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A complement to FCS

In its Dec. 10 editorial, “Match vision to needs,” Army Times thoughtfully raises several legitimate questions about the Army’s modernization strategy — questions that certainly are on the minds of policymakers. These questions warrant an equally considered response.

For starters, Army Times asks how the Army’s reset program “will change the [Army’s] centerpiece, $160 billion Future Combat Systems program.” The answer is: It won’t — modernizing through reset is in no way a substitute for the Army’s more comprehensive modernization strategy, which has at its core Future Combat Systems.

Army equipment must be reset, or rebuilt, because of enormous wear and tear from the war. Thus, to the greatest extent possible, the Army is creating financial efficiencies and upgrading select capabilities through reset. This will save taxpayer dollars while helping to accelerate modernization. Still, FCS will remain the cornerstone of Army modernization.

Army Times implicitly questions the wisdom of this strategy, saying, “Troops in Iraq began questioning FCS years ago.”

In fact, soldiers are acutely aware of initial FCS prototype capabilities, which are saving lives in theater. Indeed, there is a strikingly high correlation between the types of capabilities that commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan are requesting and the types of capabilities that are being developed through FCS.

For example, there are more than 4,000 robots in Iraq and Afghanistan today, including an early version of the FCS Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle. Soldiers are using the SUGV prototype and other robots to clear caves and bunkers, search buildings, cross minefields and defuse improvised explosive devices.

That’s why, during training exercises last February at Fort Bliss, Texas, and White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Army veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were enthusiastic about these initial FCS capabilities.

As one veteran succinctly put it, “You’re going to save lives with these new technologies.” Said another soldier-veteran: “Right now. Right now. Getting [these capabilities] out into theater would be beneficial to soldiers [who] are going to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

But, asks Army Times, “Does FCS need as large a vehicle element with so many new armored vehicles entering the force, whether Stryker or MRAP?”

The answer is: Absolutely yes.

The new FCS Manned Ground Vehicles are designed to address the requirement for sequential and simultaneous operations that span the spectrum of conflict, not just conventional heavy combat or a narrow slice of the operational spectrum. Stryker and MRAP are important, but these vehicles address a specific operational niche. Stryker, in fact, was conceived as an “interim armored vehicle” precursor to the FCS vehicles.

The reality is that in this era of persistent conflict, the Army requires new vehicle types for global missions in distant and austere environments. The FCS MGVs will give our soldiers required new capabilities to address a growing asymmetric ground threat while building a force that can sustain itself in remote areas.

But because the first MGV won’t be operationally deployable until around 2015, and because funding and technology constraints limit our ability to field FCS as rapidly as we would like, the Army must continue to invest in a variety of vehicle types, including combat vehicles like Stryker, Bradley, Abrams and MRAP.

The MGVs, moreover, are required for development of the FCS network, because more than two-thirds of the network sensors are on the MGVs themselves. Thus, building FCS without the MGVs would be akin to building the Internet without personal computers: It simply cannot be done.

Current force vehicles will benefit tremendously from the FCS network; however, weight, space and power constraints severely limit their ability to accommodate the network and to act as network nodes.

The network is crucial because it will benefit the entire Army and, indeed, the entire joint ground force, including the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force, which also will be network-enabled. Network-enabled soldiers will have vastly better situational awareness and many more capabilities at their disposal. That’s why the National Defense Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review have tasked the Army with becoming fully networked, information-based and integrated across the Army and the joint force.

“The Army wants to be a full-spectrum force, but DoD leaders and experts contend it should focus on irregular warfare,” Army Times writes.

The FCS Brigade Combat Teams arguably will be best suited for irregular warfare. They require, for instance, 500 fewer soldiers, but provide twice as many infantrymen in squads — that is more tooth and less tail.

But it would be foolhardy for the Army to bet only on irregular warfare and risk being unprepared for the full spectrum of likely contingencies. Because all of our operational analysis tells us that the 21st century will be laden with conflict — highly divergent and diffuse types of conflicts. Therefore, our Army, our soldiers, our vehicles and equipment all must be operationally flexible and adaptable.

The Army requires the FCS vehicles, which are designed specifically for a much broader range of contingencies — from heavy conventional combat to stability operations, from counterinsurgency missions to support for civil authorities — than current force vehicles.

All this does cost money, but context is required: The $160 billion FCS price tag that Army Times refers to is an inflation-adjusted figure divvied up over nearly three decades. It represents less than three percent of the Army’s current base budget.

That’s a relatively modest sum of money to modernize the Army for the 21st century.

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The writer is a strategic planner for the Headquarters of the Department of the Army.