Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to report to you today on the Posture of the United States Army.
America’s armed forces are the most powerful in the world. And America’s Army remains the most respected landpower to our friends and allies and the most feared ground force to those who would threaten the interests of the United States. Since before the birth of the Nation, American Soldiers have instilled hope in a noble dream of liberty. They have remained on point for the Nation through nine wars, and the intervals of peace in the years between – defending the Constitution and preserving freedom. Magnificent in their selfless service, long in their sense of duty, and deep in their commitment to honor, Soldiers have kept the United States the land of the free and the home of the brave. This is our legacy. Our Soldiers who serve today preserve it. In October 1999, we unveiled our vision for the future – “Soldiers, on point for the Nation, transforming this, the most respected army in the world, into a strategically responsive force that is dominant across the full spectrum of operations.” The attacks against our Nation on September 11, 2001, and the ensuing war on terrorism validate The Army’s Vision – People, Readiness, Transformation – and our efforts to change quickly into a more responsive, deployable, agile, versatile, lethal, survivable, and sustainable force. While helping to fight the Global War on Terrorism, The Army is in the midst of a profound transformation. Readiness remains our constant imperative – today, tomorrow, and the day after. Transformation, therefore, advances on three broad axes: perpetuating The Army’s legacy by maintaining today’s readiness and dominance; bridging the operational gap with an Interim Force of Stryker Brigade Combat Teams; and fielding the Objective Force to fight and win conflicts in the years beyond this decade. As they have throughout The Army’s 227-year history, Soldiers remain the centerpiece of our formations. Versatile and decisive across the full spectrum of joint missions, land forces have demonstrated time and again the quality of their precision in joint operations. Our responsibility is to provide Soldiers with the critical capabilities needed for the tough missions we send them on.
After three and a half years of undiminished support from the Administration and the Congress, and the incredible dedication of Soldiers and Department of the Army civilians, we have begun to deliver The Army Vision. With continued strong support, we will win the war against global terrorism, meet our obligations to our friends and allies, remain ready to prevail over the unpredictable, and transform ourselves for decisive victories on future battlefields. We have achieved sustainable momentum in Army Transformation; the framework is in place to see the Objective Force fielded, this decade.
THE ARMY – AT WAR AND TRANSFORMING The United States is at war, and The Army serves the Nation by defending the Constitution and our way of life. It is our nonnegotiable contract with the American people – to fight and win our Nation’s wars, decisively. In the weeks immediately following the attacks of September 11,2001, Special Operations Forces (SOF) infiltrated Afghanistan, penetrated Al Qaida and Taliban strongholds, and leveraged all available long-range, joint fires, enabling the Northern Alliance to begin dismantling the Taliban. By January 2002, U.S. and Allied conventional force reinforcements began to set the stage for Operation Anaconda, where Soldiers, demonstrating courage and determination under the most challenging conditions, defeated Al Qaida at altitude on the escarpments overlooking the Shah-e-kot Valley. Today, more than 198,000 Soldiers remain deployed and forward stationed in 120 countries around the globe, conducting operations and training with our friends and allies. Decisively engaged in the joint and combined fight against global terrorism, Soldiers are serving with distinction – at home and abroad. Soldiers from both the Active and the Reserve Component have remained “on point” for the Nation in the Balkans for seven years, in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for 12 years, in the Sinai for 21 years, and in Korea and Europe for over 50 years. At the publication of the Army Posture Statement, there were more than 110,000 Reserve Component Soldiers mobilized for active federal service in support of Operation Noble Eagle and Operation Enduring Freedom. Even as we transform, Soldiers will remain ready to answer the calls of the Nation to defeat well-trained, determined, and dangerous adversaries who miscalculate in taking on the best led, the best-equipped, and the best-trained army in the world.
At war and transforming, The Army is accelerating change to harness the power of new technologies, different organizations, and revitalized leader development initiatives to remain at the head of the line. To accomplish this, Army Transformation advances along three major axes towards attainment of the Objective Force. We selectively recapitalize and modernize today’s capabilities to extend our overmatch in staying ready to defend our homeland, keep the peace in areas important to the Nation, and win the war against global terrorism. Stryker Brigade Combat Teams – our Interim Force – will bridge the current operational gap between our rapidly-deployable light forces and our later-arriving heavy forces, paving the way for the arrival of the Objective Force. By 2010, The Army’s Objective Force – organized, equipped, and trained for ground dominance, cyber-warfare, and space exploitation – will provide the Nation the capabilities it must have to remain the global leader, the strongest economy in the world, and the most respected and feared military force, by our friends and allies and our enemies, respectively.
The surprise attacks against our Nation and Operation Enduring Freedom, in response to those attacks, validated The Army Vision and provided momentum to our efforts to transform ourselves into an instrument of national power that provides full spectrum operational capabilities that are strategically responsive and capable of decisive victory. In a little over three years, we have begun to realize The Army Vision – People, Readiness, and Transformation. The transforming Army is enriching as a profession and nurturing to families whose sacrifice has borne the readiness of the force for the past 10 years. Our Well-Being initiatives are our commitment to reverse this trend by giving our people the opportunity to become self-reliant; setting them up for personal growth and success; aggressively investing in family housing; and revitalizing Single-Soldier living space in our barracks. Our manning initiatives have filled our line divisions and other early deploying units to dampen the internal turbulence of partially filled formations and help put a measure of predictability back into the lives of our families.
