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Army aims for rotational deployment cycle

About 10 Army brigades and Marine Corps regiments could be deployed at any given time over the next decade, the Army’s top general said May 28.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said the deployments may not necessarily be in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the service must be prepared for a “long-term, sustained commitment.”

Senior military leaders believe “we live in a time of persistent conflict,” Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Army Times editors and reporters on May 27.

“That means some level of rotational commitment for the foreseeable future, so you could say 10 to 15 years … that we are going to have all the forces, all the services, including the Army … rotating somewhere in the world,” he said. “[It’s] hard to say exactly where that would be. You could surmise that there may be a requirement in Iraq and Afghanistan. … In the Army’s case, [it] could be six brigades, could be 10 brigades, I don’t know.”

The U.S. has been at war for more than seven years, and, moving forward, the Army must work toward a deployment rotation pace that is sustainable, Casey said.

That’s why senior Army leaders are looking to put the Army on a rotational cycle, much like the Navy and Marine Corps, said Casey, who was speaking to an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The cycle would be built around a one-year deployment and three years of dwell time, putting units into four force pools, Casey said.

This would give soldiers a clear model for how the deployments would take place, giving them better predictability for their time at home and time deployed.

Units in the first pool are those that are deployed or ready to deploy if needed, while units in the other three pools would be at varying stages of readiness and reset based on when they were last deployed.

In addition, units in the second pool would be at more than 90 percent in manning, equipping and readiness, making them available to respond to emergencies if needed.

Each pool will consist of units that can conduct full-spectrum operations.

Officials aren’t saying when the rotational cycle would be put in place. The plan would have to be approved in the ongoing 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, Casey said.

“How much Army capability is required … is one of the questions that’s being looked at,” a senior Army planner, who asked to remain anonymous, told Army Times. “That amount has to be sized to fit the mission the Army plans to have.”

But it’s all speculative and dependent on supply versus demand, he said.

“What we plan for and what we ask for are two different things,” he said. “The Army is trying to figure out how much force it needs to meet the national strategy.”

The Army has been “all in” for years, and it must now move toward a sustainable deployment pace, which could conflict with the demand to continue supporting operations in Iraq and the increasing presence in Afghanistan, the senior Army planner said.

“How that comports with reality is the messy detail,” he said.

The rotational cycle – and three years of dwell time between deployments – is a long-term goal, Casey said.

The more pressing goal is to first give active Army soldiers two years at home between deployments in 2011, Casey said.

In the next eight to 10 months, the number of deployed soldiers will increase by about 10,000, Casey said. Also, there are “about 30,000-plus [soldiers] who can’t go into units,” he said. Among those, about 10,000 soldiers are in or assigned as cadre in Warrior Transition Units, another 10,000 are deployed in headquarters or transition teams, and yet another 10,000 are non-deployable, he said.

What he is most worried about for the next 24 months is the impact of repeat deployments on the health of the force, Casey said.

Mullen also addressed the effects of multiple deployments.

“I watch dwell time very closely, and we need to increase it as rapidly as we can, which is going to be very difficult over the next 18 to 24 months as we come down in Iraq and increase the forces in Afghanistan,” he said. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s how we get there and how we lead between now and then that’s absolutely critical with respect to achieving that.”

The service Mullen is most concerned about is the Army, he said.

“While it is at [an end strength] of 547,000 active duty, they haven’t built the extra brigades yet,” he said. “But with the demand signals that I see for the next 18 months or so, that light which I see in Army dwell time, it’s going to take a little while before it gets a lot brighter, but it’s there.”