Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

86 • Maneuver Forces: The Army and Marine Corps After IraqJack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, implored his employees to face realityand change each morning for each morning is different from the last. What wasimportant yesterday may no longer be important today. Welch was not afraid of goingback on something and giving new direction; Welch sees “willingness to change”and constantly looking at things anew as a leadership strength. 18 The same applies toforces engaged in mobile dispersed warfare.In mobile dispersed warfare, the word modular translates as stand-alone. Thecurrent regimental and brigade formations inside Army and Marine divisions cannotstand alone, which is why they continue to be dramatically reinforced for operationsin Iraq and remain acutely dependent on division, corps and Army echelons for directionand support. Thus, any new formation that replaces the brigade or division mustbe modular and, of necessity, integrate the command element, the desired capabilityand the support element into stand-alone force packages. Fortunately, disassemblingArmy and Marine divisions and reorganizing them into mission-focused force packagesthat can be assembled like Legos into larger joint operations forces is not difficultand it has been done before.During World War II, the Army’s armored divisions followed the German militaryexample and reorganized their fighting forces into two combat commands of roughly5,000 men each inside divisions. A brigadiergeneral commanded each. What kept thedivision command echelon in the fight wasthe inability of World War II communicationstechnology to routinely link highercommanders to their subordinate elementsover large distances. Today, this is no longeran obstacle to change. Further, new technologyconfers the ability on Army and Marineground forces to combine maneuver andstrike capabilities in ways that create moreoptions for commanders on the operationaland strategic levels, ways that pose morecomplex threats to new kinds of enemies.Mimicking the combat commands oflong ago means compressing regiments,brigades and divisions into a new fightingechelon of 5,000 to 6,000 man combatgroups or battle groups organized functionallyas maneuver, strike, IISR, or sustainmentformations. (Figure 2.) The resultingformations become specialized modules ofFigure 2.MANEUVER★5,500 TroopsRECON BNMANEUVERSTRIKE BNC4I BNSUPPORT BNMANEUVER