The Army has carefully balanced the risk between remaining ready for today’s challenges and preparing for future crises. With unwavering support from the Administration, the Congress, our Soldiers, and Department of the Army Civilians, The Army has made unprecedented progress in its efforts to transform. We will achieve Initial Operating Capability (IOC) for the first Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) this summer and demonstrate the increased responsiveness, deployability, agility, verastility, lethality, survivability, and sustainability that SBCTs provide to Combatant Commanders. In a little over three years from initial concept to fielded capability, the SBCTs will allow us to glimpse the potential for acquisition reform in paving the way for delivery of the Objective Force. We have constructed the framework for achieving the Objective Force this decade: a Transformation Campaign Plan with Roadmap; the Objective Force White Paper; the Operational and Organizational plans for the Objective Force Unit of Action; and the Operational Requirements Document for the Future Combat System of Systems.
Additionally, The Army is poised to fill ground maneuver’s most critical battlefield deficiency – armed aerial reconnaissance – with Comanche, a capable, survivable, and sustainable aircraft that is a cornerstone of the Objective Force. All along the way, we have tested our concepts in wargames and experiments, checked and rechecked our azimuth to the Objective Force weekly and monthly, and look forward to a successful Future Combat System Milestone B Defense Acquisition Board decision in May of this year. However, we cannot accelerate Army Transformation without transforming the way The Army does business – from transformation of logistics and acquisition to personnel and installation transformation. Revolutionizing Army business management practices achieves the best value for taxpayers’ dollars; conserves limited resources for investment in People, Readiness, and Transformation; enhances management of personnel systems, installations and contracting; and augments our potential to accelerate arrival of the Objective Force. Changing The Army is first about changing the way we think, and better business practices represent practical application of common sense initiatives that best serve The Army and our Nation.
We are proud of our progress. We are grateful for the strong Congressional support that has helped put The Army on its approach march to the Objective Force. The Army 2003 Posture Statement describes our tremendous progress in Transformation – an orchestrated campaign, synchronized with OSD and Joint Transformation, to achieve the Objective Force and keep America’s Army the dominant landpower in the world.
THE STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT – THE REQUIREMENT TO TRANSFORM
During the last two decades of the 20th Century, information-age technologies dramatically changed the political, economic, and military landscapes. Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and operations in Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo illustrated the requirement for transforming our forces to meet the evolving, strategic requirements of our Nation. Survivable and extremely lethal, our heavy forces effectively met the requirements for which they were designed; yet, they were slow to deploy and difficult to sustain. Conversely, our light forces were rapidly deployable, but they lacked the protection, lethality, and tactical mobility that we seek across the spectrum of military operations. We were successful in winning the Cold War and, as a result, smaller than we had been in 40 years. The Army no longer had the luxury of specialized forces built to confront a single and narrowly defined threat like the Warsaw Pact countries. Today’s challenges are more complex; threats are elusive and unpredictable. The fight against international terrorism has overshadowed, but not eliminated, other potential crises. Tension between India and Pakistan persists; stability between China and Taiwan is tenuous; and concern over North Korea escalates. Threats of transnational terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) – often financed by organized crime, illicit drug transactions, trafficking in women and children, and the sale of arms – further complicate the security environment. Geopolitical trends such as scarce resources, youth population-spike in underdeveloped countries, aging populations in developed countries, and the growth of mega-cities, among others, presage a future strategic environment of diverse and widely distributed threats. Fully appreciating the internal and external difficulties that profound change engenders, we assessed the operational challenges of the new century against the capabilities of our Cold War Army, recognized the opportunity to leverage the inherent combat power of the technological revolution, and set a clear path ahead – The Army Vision. The 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS) reaffirms our military’s highest priority – defending the United States. To do this effectively, we assure our allies and friends; dissuade future military competition; deter threats against U.S. interests, allies, and friends; and decisively defeat any adversary, if deterrence fails. The NSS directs the military to transform to a capabilities-based force ready to respond to unpredictable adversaries and security crises. The Objective Force meets these NSS requirements, and Army Transformation will enhance our ability to conduct rapid and precise operations, achieve decisive results at the time and place of our choosing, and safeguard the Nation’s ability to exercise our right of self-defense through preemption, when required. The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review describes a capabilities-based approach to defense planning that provides broader military options across the operational spectrum, from pre- to post-conflict operations. The force-sizing construct – 1-4-2-1 – takes into account the number, scope and simultaneity of tasks assigned the military: it sizes the force for defense of the U.S. homeland (1), forward deterrence in four critical regions (4), the conduct of simultaneous warfighting missions in two regions (2) – while preserving the President’s option to call for decisive victory in one of those conflicts (1) – and participation in multiple, smaller contingency operations.
