in that particular environment or doing whatever is required. You know, it could be humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, major combat—the full range of military operations.


Tat’s the setup. Our job is not to win in these games, but to see where we’re brit- tle, see where we break, and then look for gaps. And then we find solutions to


those gaps. I’ll turn it over to Chris to talk a little bit about that.


COL Cross: If you look over the last decade, we’ve taken the eye off the ball from the S&T perspective in terms of the future, and we’ve done it deliberately and for the right reasons. Te S&T commu- nity has focused on providing the men and women in combat the capabilities


that he or she needed. But we have not looked deliberately at the capabilities we need to develop in the future—2025 and beyond—and made the right invest- ments to get us there from here. And so in order to understand where we need to go, we need to understand where we are.


We look very deliberately at the way we manage our


current fundamental


research investments. What we found was that about 95 percent of what we do today was focused on the near-term gaps, those things within the POM [program objective memorandum cycle] … but it has put us at a disadvantage, almost a lost decade. So coming out of war, tran- sitioning, we are looking very closely at the capabilities we need to develop for the future force, 2025 and beyond.


U.S. Army photo by Markus Rauchenberger


U.S. Army photo by PFC Nathaniel Newkirk U.S Air Force photo by SrA Jared Trimarchi


U.S. Army photo by SGT Richard Wrigley U.S. Army photo by SGT Todd Robinson


Te capabilities we’re after are a leaner force, which means a unit that’s able to do more than a current, like unit can do today. We want to increase the capabil- ity and lethality of those units, extend the operational reach of all units— squads, platoons, companies, battalions and BCTs [brigade combat teams]—all underpinned by the necessity to pre- vent overmatch. Te threat has had an opportunity to watch the United States and our allied partners bare our soul to the world in terms of capability, and to identify those things that we do really well and the things that are potential vulnerabilities. And, therefore, they are investing in those areas that are potential vulnerabilities.


FROM AUSTERITY, PROGRESS


The “Big Five”—Black Hawk, Apache, Patriot missile system, Bradley and Abrams—the bedrock of U.S. Army operational strength, grew out of a period of budget austerity on the heels of the Vietnam conflict. Initially conceived as Cold War assets, they have proved to be versatile over the past decade and adaptable to a “future” that few predicted at the time.


If you look at the future and the capa- bilities that we need, we have to account for the fact that the threat has identified things we may be vulnerable at in terms of technology or capability or doctrinal areas, and they’re focusing their investments on those areas. By 2025, we’re going to set the conditions with a leaner, more capable


ASC.ARMY.MIL 143


CRITICAL THINKING


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182  |  Page 183  |  Page 184  |  Page 185  |  Page 186  |  Page 187  |  Page 188  |  Page 189  |  Page 190  |  Page 191  |  Page 192  |  Page 193  |  Page 194  |  Page 195  |  Page 196  |  Page 197  |  Page 198  |  Page 199  |  Page 200