1973 Arab-Israeli War, we found that we were out of position across all of those imperatives, and particularly our combat platforms. Our doctrine organizations weren’t really optimized to deal with the very high tempo and exceptionally lethal battlefield that we saw in that war.
As we came out of the Cold War, and fol- lowing the very successful operations in Panama and Desert Storm, we also again went through a very significant force reduction and budget cut. And yet, dur- ing that
same period, we substantially
modernized our ground vehicle fleet with the M1A2 SEP [M1A2 Abrams tank Sys- tem Enhancement Package], which had the hunter-killer system on it that really increased the effectiveness of that combat platform by at least an order of two, if not better; the Desert Storm variant of the Bradley; the [AH-64D] Apache Longbow, etc. Although those are all very important and played a strong role in our operations in the last decade, 2000 to 2014, as importantly, we began to posture our- selves to think differently about how we operate in the Information Age.
And we began with [then-Army Chief of Staff] GEN [Gordon R.] Sullivan’s charge to conduct what we called the Louisiana Maneuvers Task Force, where we learned about how to experiment and think about operating differently in the 21st century. And we transitioned that into a program I think you’re familiar with, Force 21, cen- tered on the 4th Infantry Division, to how we digitize our ground forces and better integrate the promises of the Information Age into ground combat so that we got more out of a smaller but still very capable and lethal Army.
Tat process has continued through to today. Tat’s
really where we learned
about how to think about the ques- tion that you asked—how do you think
about a 30-year modernization process? Particularly when you consider that you have the nonmaterial solutions that are as important as, if not more important than the material solutions as you go for- ward. We should remember the French had a better tank in the opening stages of World War II, but they had the wrong idea and lost
their country for years because of that.
Tis integration of thinking about the future, getting ideas, surveying deep, pull- ing those into concepts, looking at those concepts against the emerging security environment and demands of the nation’s strategies, … looking at where the gaps are, coming up with required capabilities that drive change across those imperatives of DOTMLPF—that is really ARCIC’s role,
several
and then physically changing the Army over time. It is a constant process of adap- tation in the near term, evolution in the mid-term and innovation in the far term. We own the centerpiece of that, from the far term into the near-term adaptation piece. And obviously, we connect into a variety of partners across the Army and then into industry, academia, other parts of the government, etc.
Army AL&T: What do you see as ARCIC’s role in a 30-year modernization process? On your website, you describe Force 2025. What do you think the force of 2025 would look like?
MG Hix: COL Kevin Felix leads that deep futures piece with our Unified Quest study program that we run for
RAPID RESPONSE
Paratroopers with the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd BCT, 82nd Airborne Division (2-82 ABN) conduct live-fire urban operations training at Fort Bragg, NC, Sept. 9, 2013. The Soldiers were part of the Global Response Force, conducting a two-week intensive training cycle designed to reinforce combat skills for the nation’s airborne assault-capable contingency unit. Expeditionary capabilities will be critical to a future in which events will happen fast and in which the vast majority of the world population lives in coastal cities or megacities. (U.S. Army photo by SSG Jason Hull, 2-82 ABN Public Affairs)
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CRITICAL THINKING
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