THE ARMY – SERVING TODAY, BALANCING RISK, MANAGING TRANSFORMATION Soldiers are the most precise and responsive means to strike and then control enemy centers of gravity on the ground – where people live, work, and govern. American Soldiers are disciplined, professional, and trained for success in diverse missions; they are the foundation of a flexible force that accomplishes its missions in the non-linear battlespace by integrating new, innovative technologies and techniques with current systems and doctrine. Our people adapt under the harshest conditions, whether in the deserts of Kuwait and the Sinai, the mountains and rice paddies of Korea, or the tropics of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.
These demanding commitments mean we must nurture a balance between current and near-term readiness and our Transformation to meet future challenges. The Army has accepted reasonable operational risk in the mid-term in order to fund our Transformation to the Objective Force. To avoid unacceptable risk, we are monitoring closely the current operational situation as we support the Combatant Commanders in the war against terror, conduct homeland defense, and prosecute the long-term effort to defeat transnational threats. We have designed and implemented the Strategic Readiness System (SRS) to provide a precision, predictive tool with which to monitor The Army and make appropriate adjustments to preserve current readiness. Our surge capacity in the industrial base further reduces current risk by keeping production lines warm and responsive. And our first Stryker Brigade Combat Team will provide the Combatant Commanders with a new capability to further mitigate operational risk – even as we transform to the Objective Force.
REALIZING THE ARMY VISION – PEOPLE, READINESS, AND TRANSFORMATION
In 1999, The Army announced its vision to transform into a more strategically responsive force, dominant across the full spectrum of military operations. The Army Vision addresses three essential components: People, Readiness, and Transformation. Soldiers are the heart of The Army, the centerpiece of our formations, and the foundation of our combat power. Readiness remains our overarching imperative; it is the means by which we execute our nonnegotiable contract with the American people – to fight and win our Nation’s wars, decisively. To preserve readiness while rapidly changing, Transformation advances on three major axes: preserving our Army legacy by maintaining readiness and dominance today; bridging the operational gap with Stryker Brigades – the Interim Force; and fielding the Objective Force this decade to keep The Army dominant in the years beyond this decade. Realizing The Army Vision requires the concerted effort of the entire Army, across all components – from warfighting to institutional support organizations. The Army published its Transformation Campaign Plan in April 2001 to synchronize and guide this complex undertaking. The November 2001 Objective Force White Paper describes the advanced capabilities and core technologies needed to build the Objective Force. The Army’s June 2002 Army Transformation Roadmap defines Transformation as a continuous process – with specific waypoints – that increases our contributions to the Joint Force while achieving the six Department of Defense (DoD) critical operational goals. The result will be a more strategically responsive and full spectrum dominant force capable of prompt and sustained land combat operations as a member of the joint force.
In support of the emerging joint operational concepts and architectures, The Army – as the major landpower component – continues to develop ground concepts for a full spectrum, and multidimensional force. These concepts are producing a Joint Force that presents potential enemies with multiple dilemmas across the operational dimensions – complicating their plans, dividing their focus, and increasing their chances of miscalculation. In future joint operations, Objective Force units will be capable of directing major operations and decisive land campaigns with Army headquarters. Objective Force headquarters at all levels will provide the Joint Force Commander (JFC) with seamless, joint battle command and decision superiority. The modularity and scalability of our Objective Force formations will provide an unprecedented degree of flexibility and adaptability to the Combatant Commander – providing the right force at the right time for decisive outcomes.
PEOPLE – OUR MOST VALUABLE RESOURCE
The Army Vision begins and ends talking about people. People are central to everything else we do in The Army. Platforms and organizations do not defend this Nation; people do. Units do not train, stay ready, grow and develop leadership – they do not sacrifice and take risks on behalf of the Nation. People do. Institutions do not transform; people do. People remain the engine behind all of our magnificent moments as an Army, and the well-being of our people – the human dimension of our Transformation – is inextricably linked to Army readiness.
In our Vision, we recommitted ourselves to doing two things well each and every day – training Soldiers and civilians and growing them into competent, confident, disciplined, and adaptive leaders who succeed in situations of great uncertainty. We are dedicated to preparing our Soldiers to lead joint formations, to enabling our headquarters to command and control joint forces, and to providing to those joint formations the capabilities only The Army can bring to the fight: the ability to control terrain and populations.
MANNING THE FORCE
The objective of our manning strategy is to ensure we have the right people in the right places to fully capitalize on their warfighting expertise – this is The Army’s commitment to the Nation, Army leaders, Soldiers, and our families. Correctly manning our units is vital to assuring that we fulfill our missions as a strategic element of national policy; it enhances predictability for our people; and it ensures that leaders have the people necessary to perform their assigned tasks. In FY00, we implemented a strategy to man our forces to 100 percent of authorized strength, starting with divisional combat units. The program expanded in FY01 and FY02 to include early deploying units. In FY02, we maintained our manning goals and continued to fill our Divisions, Armored Cavalry Regiments, and selected Early Deploying Units to 100 percent in the aggregate, with a 93 to 95 percent skill and grade-band match. We remain on target to accomplish our long-term goal of filling all Army units to 100 percent of authorized strength.
