Defense
What is the strategic purpose for which a transformed Ameri-
can Army should be built? General Washington’s Continental Army
was a force-in-being—as long as it existed so did the new United
States. General Winfield Scott’s Army was an expeditionary force
hastily built solely for the capture of Mexico City. General Grant’s
mass mobilization Army was formed by attrition warfare and
intended for one purpose: the destruction of the Confederacy. Gen-
eral Marshall’s Industrial Age Army was focused on the defeat of
Japan and Germany and very little else.
President Bush provided a clear strategic purpose for the Army
in his address to the graduating class of 2002 at West Point: defend-
ing the United States at home with an economic mix of civil and mil-
itary capabilities while the strength of the active land, sea and air
forces is employed to attack and destroy the enemy on his own
ground. This strategy dictates the requirement for land forces that
not only deploy rapidly but are strong enough to perform armed
reconnaissance to drive enemy elements into killing zones for
destruction by strike assets. Any new force design for the Army must
be based on the strategic assumption that Army combat units will be
organized for global, joint, expeditionary warfare, with the air and
naval services conducting both operational and tactical maneuver
and strike.
Lessons from Recent Combat
Before turning to the subject of a new force design, it is useful
to reflect on recent combat operations on the ground in Afghanistan
and Iraq. What lessons do they hold for future Army force design?
First, the new character of post-Cold War target sets—with
dwell times ranging from 30 seconds to 2 minutes—demands the
effective integration of maneuver and strike forces within a joint
operational framework through networked sensors and communica-
tions systems designed to enable Army forces to quickly exploit what
they learn.
Second, plentiful networked information cannot replace killing
power and inherent survivability, especially in close combat. Perfect
situational awareness is a dangerous illusion. Soldiers, sailors,
marines, and airmen will never know all that happens inside their
Overview
War transforms armies. Combat accelerates transformation by
moving it out of the realm of academic debate and endless spec-
ulation about the future to a pragmatic approach focused on
fielding new capabilities within new combat formations as soon
as possible. In war, transformation means conserving equipment
and operational methods that are still relevant while incorporat-
ing new technologies, tactics, and organizations that enable vic-
tory. It is nearly impossible to replicate in peacetime training the
true conditions of land warfare—ambiguity, uncertainty, and
above all terror, killing, and exhaustion. For the Army, the best
opportunity to transform involves parallel evolution, a method
that moves new technologies into combat formations today and
explores what the troops will actually do with them in action.
With a conflict in progress, this approach is better than trying to
predict future uses in an inflexible operational requirements doc-
ument developed in isolation from the field environment.
Joint, expeditionary warfare demands agile land, sea, and
air forces linked by more than simply networked sensors and com-
munication. Brain-to-brain connectivity animated by a cultural
predisposition to deploy and fight anywhere on short notice akin
to the special operations mindset is equally vital to transforma-
tion. Additionally, routine joint training and operations within a
joint rotational readiness system are essential to readiness for
joint expeditionary warfare. In the new come-as-you-are strategic
environment, Army mission-focused force packages must bring
the Joint Force Commander the capabilities he needs, whether
they be theater missile defense or survivable, mobile, armored
fighting vehicles that deliver accurate, devastating firepower.
XVIII Airborne Corps seems ideally positioned to spearhead
Army transformation. Scaling, equipping, and organizing existing
XVIII Airborne Corps forces for integration as specialized mod-
ules of combat power into plug-and-play joint command and con-
trol structures, such as the notional Standing Joint Force Head-
quarters, gives the Army an unprecedented opportunity to pursue
new directions in adaptive force design.
XVIII Airborne Corps: Spearhead
of Military Transformation
by Douglas A. Macgregor
A publication of the
Center for Technology and National Security Policy
National Defense University
JANUARY 2004
Number 37
Horizons
January 2004 Defense Horizons 1
