CONFERENCE CALL
ANNUAL MEETING AND
AUSA 2011 EXPOSITION
F
rom doing more with less to do- ing less with less, the challenges facing the U.S. Army and its stakeholders have evolved signifi-
cantly over the past year with the end of operations in Iraq, continued conflict in Afghanistan, diverse threats on the hori- zon, and severe fiscal constraints at home. The Army, including its Acquisition, Lo- gistics, and Technology Workforce, is well poised to meet these challenges.
That was the prognosis that emerged from the Association of the United States Army 2011 Annual Meeting and Exposition, held Oct. 10-12 in Washington, DC.
This changing environment “is more chal- lenging now than ever before,” said Heidi Shyu, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Tech- nology (ASAALT) and Army Acquisition Executive. “It’s very important that we collaborate and work together as a team, because acquisition is not a solo sport. It is a team sport; you cannot do it alone.”
“Today’s Army is far more experienced, far more adaptable, better equipped, and more lethal than it was 10 years ago,” said Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta. Now “we must set about the difficult but critical task of building the military this country will need now and in the future.
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We cannot afford to render null and void the hard-learned lessons of the last 10 years of war, we cannot afford to ignore the essential capabilities that we have let lapse in the past, and we absolutely can- not allow budget pressures to force the services into parochialism and program survival mode.”
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, a 12-member group tasked to find $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years, failed to identify cuts, triggering a process whereby DoD would get automatic budget cuts, or sequesters. Panetta called sequestration “this goofy meat-axe approach, [which] would force across-the-board salami-slicing cuts of the worst kind. It would hollow out the force; it would leave our military deficient in people, in training, and equipment, and unable to adapt when that next security challenge comes along.”
That next challenge could call for a wide variety of responses, including counter- insurgency operations, security force assistance, counterterrorism, or combined arms maneuver. The Nation needs an expeditionary Army “that can deter any potential aggressor,” Panetta said.
“In the past, during periods of austerity, we’ve said, ‘We will have to do more with
less.’ As we move ahead under significant budget restrictions, we’ll have to do less with less,” said GEN Raymond T. Odi- erno, Army Chief of Staff. At the same time, “The Army must develop a versa- tile mix of capabilities, formations, and equipment that allows us to be a flexible force in the future that provides agility, adaptability, deployability, and depth to the Joint Force.”
The Army, which represents half of the Nation’s entire force, provides 50 to 70 percent of deployable forces, yet con- sumes only about 25 to 30 percent of the entire defense budget, noted Secretary of the Army John McHugh. “What’s criti- cally important is, no matter what the force ultimately looks like, we have suf- ficient time to ramp down, to ensure that we do it in a balanced way, that we have what is necessary for training, equip- ment, and reset,” McHugh said. Most important, “We continue to stand by [our] troops.”
For links to webcasts of more than a dozen forums, go to
http://www.army.mil/arti- cle/66955. Videos of select speeches are available at
http://www.ausa.org/meet- ings/2011/annual/Pages/
Videos.aspx.
—Margaret C. Roth
Army AL&T Magazine
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