RECRUITING AND RETAINING THE FORCE
In 1999, The Army missed its recruiting goals for the Active Component (AC) by about 6,300 inductees, and for the Reserve Component by some 10,000. Our recruiting situation was simply unacceptable, and we committed ourselves to decisive steps and reversed that trend. In FY02, The Active Component achieved 100 percent of its goal in recruiting and retention – for the third consecutive year. The Army exceeded its AC 79,500 enlisted accession target in FY02 and exceeded our aggregate FY02 retention objective of 56,800 Soldiers in all three categories by 1,437. We are poised to make the FY03 accession target of 73,800, and we expect to meet our Active Component FY03 retention target of 57,000. The FY04 accession target is set at 71,500.
The Army Reserve has met mission for the last two years, and its recruiting force is well structured to meet FY04 challenges. The Army Reserve continues to maintain a strong Selected Reserve strength posture at 205,484 as of January 17, 2003, – over 100.2 percent of the FY03 End Strength Objective. Overcoming many recruiting and retention challenges in FY02, the Army National Guard (ARNG) exceeded endstrength mission, accessions were 104.5 percent of goal, and we exceeded reenlistment objectives. To ensure that we continue to recruit and retain sufficient numbers, we are monitoring the current environment – the global war on terrorism (GWOT) and frequent deployments – to determine impact on morale, unit cohesiveness, combat effectiveness, and support of Well-Being programs that draw quality people to The Army. We continue to examine innovative recruiting and retention initiatives. The challenges we face in FY03 and 04 are two-fold: increase recruiter productivity and recruiting resources necessary to maintain recruiting momentum when the economy becomes more robust. Resourcing recruiting pays dividends well beyond accessions in the year of execution. For example, Army advertising in FY02 influenced not only FY02 accessions, but also potential recruits who will be faced with enlistment decisions in FY03 and beyond.
RESERVE COMPONENT FULL-TIME SUPPORT (FTS) Today, more than 50 percent of our Soldiers are in the Reserve Component (RC). The GWOT and Homeland Defense are significant undertakings that demand a high level of resourcing. The RC has been key to our success in these operations. To ensure The Army’s RC continues to meet ever-increasing demands with trained and ready units, The Army plans to increase Full-Time Support authorizations 2 percent each year through FY12, increasing the FTS from the current level of 69,915 to a level of 83,046. The Army recognizes additional Full-Time Support authorizations as the number one priority of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve leadership.
CIVILIAN COMPONENT
As a comprehensive effort to consolidate, streamline, and more effectively manage the force, The Army has begun an initiative to transform our civilian personnel system. High quality, well-trained civilians are absolutely essential to the readiness of our force and our ability to sustain operations today and in the future. Recruiting, training, and retaining a highly skilled, dedicated civilian workforce is critical in meeting our obligations to the Combatant Commanders and the Nation. Aggressive transformation of our civilian force – in which projections through FY05 indicate a 16 percent annual turnover due to retirements and other losses – will ensure we continue to meet those obligations.
As of FY02, The Army employed 277,786 civilian personnel. To forecast future civilian workforce needs with precision, we developed the Civilian Forecasting System, a sophisticated projection model that predicts future civilian personnel requirements under various scenarios. The Army is working closely with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and other federal agencies to demonstrate the power of this system so they can fully leverage its capabilities, as well.
The Civilian Personnel Management System XXI (CPMS XXI) has identified the reforms necessary to hire, train, and grow a civilian component that supports the transforming Army. To achieve this, we have redefined the way civilians are hired, retained, and managed. Mandatory experiential assignments will become the vehicle by which we develop future leaders. CPMS XXI fully responds to current mandates in the President’s Management Agenda and incorporates the results of the Army Training and Leader Development Panels. For example, two initiatives for recruiting well-trained civilians are:
• The Army Civilian Training, Education, and Development System – a centrally managed program that accesses and trains civilian interns and grows a resource pool of personnel who can accede to senior professional positions. • The DoD Appropriations Act for FY02 and FY03 provided Direct Hire Authority for critical, hard-to-fill medical health care occupations and enabled the reduction in average fill-time for these positions to 29 days.
