take on someone like Iran, China or North Korea.
There is another whole side of this story in the effect that Rumsfeld’s plans for re-positioning the new force will have on the people of the Army. Tomorrow, maybe.
Pat Lang
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio
OMG Better get the Chaplin corps ready and in a hurry! What is he doing to the other branches?
Very informative, thanks! I look forward to tomorrow’s (maybe)!
😉
The only part I would question is “we could be defeated in some future struggle”
Future? What about right now? Aren’t we being defeated? What are your thoughts?
I should just keep my mouth shut due to job security but I would rather eat fertilizer. Our soldiers are becoming thuggish too. No longer is someone a specialist in something training long hours side by side and fighting about everything that the Geneva Convention means if and when the day would arise that you would all need to know and act on all that. You are just a grunt with a gun and night vision, Rummy’s thug! Rules of engagement? What are those and who cares?
Good letting in of the light for civilians. Thank you for sharing your experience! As a military spouse in the middle of this Iraq shit I have found that most of our civilians know very little about what is happening within their military, and they really need to know. It is their military and they do pay for it!
The repositioning thing? Please write it up for us all as soon as you find the energy, mindfulness, and time…..people won’t know if you don’t tell them. The military is its own little world and if you don’t tell them what’s up they just don’t know.
This is the part that sends me ’round the bend. He is manufacturing consent within the Pentagon — surrounding himself with yes-men. This is the formula for Bushco, across the board. Don’t let dissent or facts cloud your unerring vision. If Tony Zinni says he thinks invading Iraq is not workable, and could be a “Bay of Goats,” brand one of the most respected Marines Generals in history as an anti-Semite and send him packing. If career officers, who have actually fought in wars, disagree with the military strategy of handpicked chickenhawks like Newt Gingrich, destroy them, ruin their careers if you have to. I never get over the insanity of this. Oh, so mad.
And that’s the punch-line isn’t it.
We will be OK so long as we don’t fight any enemies who are; numerous, continue fighting for long periods, or have tanks or artillery.
I think Rumsfeld knows this. It looks like he expects the threat of nuclear attack to discourage attacks from credible opponents, and just use the Army to deal with “minor” conflicts.
The problem with an all-or-nothing reliance on nuclear weapons in major conflicts is, well, if a major state challenges you, you have only two choices: nuke them — and most likely be nuked in return — or back down. This is an appalling position to take, especially from a member of an administration that likes to frighten its loyal followers with the spectre of nuclear terrorism. The so-called briefcase nukes that are the favorite bogeyman of the counter-terrorism cult are nothing compared to strategic nuclear weapons in the hands of a nation-state.
The other problem with dependence on nuclear deterrence is that it presumes all of your major foes are sane, to which idea I have a two-word answer: North Korea.
And, oh yes, there’s the third big problem with nuclear weapons: every above-ground detonation has a measurable and signficant effect on the global cancer rate, punches a big hole in the ozone layer, and kills huge numbers of people indiscriminately, among many other nasty long-term effects. They are the sort of weapons you don’t want to use until you’ve exhausted every possible alternative, so the more alternatives you have, the better.
“Drug use was virtually stamped out.”
Scratches head…
Um… when did this take place???
Only thing discouraged was getting caught.
They’ll need a new Army because when more adn more speak up about how this Administration used and abused and then ignored our troops, they won’t be able to get anyone to enlist.
Maybe we ought to look into rummy’s background to see what kind of drugs he was/is on. I am beginning to think they are all simply crazy. I wonder what kind of drinks he has before going to bed of the night to quinch his needs. What nutty shit they are producing and then I think of O’Dells comments and it all stands to reason. They can not see the nose in front of their face for the smog of their own breath.
I think our “Dear Leader” is totally smacked out on something. During the Election Debates he had more mood swings than I do in a years worth of menstrual cycles…
I can’t believe that while our troops are abroad these douchebags are on VACATION. Instead of burning the midnight oil, they ahve summer reading lists… and right now, during Katrina and a major disaster, war, gas going up…
Where is our leader?
