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Chiarelli concerned about ability to modernize

Citing diminishing budgets and the difficult fiscal climate in the country, the Army vice chief of staff said he is concerned about preparing the service for the future.

“I’m worried about our ability to modernize the force,” Gen. Peter Chiarelli told members of the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee Tuesday.

He said he’s worried the Army’s current acquisition process may not be able to take advantage of emerging technology the way the IT industry does.

“Are we stuck in a 10-year industrial cycle that makes it so very, very difficult for us to move to the most modern equipment?” he asked. “I worry a lot about that given our recent experiences.”

Chiarelli said he is also concerned with finding the resources to reset equipment that’s suffered wear and tear in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he said the Army’s modernization strategy addresses both reset and modernization.

The Army is also at risk if it cannot continue to increase the time between soldiers’ deployments, the four-star told the subcommittee.

“The biggest risk for us after eight and a half years of war is if something were to happen that would not allow us to get that balance, because the force has been going very, very, very hard for a long period of time,” he said.

Chiarelli described 2011 as a big transition year for the Army, with the drawdown of forces from Iraq allowing the service to provide soldiers more time in between deployments.

The vice chief also discussed the series of portfolio reviews the Army is conducting as it develops its next six-year spending plan.

By looking at a portfolio of systems, for instance precision munitions, rather than looking at individual systems, the service can make more informed cost-benefit decisions about the capabilities it needs, said Chiarelli.

“There are probably systems that we have in the United States Army that have precision that don’t need precision or don’t need to be at the numbers we thought,” he said.

“Not that precision isn’t important, but does that mean that every system has to have a precision component? I would argue that’s not the case,” he added.

For example, a round from a 155mm cannon costs roughly $650 apiece, said Chiarelli, but if it is made into a precision round with an accuracy of 10 meters, the round’s cost goes up to $78,000 apiece.

But no final decision has been made on anything, Chiarelli told Defense News after the hearing.

“We are weighing everything in all kinds of areas: radios, tactical wheeled vehicles, precision weapons, air and missile defense, simulators and simulation, you name it,” he said.