ARMY WELL-BEING
The readiness of The Army is inextricably linked to the well-being of our people, and Army Well-Being is the human dimension of our Transformation. Well-Being responds to the physical, material, mental, and spiritual needs of all Army people – Soldiers, civilians, retirees, veterans, and their families. We recognize the fundamental relationship between Well-Being programs and institutional outcomes such as readiness, retention, and recruiting. To support mission preparedness as well as individual aspirations, Well-Being integrates policies, programs, and human resource issues into a holistic, systematic framework that provides a path to personal growth and success and gives our people the opportunity to become self-reliant. We recruit Soldiers, but we retain families – Well-Being programs help make The Army the right place to raise a family. And when our families are cared for, Soldiers can better focus on their mission – training, fighting, and winning our Nation’s wars, decisively. Soldiers appreciate the Nation’s devotion to them, and they are grateful for the country’s recognition of their service and sacrifices. Recent improvements to the Montgomery GI Bill, Tricare for Life, Tricare Reform, Retired Pay Reform, the 4.1 percent general pay increase, and additional pay increases in 2003, are all important to Soldiers and their families. These initiatives have helped The Army respond to the well-being needs of our people. Army voluntary education programs improve our combat readiness by expanding Soldier skills, knowledge, and aptitudes to produce confident, competent leaders. Other Well-Being initiatives include: Spouse Employment Summit. The Army is developing partnerships with the private sector to enhance employment opportunities for Army spouses and provide improved job portability for them. Spouse Orientation and Leader Development (SOLD). SOLD connects Army spouses and enhances their opportunity to serve as valued leaders who contribute to the readiness and future of The Army and our Nation. Army University Access Online. eArmyU offers Soldiers access to a variety of on-line, post-secondary programs and related educational services. www.eArmyU.com is a comprehensive web-portal widely accessible to Soldiers, including those in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kuwait. In-State Tuition. To level the playing field for access to education opportunities, The Army is working to encourage states to grant in-state status for military personnel and families at public colleges and universities in their Soldier’s state of legal residence and state of assignment. High School Senior Stabilization. This policy enhances predictability by allowing families to request stabilization at their sponsor’s current duty location if they have a child who will graduate from high school during that year. Secondary Education Transition Study (SETS) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). Facilitated by The Army, this agreement among participating school superintendents is their commitment to partner and improve high school transitions for DoD children. Currently, over 110 school superintendents have signed the SETS MOA.
LEADER DEVELOPMENT – TRAINING SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS, AND GROWING LEADERS The Army is a profession – the Profession of Arms. Conducting decisive ground combat operations in defense of the United States and its interests is a core competency of this profession. The development of each member of The Army is the foundation of lifelong devotion to duty – while in uniform and upon returning to the civilian sector. By its nature, our profession is extraordinarily complex and dangerous. The American people entrust The Army with the sacred responsibility to apply lethal force in defense of U.S interests. As such, the Profession of Arms must remain firmly grounded in constitutional values and must constantly change and grow to preserve its competitive advantage in an evolving strategic environment. At all levels, our leaders – military and civilian – must apply their professional knowledge in increasingly varied and unique situations that are characteristic of today’s strategic environment. Ultimately, we must grow professional Army leaders who provide wise and discerning military judgments founded on long experience and proven professional expertise. This capacity is developed only through a lifetime of education and dedicated service – in peace and in war. Soldiers serve the Nation with the full realization that their duty may require them to make the supreme sacrifice for others among their ranks. Soldiers fighting the war on terrorism today, those who will fight our future wars, and those who have fought in our past wars are professional warfighters and a precious national asset. To ensure we remain the greatest landpower in the world defending the greatest country in the world, The Army and the Nation rely upon their unique and hard-earned experiences and skills. To develop the operational skills required to defend the Nation, training must remain our number one priority. The evolving strategic environment, the gravity of our responsibilities, and the broad range of tasks The Army performs require us to review and periodically update the way we educate, train, and grow professional warfighters. The Army’s strategic responsibilities to the Nation and Combatant Commanders now embrace a wider range of missions. Those missions present our leaders with even greater challenges than previously experienced. Therefore, leader development is the lifeblood of the profession. It is the deliberate, progressive, and continuous process that trains and grows Soldiers and civilians into competent, confident, self-aware, and decisive leaders prepared for the challenges of the 21st Century in combined arms, joint, multinational, and interagency operations.
In June 2000, we convened the Army Training and Leader Development Panel (ATLDP). The ATLDP’s purpose is to identify skill sets required of Objective Force Soldier and civilian leaders. Further, ATLDP assesses the ability of current training and leader development systems and policies to enhance these required skills. In May 2001, The Army Training and Leader Development Panel Phase I (Officer Study) identified seven strategic imperatives and generated 89 recommendations. With those, we validated the requirement to transform our Officer Education System (OES) – from the Officer Basic Course through the Command and General Staff Officer Course. Additionally, the panel reconfirmed the value of Joint Professional Military Education II (JPME II) in preparing our leaders for joint assignments. The most significant product of the officer ATLDP is our OES Transformation. ATLDP Phase I (Officer Study) identified three high-payoff institutional training and education initiatives for lieutenants, captains, and majors. The first of these is the Basic Officer Leader Course (BOLC). BOLC will provide a tough, standardized, graduate-level, small-unit leadership experience for newly commissioned officers. The second of these initiatives is the Combined Arms Staff Course for staff officers, and the Combined Arms Battle Command Course for company commanders. Both courses will capitalize on advanced distributed learning and intensive resident training methods. The third initiative, Intermediate Level Education (ILE), will provide all majors with the same common core of operational instruction, and it will provide additional educational opportunities that are tailored to the officer’s specific career field, branch, or functional area. Beyond ILE, Army officers continue to attend Joint or Senior Service Colleges to develop leader skills and knowledge appropriate to the operational and strategic levels of the profession. Completed in May 2002, the ATLDP Phase II (NCO Study) resulted in 78 findings and recommendations extending across six imperatives – Army culture, NCO Education Systems (NCOES), training, systems approach to training, training and leader development model, and lifelong learning. Among others, the ATLDP Phase II recommended building new training and leader development tools for NCOs to replace current methods, as required. The ATLDP Phase III (Warrant Officer Study) culminated with 63 recommendations extending across four crucial imperatives. Recommendations included clarifying the warrant officer’s unique role in The Army and improving the Warrant Officer Education System to ensure timely training and promotion. The Civilian Training and Leader Development Panel (Phase IV) study results are complete, and we are forming the Implementation Process Action Team (I-PAT). I-PAT will identify actions The Army must take to increase the professional development of our civilian workforce. At the senior leader level, The Army initiated the Army Strategic Leadership Course (ASLC). The program is aimed at teaching principles of strategic leadership, with emphasis on visioning, campaign planning, leading change, and Transformation. To date, we have completed twelve of the foundation courses and three alumni courses, training the majority of The Army’s general officers.