The fucker is out golfing in Arizona.
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Just may be falthering=falling apart IMO!
This link is interesting, I never could appreciate his overzealous use of monograms for boots, shirts, carpets and Air Force tenue. Doesn’t add up to normalcy.
Ken doll – likes to get dressed up!
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Sounds like Rummy believe the Air Force can win all the wars in the future.
Interesting. Breeding even more Stepford Generals.
The fast and light Army is well on its way to losing the war in Iraq. David Brooks and the right have finally seen the light and have come up with the oil spot strategy for victory. Securing a few Sunni towns and then spreading throughout the country. Except taking over Sunni Arab towns tends to destroy them, traveling safely through the town takes an Abrams tank, and ruined towns require a hell of a lot of soldiers to secure and keep.
Twenty years ago I heard a speech by General Westmoreland on the 20th anniversary of introduction US Army combat units in Vietnam. His proudest achievement was establishing fire bases throughout South Vietnam so every US unit could immediately call in fire support. Except the Vietnamese and now the Sunni Arabs learned to inflict casualties on the occupiers while rendering artillery ineffective.
Artillery fire support may not be needed in Iraq but Air Force cannot provide 24 hour 7 day a week support in a high intensity conflict like the invasion of Iran.
If you factor in thousands of mercenaries, following their own rules of engagement, and the privatization of many support functions such as food and laundry, isn’t Rummy’s style of warfare just cumbersome, expensive and chaotic? What about the failure to plan for postwar Iraq? It sounds like our men and women in uniform were set up for failure in Iraq before they ever left this country. More than that, it sounds like Rummy is crazier than a loon, and he’s in charge.
FWIW, I pretty strongly disagree with the OP.
The problem the U.S. Army has faced is that it has had nothing between very lightly armed paratroopers (aka speedbumps) and very heavy and slow to deploy armored units. The heavy units were designed to fight wars across clear front lines in Korea and the plains of Europe. They are slow to deploy, require immense supply lines, and weigh 70 tons each — to large to move air in any significant number, to heavy to cross European rail bridges, to destructive by sheer weight to allow on civilian roads of our allies. Our troops deliberately left the tanks behind in Kosovo, because they couldn’t be deployed quickly enough and their famous long range and frontal armor weren’t of much use in mountainous terrain.
The U.S. has, until very recently, steadfastly refused to develop any forces to deal with counter-insurgency, territory holding, peace keeping type missions, despite the fact that this has been the dominant mission of the U.S. military (and the military forces of most of our allies) since the end of the Korean War.
3. Military strategy has also reduced the need for tanks, anti-aircraft guns and artillery. It hasn’t eliminated them, but it has changed their roles. We have better ways to destroy enemy tanks than with our own tanks. Helicopters, A-10 fixed wing aircraft and Bradley fighting vehicles each killed more enemy tanks in Iraq than tanks did. Tanks have proven useful in Iraq, but ironically, more for taking on infantry than for attacking enemy tanks. Anti-aircraft guns have become specialized to address rocket attacks, as the U.S. almost never chooses to deploy ground troops before securing air superiority. Artillery has its place, but many missions previously handled by artillery have been replaced by armored drones and planes dropping smart bombs, because the later are more accurate and easier to get to the desired position.
Also, the plan is not to eliminate tanks from the force, it is to have numbers that reflect the reality that a Soviet invasion is not the dominant feature of our strategy any longer.
4. Contrary to Col. Lang’s suggestion, the Stryker has proven well suited to the conflict in Iraq, and our future conflicts are likely to look more like Iraq and less like a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
I don’t want to give the impression that Rumsfield is doing a good job. He has done a very poor job of handling the immediate and pressing problem of our current war. But, Rumsfield is closer to Lang on where the military should be headed in the long term.