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Here’s your daily bit of controversy from Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco and The Gamble: a proposal to shut-down the service academies and divert the money to expanding ROTC.  The general argument isn’t an entirely new one: basically that the service academies offer second rater non-military educations are exorbidant cost, so their operation simply isn’t justified.  Small Wars Journal compiled some pretty interesting articles in response that put the importance (or perhaps unimportance) in greater perspective. 

Definitely worth taking a look at.

A suicide bomb attack last Friday killed 5 US soldiers and 2 Iraqi police officers in the deadliest attack in more than a year.  This doesn’t seem to be part of a larger trend and it is doubtful that it heralds a new wave of attacks.  It is, however, a reminder that it’s still a war over there.  Things are running well in Iraq, but it’s still dangerous and there’s still fighting.  Just because there isn’t news coverage doesn’t mean there isn’t a war.

Defense shake-ups from the Obama Administration have long been anticipated, but only now are the likely details of the revisions to force structure beginning to emerge.  At the moment, it appears the Army will face some of the largest changes as the Pentagon prepares to face current and future threats.

One of the programs likely to be cut or severely scaled back will be to the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS).  Secretary Gates has already made it quite clear in the past that he is not convinced of the program’s utility or of it’s exorbident cost.  The real issue here is that FCS is largely designed to enhance the Army’s dominance in a convention war against a conventional enemy, whereas virtually all likely near-future opponents will engage is insurgency style conflicts.  Additionally, while many aspects of FCS are supposed to be completed soon, with the first FCS equipped units fielded in 2015, the entire program has been fraught with so many delays and budget-overruns that it is likely DoD planners are considering very large cuts.

The other major debate is over manpower.  The Army is currently at its authorized strength of 547,000, but many have advocated growing the force to 600,000 or even 800,000.  The ArmyTimes article I linked at the start of this post has a good summary of the issues at hand, and I’d advise giving it a read-through.  Exactly what changes take place and what direction DoD ultimately takes remains to be seen, but it’s likely we’ll see a good deal of news on this in the next couple weeks.

As the Army prepares to shift its efforts from Iraq to Afghanistan, the early preparation for a shift in equipment is already beginning.  The Army made great efforts to keep equipment up to pace with new and emerging threats in Iraq by listening to Soldier feedback and by undertaking a number of initiatives to rapidly field new equipment to deploying units.  Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) originally worn by troops, for example, provided excellent protection to the front and rear torso, but lacked side protection.  The Army worked to quickly supply side armor adapters and by 2007 had begun issuing the Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) which included integral side plates and a number of other incremental improvements over the old IBA.  Similarly, the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle (MRAP) was quickly purchased and fielded to combat the IED threat.

Now, the Army is preparing to go to war on the battlefields of Afghanistan which is an entirely different fight.  In Iraq, units generally left on patrols or cordon and search missions from a nearby Forward Operating Base (FOB), making for fairly short duration missions.  Soldiers spent a comparatively large amount of time riding in vehicles rather than on foot, and most of the time spent on foot was spent walking across flat, even, often paved terrain.  In Afghanistan however, troops will need to move up and down mountains and broken terrain on foot continously and will frequently spend days away from their bases.

In an environment like Afghanistan, overly heavy equipment, like the aforementioned 35-pound IOTV simply will not do and will seriously over-encumber soldiers in battle.  As this ArmyTimes article notes, lighter equipment is already being purchased from existing manufacturers (including lighter body armor) in preparation for the Afghanistan fight, and it is likely that further new gear will be forthcoming as forces continue to leave Iraq for Afghanistan.