READINESS – WINNING OUR NATION’S WARS HOMELAND SECURITY (HLS)
Defending our Nation – abroad and at home – against foreign and domestic threats is fundamental to The Army’s legacy, and our warfighting focus provides capabilities relevant to HLS requirements. HLS missions range from traditional warfighting competencies that defeat external threats to the non-combat tasks associated with supporting civil authorities in domestic contingencies. Operation Noble Eagle mobilized over 16,000 Army National Guard Soldiers to protect critical infrastructure. These Soldiers assisted the Department of Transportation in securing our Nation’s airports while also playing a vital role in securing our Nation’s borders. The Army is moving forward to provide one Civil Support Team to each state, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act for FY03. The Civil Support Teams support Incident Commanders and identify Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) agents and substances, assess current and projected consequences, advise on response measures, and assist with appropriate requests for additional support. To date, OSD has certified 30 of 32 teams, and The Army is working to establish additional teams. Collectively, the certified teams have performed 890 operational missions since September 11, 2001. The Army remains committed to HLS, dedicating Active Component (AC) and Reserve Component (RC) staffs to focus on training, doctrine, planning, and execution of DoD missions in support of civil authorities.
MISSILE DEFENSE
Robust Missile Defense is a vital warfighting requirement that protects both our homeland and our deployed forces. Missile Defense includes far more than a reactive capability to shoot down missiles in their reentry phase. Missile Defense requires a coherent system of sensors; battle command; weapons systems; and active, passive, proactive, and reactive operational concepts, all aimed at destroying enemy missiles – not only during their reentry phases. Missile Defense must also be able to destroy enemy missiles on the ground, before they launch or during their boost phase once launched. Missile Defense is inherently a joint capability to which The Army is a major contributor. The Army is deploying and employing Ground Mobile Defense assets to contribute to this warfighting capability, accelerating the fielding of the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC3) system, and developing directed energy weapons that will bring new defense measures to The Army and the Nation. We are postured to assume control of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program in FY03 and intend to begin fielding by FY12.
MEADS is a transformational program of Objective Force quality and a significant improvement on Patriot’s capabilities. It will be more mobile and more deployable (C-130 capable) than Patriot and cover a 360-degree radius to Patriot’s 120 degrees. It will be effective against low radar, cross section cruise missile targets; and require only 30 percent of Patriot’s manpower. And MEADS will be more accurate and more sustainable than Patriot.
CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION
In Section 1412 of Public Law 99-145, Congress directed the DoD to destroy the United States’ chemical weapons stockpile. In turn, the Secretary of Defense delegated management of all chemical munitions disposal to the Department of the Army. On November 29, 2000, the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System, using incineration-based technology, completely destroyed the last stockpiles stored at the Atoll, and closure operations began in January 2001. The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility has incinerated 44 percent of the chemical agents and 81 percent of the munitions stored there. Disposal operations at these two sites destroyed 30 percent of the total U.S. chemical weapons stockpiles. Construction of incineration facilities at Anniston, Alabama; Umatilla, Oregon; and Pine Bluff, Arkansas, is complete. Systemization activities are on-going at Aberdeen, Anniston, Umatilla, and Pine Bluff. The plan to accelerate the disposal of bulk agents using a neutralization process at Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana, has been approved. Anniston and Aberdeen are scheduled to start destruction in second quarter FY03, and Newport is scheduled to begin in first quarter FY04. To comply with treaty agreements and the Congressional mandate, we must complete the destruction of these weapons by 2007. The treaty allows for a one time, five-year extension to this deadline. With continued funding and minimal schedule changes, we will safely destroy the U.S. stockpile of lethal chemical agents and munitions at eight existing CONUS sites.
TRAINING THE FORCE
In October 2002, The Army released Field Manual (FM) 7-0, Training the Force. Synchronized with other field manuals and publications being updated to respond to changes in Army, joint, multinational, and interagency operations, FM 7-0 is the capstone doctrinal manual for Army training and leader development. It provides the developmental methodology for training and growing competent, confident Soldiers, and it addresses both current and future Objective Force training requirements.
We are transforming the way we fight future wars, and The Army is participating fully in a DoD-sponsored program to transform how forces train to fight. This effort involves four major initiatives: building upon existing service interoperability training; linking component and joint command staff planning and execution; enhancing existing joint training exercises to address joint interoperability; and studying the requirement for dedicated joint training environments for functional warfighting and complex joint tasks. The Army is scheduled to host the first joint National Training Center (NTC) event at Fort Irwin, California, in May 2003. During June 2003, the U.S. Army Forces Command will execute the second joint NTC event – JCS exercise Roving Sands.
