Dempsey eyes making squads more lethal - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Dempsey eyes making squads more lethal

When it comes to building the Army of tomorrow, the focus is not on the corps, division or even the brigade. It’s on the squad.

The consensus among military leaders and analysts is that low-intensity counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations will dominate the future force. That lays the bulk of the burden on the shoulders of the squad and platoon — and the Army’s top officer doesn’t want his soldiers in a fair fight.

“I’ve spent the last 10 years seeing the Army from the top down and thinking about overmatch … because we don’t want to send a soldier into harm’s way who doesn’t overmatch his enemies,” said Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey. “It’s pretty hard to conceive of any place where we don’t overmatch our enemies at the [Joint Task Force] level, the corps level, the division level, the brigade level, the battalion level, the company level. At the platoon level, we should probably have a bit of conversation about whether we really overmatch. But it’s at the squad level that it becomes too much of a fair fight.”

Dempsey, in a May 5 speech delivered to the AUSA Institute of Land Warfare in Washington, D.C., said finding the solution requires a new perspective. He decided to “lie on [his] back and look at the Army from the bottom up.”

There already are many changes in the works. From hand-held blue force trackers and streaming intelligence to lighter weapons and unmatched surveillance, the soldier of tomorrow promises to be far more lethal than ever.

But the key to success is in having the right perspective, Dempsey said.

“If we look at it exclusively as an individual soldier and what he can carry, we’ll never get the right answer,” he said. “The question is, what does the squad need? When we figure out what the squad needs, then we figure out a way to deliver it.”

As Dempsey builds a future force upon that perspective, he will rely greatly on a capabilities-based assessment and integrated capabilities doctrine currently in the works. This will establish squad requirements and define how the Army will empower that squad to do its job.

These changes are part of a service wide modernization plan that will build the Army of 2020 — an Army that will look different from today’s Army in many ways.

“Is the Army of 2020 going to be different than the Army of 2011? I hope so,” Dempsey said.

The changes will be shaped by a number of factors, such as new and emerging threats, technological advances, force caps, a prevalence of joint operations and a diminishing defense budget.

Dempsey said he is committed to a dwell ratio that would give soldiers 27 months at home for every nine months deployed. Such a ratio helps preserve the all-volunteer force, it mitigates force caps, it strengthens command tour lengths and it best aligns the active and reserve components, the chief said.

Dempsey did acknowledge that aviation units are nowhere near that goal, and said the Army is sometimes scratching to find and keep a 1-to-1 ratio for those highly utilized assets.

Two different paths

Dempsey said the Army has two choices as it builds a path to the future: the Army reformed and the Army transformed. Both would use as a foundation the “Four P’s” of the Quadrennial Defense Review — prepare, prevent, prevail and preserve.

But the potential paths move in notably different directions.

The Army reformed would take the current Army and simply make it smaller. This Army would be capable of producing the same capabilities, but there will be less available because those capabilities have to be managed inside the 9-to-27 dwell ratio, the chief said.

The Army already plans to cut 22,000 active-duty soldiers by the end of 2013, and a combined 27,000 in 2015 and 2016. The Obama administration plans to cut another $400 billion from the defense budget, and there are many questions regarding whether troops will be cut to provide some of those savings.

Dempsey pointed to the plan to reduce Europe’s four brigades by 25 percent in 2015. That unit might find itself in a new post or command, he said — or it might not.

“It might inactivate. That shouldn’t shock anyone,” he said.

The Army transformed would produce a different Army than you see today, Dempsey said. Some of it will be similar because there are enduring requirements, but not everything.

Many lawmakers and analysts have called for reductions in the heavy force, saying a clash between competing armies is an unlikely scenario in the foreseeable future.

Army leaders as well as the rank and file have also called for transformation in the Brigade Combat Team.

Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal, while addressing the future Army on April 27, said a key point of discussion is whether all brigades should train to full-spectrum operations.

He said it is important that the Army look at specialized counterinsurgency, stabilization and training/advisory brigades to deal with asymmetric warfare.

Dempsey said current modernization plans are good for the Army of 2011, but not for the Army of 2020. But he refused to elaborate on what the right modernization plan will look like.

Dempsey said he will unveil the way ahead on the Army’s birthday in June.