The Army is focusing on rebuilding readiness as its number one funding priority, but the emphasis is sucking up funds that could be used for much-needed modernization, the Commission on the Future of the Army found.
Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has trumpeted readiness as a priority over all else at nearly all of his public appearances since assuming the post last year. Readiness is indeed important for an Army that is downsizing under budget constraints and coming off of two decade-long ground wars. The commission found Milley’s marching orders to achieve readiness and bolster capacity “understandable, although its consequences for modernization are regrettable.”
“The Army’s current strategy to protect science and technology investments, incrementally improve existing fleets, and delay the procurement of the next generation of platforms strains the Army’ ability to build the foundation of a force that can meet future challenges and puts major acquisition programs at risk,” the commission’s final report says. “Investing in near-term readiness is a must.”
If the Army cannot find acceptable trade-offs in endstrength, programs or fat-cutting, a lack of long-term investment risks losing the technological edge U.S. soldiers have traditionally enjoyed, said Thomas Lamont, vice chairman of the commission and assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs from 2009 to 2013
“The primary goal of Army modernization is to achieve decisive overmatch, in other words, to never send soldiers into a fair fight, he said. “Modernization ensures our soldiers maintain a decisive advantage on the battlefield. Current funding levels risk squandering this over match capability.”
Funding at the fiscal 2016 level would allow the Army to balance spending on short-term readiness with long-term investments in modernization, he said.
During its year in the field investigating the posture and capability of the Army worldwide, the commission found “unacceptable modernization shortfalls” specifically in aviation survivability, short-range air defense artillery (SHORAD), chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) capabilities, field artillery and Army watercraft. The commission also heard repeatedly of tactical wheeled vehicle shortages, primarily in heavy equipment and large tactical mobility trucks, the report said.
The commission recommended that the Army reassess its desired balance of spending on readiness and modernization in these areas in particular.
Commissioner Kathleen Hicks, former principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said concerns arose over proliferation of sophisticated military technologies including short range air defense, in which Russia has made great strides.
There were concerns over “the diffusion of technology and the effect it is having in terms of thinking through how a land force can engage in the world, the concern that the U.S. can’t count on a modernization edge in many types of conflicts,” she said.
Retired Gen. Carter Ham, who chaired the commission, said manned-unmanned teaming would be an essential element for Army aviation modernization.
“That is an important developing requirement,” Ham said. “Certainly this is an area that is going to require future investment and one of the areas why we emphasize that there has got to be at least a modest level of modernization to keep pace with these technological advances.”
Failing to consistently invest in modernization risks atrophy in the industrial base, the commission found. The Army’s current strategy of equipping soldiers banks on an industrial base that can ramp production and adapt to emerging requirements during wartime. That same industry has to pay the bills when the Army is not facing a major crisis or emergency.
“With modernization budgets rapidly declining, companies may well exit the defense sector in order to direct their research and development efforts and production capacity towards commercial applications,” the report warns. “Continued fiscal uncertainty and low resource availability for Army investment will also dissuade new entrants to the defense marketplace. Relying more heavily on the domestic commercial and international sectors for off-the-shelf items will ease this problem, but not eliminate risk. This is especially true when unique military requirements must be met, as in major platform development.”
Commissioner Robert Hale, a former Pentagon Comptroller, said that the current downturn in defense spending has likely reached its nadir and is on the way up. The Army could well see higher budgets in future years given the emerging global strategic environment, the service’s role in it and its equipment needs to perform that role.
Prime industry contractors have and will weather a hiatus in major procurement programs relatively unscathed, though the same cannot be said for mid- and low-level component suppliers, he said.