During the late 1990s, funding for the recapitalization and modernization of The Army’s Combat Training Centers was reduced, eroding their capability to support their critical missions. Additionally, the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System equipment and current force instrumentation systems have become difficult to maintain. The Army’s Combat Training Center modernization program will ensure that our premier training areas (NTC at Fort Irwin, Combat Maneuver Training Center in Germany, the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, and the Deep Attack Center of Excellence near Gila Bend, Arizona) are modernized to provide high quality, realistic, full-spectrum joint training. To address these problems, The Army will invest nearly $700 million over the next six years to modernize these training centers.
OPTEMPO
In accordance with Congressional directives, The Army developed a new methodology to prepare budget requests that accurately reflect Operations and Maintenance requirements. In the report submitted in July 2002, The Army outlined updated processes that ensure consistency in reporting of tank miles and reflect requirements and execution with more precision. Management controls initiated in FY01 to prevent migration of OPTEMPO funds to other areas were highly successful and remain in effect. The Army’s combined arms training strategy determines the resourcing requirements to maintain the combat readiness of our forces. For the Active Component, The Army requires 800 ground OPTEMPO miles per year for the M1 Abrams tank and corresponding training support; the Active Component flying hour program requires an average of 14.5 live flying hours per aircrew each month. Both Army National Guard and the Army Reserve aircrew training strategies require 9.0 hours per crew each month. The ARNG ground OPTEMPO requirement is a composite average of 174 miles in FY04, and the Army Reserve (USAR) ground OPTEMPO requirement is 200 tank-equivalent miles in FY04. While this describes The Army’s training strategy, actual execution levels from unit to unit have varied depending upon factors such as on-going operations, safety of flight messages, and adequate manning of combat formations. To this end, The Army has fully funded its AC ground OPTEMPO requirement, while its AC flying program is funded to its historical execution level of 13.1 flying hours. The RC air and ground OPTEMPO are similarly funded to their execution levels, rather than their requirement. Although The Army has not always been able to execute the training strategy, we have taken steps to have all units execute the prescribed training strategy in FY03, FY04, and beyond.
FORCE PROTECTION AND ANTI-TERRORISM Force protection consists of those actions to prevent or mitigate hostile actions against Department of Defense personnel and includes family members, resources, facilities, and critical information. In the war on terrorism, the area of operations extends from Afghanistan to the East Coast and across the United States. Naturally, Force Protection and Antiterrorism measures have increased across Army installations in the Continental United States (CONUS) and overseas. Findings from the Cole Commission, the Downing Report on the Khobar Towers bombing, and Army directives to restrict access to installations have all led to thorough assessments by the Department of the Army Inspector General, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, and commanders. Our efforts focus on improved force protection policy and doctrine; more rigorous training and exercises; improved threat reporting and coordination with national intelligence and law enforcement agencies; enhanced detection and deterrence capabilities for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) threats; increased capabilities and protection for access control; and expanded assessments of Major Commands (MACOM) and installation force protection programs. Both operational and installation environments rely upon secure, networked information infrastructure to execute daily enterprise-wide processes and decision-making, so the parameters of force protection include contemporary and evolving cyber threats, as well. The Army’s Information Systems Security Program (ISSP) secures The Army’s portion of the Global Information Grid, secures the digitized force, and supports information superiority and network security defense-in-depth initiatives. ISSP provides the capability to detect system intrusions and alterations and react to information warfare attacks in a measured and coordinated manner. To the greatest extent possible, it protects warfighters’ secure communications – from the sustaining base to the foxhole.
Soldiers, Active and Reserve, are heavily engaged in force protection and anti-terrorism missions. Soldiers guard military installations, nuclear power plants, dams and power generation facilities; tunnels, bridges, and rail stations; and emergency operations centers. During the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, nearly 1,500 ARNG Soldiers provided security, and Soldiers guarded key infrastructure sites during Super Bowl XXXVII in January 2003. Over 12,500 Reserve Component Soldiers are currently mobilized for Operation Noble Eagle to fulfill Force Protection requirements, and in February 2003, over 8,000 Army National Guard Soldiers will support Air Force security requirements – a requirement that could reach 9,500 Soldiers. Security of detention facilities and detainees at Guantanamo Bay Detention – a long-term detainee mission – requires approximately 1500 Army personnel, 50 percent of whom are Military Police. Army Reserve Internment and Resettlement battalions on 6-month rotations impact military police availability to CONUS Force Protection requirements.
SUSTAINMENT
The Army is revolutionizing its logistics process. One initiative, the Single Stock Fund (SSF), redirected more than $540 million worth of secondary items from stocks to satisfy customer demands between May 2000 – SSF inception – and November 2002. During that same period, we redistributed more than $218 million worth of secondary items from the authorized stockage levels to meet higher priority readiness requirements. By extending national visibility of stockage locations and capitalizing inventories into the Army Working Capital Fund, we reduced customer wait time by an average of 18.5 percent. The SSF will continue to reduce inventory requirements and generate even more savings for The Army by creating greater flexibility for the management of inventories. Another initiative, the National Maintenance Program (NMP), enhances weapon system readiness, reliability, and availability rates by bringing Army Class IX repair parts to a single national standard. Ultimately, increased reliability will reduce overall weapon system Operating and Support cost. Additionally, the NMP centralizes the management and control of Army maintenance activities for components and end items. NMP will produce appropriately sized Army maintenance capacity that still meets total maintenance requirements.
