FUTURE ARMY

THE FUTURE OF THE ARMY
killed and wounded) during the ensuing three-month
battle. 125 The Army’s losses in Iraq and Afghanistan
also stand in stark contrast to the Army’s bloody
experience in Korea and Vietnam.
The Army’s remarkable recent success in preserving
its troops has a downside, however. Its personnel
have not been psychologically hardened by personal
experience for the grim task of fighting through heavy
losses to battlefield victory. No one would wish that
the Army had taken more casualties to counterbalance
this problem, of course. But it does mean that current
Army leaders have little if any experience with the
extreme battlefield stresses caused by overrun units
and heavy casualties. These stresses were common
during past US conflicts and could likely be so again
during a future big war. Army combat units must
include enough manpower to be able to continue to
function after sustaining serious battlefield losses.
The Army should also ensure that current units gain
experience contending with high levels of simulated
losses during their rotations at the combat training
centers, emphasizing the requirement to fight on in
the face of serious setbacks and casualties. It should
also ensure its leaders at all levels learn techniques
of personal resilience and tough-minded leadership to
prepare them to continue the mission effectively when
losses mount precipitately.
Plan for Unit Regeneration
The Cold War Army planned for the reconstitution of
units after mass casualties of people and equipment—
where hundreds or thousands of soldiers were
wounded or killed in a single combat action. 126 World
War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam all produced
battles where entire battalions and even regiments
were rendered combat ineffective due to heavy
casualties. 127 Recent American wars have thankfully not
produced mass casualties, and not even a platoon-size
125 D-Day Museum and Overlord Embroidery, “D-Day and the
Battle of Normandy: Your Questions Answered,” http://www.
ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandyyour-questions-answered#casualties.
126 For example, see Headquarters, Department of the Army, FM
100-9: Reconstitution, Washington, D.C., January 13, 1993; Mark
A. Armstrong, MAJ, USA, “Reconstitution: Implications for
a Force Projection Army,” 1993, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/
fulltext/u2/a272977.pdf.
127 See, for example, the 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Division
in January 1944 crossing the Rapido River in Italy; the 31st
Regimental Combat Team in November 1950 at the Chosin
Reservoir in Korea; and 2-7 Cavalry in November 1965 near
Landing Zone Albany in the Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam. Martin
Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino (Washington: Office of the
Chief of Military History, US Army, 1969), pp. 322-351; Matthew
J. Seelinger, “Nightmare at the Chosin Reservoir,” https://
armyhistory.org/nightmare-at-the-chosin-reservoir/; Harold
Moore and Joseph Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once–and
Young (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993), pp. 217-285.
US formation was overrun in Afghanistan or Iraq. 128 This
unprecedented success will probably not be replicated
in future conflicts, especially ones that involve a heavily
armed, high-end adversary.
Unpleasant as it is to contemplate, the Army must
improve its capacity to sustain large numbers of
casualties and keep fighting. This requires not only
depth of personnel within units, but also depth
in the numbers and types of units to avoid single
point failures if key units are wiped out. Its ongoing
investments in individual resilience 129 must be matched
with planning for rapid organizational recovery.
Doctrine and training for this chilling eventuality
must be revitalized, and leaders must be prepared to
regroup and sustain operations and fighting spirit in
the face of heavy losses. Training should expose units
to mass rocket and artillery fires, chemical attacks,
and even nuclear attacks in order to simulate the
large-scale losses that would require reorganization to
continue the mission. Rotations to the combat training
centers should include assessments of leaders’ ability
to regroup after taking mass casualties and should
instill effective techniques to improve leader and unit
performance in the face of heavy battlefield losses.
MODERNIZE TECHNOLOGY
INVESTMENTS 130
The Army’s “Big Five” weapons systems were first
fielded during the 1980s defense buildup. 131 Upgraded
versions of each of those weapons—the M1 tank,
the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Apache and
Blackhawk helicopters, and the Patriot air defense
system—still constitute the core of the Army’s combat
capabilities today. And because of the Army’s many
modernization failures (discussed in chapter two), no
replacements are currently programmed for any of
these systems. That means that most or all of them
will remain in service through 2030 and beyond. This
will be a staggering capabilities gap in an age where
technologies are growing and spreading exponentially.
The Army desperately needs new systems that
128 The battles that came closest to threatening the loss of platoons
over the last fifteen years were bitter fights in Wanat in 2008
(where nine US soldiers were killed in action) and at COP
Keating in 2009 (where eight US soldiers were killed in action).
The Taliban were repulsed with heavy losses in both fights.
Mark Seavey, “The Battle for COP Keating,” Military.com, May
1, 2013; “The Battle of Wanat,” Washington Post, http://www.
washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/battle-of-wanat/.
129 See, for example, “US Army Ready and Resilient,” https://www.
army.mil/readyandresilient/.
130 Several recommendations in this section are taken from Barno and
Bensahel, “The US Military’s Protection Deficit Disorder,” op. cit.
131 COL David C. Trybula, USA, “‘Big Five’ Lessons for Today
and Tomorrow,” IDA Paper NSP-4889, Institute for Defense
Analyses, May 2012.
ATLANTIC COUNCIL
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