Army - Kicking Tires On Jltv

Creativity
Could Boost
Regionally Aligned
Forces Concept
By Col. Allen J. Pepper
A 12th Combat Aviation Brigade AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter flies over Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany.
U.S. Army/Gertrud Zach
Army leadership’s vision involves a force that is globally
responsive and regionally engaged. An important
aspect of turning this vision into reality is the concept
of regionally aligned forces. This concept, which the
Army has been executing since early 2013, provided U.S. Africa
Command with trained and available forces for a range of missions;
supported U.S. Pacific Command in the pivot to the Pacific;
and enabled a rapid response by U.S. European Command
and NATO to Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Despite these early successes and other recent accomplishments,
the concept of regionally aligned forces (RAF) leaves
room for improvement to foster the development of soldiers
and leaders for future Army readiness and thereby support geographic
combatant commands. In particular, the Army must
work creatively to find opportunities to deploy these units into
their theaters, improve continuity between RAF rotations, include
regional affiliation in officer and NCO assignment decisions,
and select promising junior and midlevel leaders for regular
small-unit missions within the RAF construct.
The concept of regionally aligned forces involves aligning
select units from both the active and reserve components of
the Army to the geographic combatant commands. As highlighted
in a September 2014 briefing from the Army Staff,
these units and soldiers should develop enhanced situational
understanding of their designated region and increase their
readiness for serving through on-the-job training and active
engagement. Improved situational awareness will help make
them better partners for both the U.S. interagency and allies.
RAF units are primarily involved in activities to shape the operational
environment, with an emphasis on building relationships
as well as partner capacity. However, the deployment of
part of an infantry company to protect the U.S. Embassy in
South Sudan for five months in 2013–14 showed that RAF units
are not strictly limited to shaping the operational environment.
Start With Decisive Action Training
The training pipeline for the brigade combat team around
which each geographic combatant command’s RAF is built
starts with decisive action training, including a combat training
center rotation, resources permitting. This is augmented with
geographic combatant command-specific training requirements
and cultural, regional expertise and language training.
The Army intends for the RAF concept to provide benefits
to combatant commanders, soldiers and units. U.S. Africa
Command, the test-bed geographic combatant command for
regionally aligned forces, saw stark improvements in the availability
of trained troops for security cooperation activities with
the implementation of the RAF concept. The European Command
has also benefited from the assured availability of Army
forces, as the U.S. has provided a portion of a brigade combat
team to the NATO Response Force for the first time since that
force’s inception in 2003. That same brigade combat team—
the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division—also participated in the
NATO exercise Combined Resolve II, and assured regional
partners with U.S. presence in Poland and the Baltics as part of
the NATO response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.
32 ARMY ■ February 2016