I did a semi-post on a photo put out by the 25th Infantry Division highlighting a Contingency Response Force exercise that they were carrying out. The pic showed a Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle being loaded onto a C-17.
I was flabbergasted. Really? Seriously? The US Army has a CRF? A reader named Constitutional Insurgent (Dude, you need to be careful with that name! I like it but it could seriously cause trouble in this day and age!) pointed me in the right direction when he made this comment....
Each Combatant Command has contingency response forces with tiered authorities for initiation; for PACOM this includes elements tasked for the Global Response Force, Army Contingency Response Force and Homeland Defense Support [all Army heavy, primarily 2nd and 25th ID]; this is in addition to the FAST, Alert Contingency MAGTF and the CRF/CRE.Ok. One of my readers says that this is more than HQ Army bullshit so time to dig.
25th has worked it's Strykers into Pacific Pathways, so I'm not surprised that they're part of an alert package.
What I found surprised the hell outta me. Check this out from FORSCOM (United States Army Forces Command)...
Contingency Expeditionary Forces units will be identified within 90 days of returning from theater, according to the white paper. They will go through the same ARFORGEN reset and training cycles as units going back to Afghanistan, but their missions will be elsewhere. The CEF units will perform such missions as:How did I miss this?
-- homeland defense and civil support
-- overseas exercises
-- institutional support
-- theater security cooperation events
-- global response
I had focused on the 82nd Airborne and other independent Airborne Brigades re-establishing their roles in the "Global Response Force" and watched with a bit of interest as we saw units fly from Alaska and jumping in Australia...as the 173rd did "emergency activation exercise" in Europe. But totally missed a bigger and perhaps more important development.
The US Army is actually trying to get into the "expeditionary" game.
My take. They're taking baby steps with this (ISIS and Afghanistan being a basket case probably isn't helping) and they probably aren't looking to step on Marine Corps toes, as much as Marines jab at the Army they're really good about roles and missions, in the desire to maintain much improved cooperation among US land forces.
Still the USMC should be mindful.
Regionally aligned forces? Global Response Forces? Contingency Expeditionary Forces? The US Army is attempting to become a one stop shop for Combatant Commanders.
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ReplyDeleteIf the Pivot to the Pacific program is to be believed, then the US Army has no option but to become relevant in the Expeditionary game. Imagine sitting in every budget meeting, justifying a demand to increase their budgets while at the same time sitting back and admitting that the USMC is the point organization here due to its existing capabilities in the Pacific.
ReplyDeleteI know when I say "justifying budget" it seems very shallow and not a good reason for the Army to change/modify their game but they will not sit back and just watch as the US confronts probably one of their biggest challenge yet in China. They are doing their best to get their fair share in this fight. Having an Airborne Division and then supporting them with additional formations carved out of various Commands does see them have a sizable force not just in the Pacific but every where else where the Army dares to tread.
But Solomon, I dont think that this is an existential threat to the USMC. It might feel like it but it isnt. Its just the sincere efforts of the largest US combat service to make itself more relevant. This is the kind of news that one should smile if ones objective it to contain China.
I am a complete illeterate in US defence but if I were the head of either service I would work my ass off to have the USMC and these expeditionary earmarked formations constantly practicing and liasioning with each other in both the Pacific Command as well as Central Command along with the South Asia Command (If the US gets around creating it in the first place).
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm probably on a watch list somewhere; veteran, gun owner, Constitutionalist......I've hit all the DHS 'trigger warnings' for sure.
ReplyDeleteI don't even pretend to know the end goal in 'pivoting' toward the Pacific....which has been rather lackluster writ large; but said pivot seemed to coincide with the elevation of the US Army Pacific [USARPAC] CG billet from 3 to 4 star. The Pacific Pathways concept dovetails an emerging expeditionary capability for Army land forces with PACOM and USARPACs number one priority [aside from China/nK], with is partner nation engagement and capacity building.
The USMC, as I'm sure you're well aware, is ramping up it's 'pivot' role through effort such as the semi-permanent/rotational positioning MAGTF in Darwin, Australia.
The coordination between USARPAC, USMC and SOCPAC 'expeditionary' efforts is theoretically being conducted at the newly minted Theater Joint Land Forces Component Command [TJFLCC] Center. Not sure how well that's working out yet.
Actually, this is not entirely new. In February 2013 already, US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Odierno had presented his vision for future of Army in an article published by "Foreign Affairs". There's also the official "Army Strategic Planning Guidance" for 2013.
ReplyDeleteBoth documents focus on making the Army more of an "expeditionary type force" able to deploy quickly, capable to "overmatch" any opponent, focused on dispersed and decentralized operations, expert in social and political fabric of theater of operation and - of course - "regionally aligned" as they say now.
Word is, they've studied French operations in Mali quite in depth to see what could be learnt from it ... think there's is some OSINT info quite interesting about this.
The Army will never be a "one stop shop" simply because if you are sending the Army you have to fight joint with at least the USAF also in play for delivery.
ReplyDeleteThe regionally aligned forces isn't designed for combat, it is designed for peacetime training, aid, and other "MOOTW" engagements where the need is bigger than a few SFODAs and the environment is permissive enough that we can send Soldiers without too much risk. The idea is that a lot of persistant engagements with foreign militaries and governments now will help promote stability and prevent big land wars later. The plan for the regular Army to assume this role came out of SOCOM, because SOCOM realized that they were doing a lot of non combat missions that didn't need to be done by SOCOM and it was a drain on combat power. So they worked to saddle the regular Army with lower priority missions that support long term national security goals but aren't sexy or requiring a crew of pipehitters.
But, those regionally aligned forces relationships are already paying off. We had Soldiers from the First Infantry Division over in Sierra Leone over 9 months before the ebola outbreak started. Of course the sad part is that the forces who did engagements aren't the forces we needed for medical support (engineer and medical) but the lessons learned and contact information is worth it.
The old FM 101-5 listed the Army mission as; "Prevent war, or failing to prevent war win on the field of battle." We used to think that being the biggest and baddest would prevent war, but that was proven wrong. We'll prevent future wars not by getting ready to fight, but by building up allied partners and ensuring stability so that we don't have to fight.
Think we shouldn't misread this trend as just SOCOM tried to get rid of non-combat missions and roll them over to the Army. First SOCOM is largely oversized and will see its funding cut back, as other branches of the military. Which bring me to another reason for the idea to restructure the Army and that is the budget.
DeleteOdierno seems to think the Army needs recentering around its core missions, that is restoring its conventional capabilities and deterence value, in combination with ability to deploy and sustain large formations capable of defeating any threat. That this is not gonna be done independently from USAF is obvious, but it's part of a back to basics trend that we're seeing in other countries as well that are involved or have been involved in expeditionary type deployments. However considering nature of current and potential new threats, as well as new technologies, and - as mentioned - budget constraints, the idea is basically to do more with less ... don't kid yourself here, it's not back to the 90s, quite the opposite !
key words they use now are "flexibility" and "modularity".
As for "regional alignement" of forces, trues it's not designed for combat, it's also about having the ability to leverage local area knowledge, an field where the US fell dramatically short, especially in Iraq. There are various ways of achieving such a goal, and it goes way beyond contact info.
Overall, agree with your last statement, about building up allied partners, but that has proven tricky as well for the US military, which has poured hundreds of milions into building the Iraqi army, or the Malian army, and both have fled when confronted by Djihadis ... Again, money without knowledge of who you giving it to and for what purpose is gonna make it. So 'regional alignment' is also about that, finding out who you can work with, etc. It's basically day to day intel collected in the field and building up personal relationships in the country.