STRATEGIC READINESS REPORTING
The National Defense Authorization Act for FY99 requires the Secretary of Defense to implement a comprehensive readiness reporting system that objectively measures readiness to support the NSS. The Army’s Strategic Readiness System (SRS) responds to and provides a baseline in achieving this critical initiative. SRS is a precision readiness measurement tool that provides Army leadership with accurate, objective, predictive, and actionable readiness information to dramatically enhance resource management toward one end – strategic readiness to defend the United States. The Army Scorecard – a product of SRS – will integrate readiness data from the business arena and the operating, generating, and sustaining forces of both the Active and Reserve Component. Army Scorecard methodology focuses on four critical areas: People – investing in Soldiers and their families; Readiness – maintaining the support capability to the Combatant Commanders’ operational requirements; Transformation – transforming The Army into the Objective Force; and application of sound business practices. SRS markedly improves how we measure readiness. It gathers timely information with precision and expands the scope of the data considered. We are further developing this system to leverage leading indicators and predict trends – solving problems that affect readiness before they become problems, from well-being to weapons platforms. SRS will help enable The Army preserve readiness to support Combatant Commanders, invest in Soldiers and their families, identify and adopt sound business practices, and transform The Army to the Objective Force.
INSTALLATIONS
Army installations are our Nation’s power projection platforms, and they provide critical training support to The Army and other members of the joint team. Additionally, Soldiers, families, and civilians live and work on Army installations. The quality of our infrastructure directly affects the readiness of The Army and the well-being of our Soldiers, families, and civilians. The Army has traditionally accepted substantial risk in infrastructure to maintain its current warfighting readiness. However, a decade of chronic under funding has led to a condition in which over 50 percent of our facilities and infrastructure are in such poor condition that commanders rated them as “adversely affecting mission requirements.” Our facilities maintenance must improve. Over the past two years, with the help of the Administration and Congress, The Army has begun to rectify this situation with significant increases in funding and innovative business practices. These efforts have been dramatically successful as we continue to correct a problem that was 10 years in the making. Thus, in an effort to prevent future degradation of our facilities, The Army has increased its funding for facilities sustainment to 93 percent of requirement beginning in FY04. TRANSFORMATION OF INSTALLATION MANAGEMENT (TIM) Recognizing the requirement to enhance support to commanders, the Secretary of the Army directed the reorganization of The Army's management structure. On October 1, 2002, The Army placed the management of Army installations under the Installation Management Agency (IMA). IMA is a new field-operating agency of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management (ACSIM). Its mission is to provide equitable, efficient, and effective management of Army installations worldwide to support readiness; enable the well-being of Soldiers, civilians and family members; improve infrastructure; and preserve the environment. This new management approach eliminates the migration of base operations funds to other operational accounts below the HQDA level. It also enables the development of multi-functional installations to support evolving force structure and Army Transformation needs. The Army is poised to capitalize on opportunities TIM gives us to provide excellence in installations.
Two programs that significantly increase the well-being of our Soldiers and their families are the Barracks and the Family Housing programs. The Army established the Barracks Upgrade Program (BUP) in the late 1990’s to improve single Soldiers’ housing conditions. Through 2002, we have upgraded or funded-for-upgrade 70 percent of our permanent party barracks to Soldier suites that consist of two single bedrooms with a shared bath and common area. The Army will continue the BUP until all permanent party barracks achieve this standard.
With the strong support of Congress, The Army established the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) for our families. This program capitalizes on commercial expertise and private capital to perform a non-core function for The Army – family housing management. The program provides greater value to The Army by eliminating the housing deficit at our first eleven sites, while leveraging a $209 million Army investment into $4.1 billion of initial private development. The Army's privatization program began with four pilot projects and will expand to 18 active projects by the end of FY03. Pending OSD and Congressional approval, 28 projects are planned through 2006 that will impact over 72,000 housing units or 80 percent of Army Family Housing in the United States. By the end of 2007, we will have the programs and projects in place to meet the OSD goal of eliminating inadequate family housing. We will accomplish this goal through RCI and increased Army investment in family housing Military Construction (MILCON) at non-privatized installations. The Reserve Component (RC) enhances RCI through real property exchange authority that is only available to the RC. This legislative authority allows the exchange of RC owned property with public or private entities and has a tremendous potential to improve future Reserve Component infrastructure at no governmental cost.
The Army has also aggressively reduced its financial burden and physical footprint by disposing of 34 percent of its facilities from a 1990 high of 116 billion square feet. The Army anticipates that the Congressional FY05 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) authority will permit additional appropriate reductions. BRAC will enable The Army to dispose of excess infrastructure and realign the remaining facilities with the requirements of the transforming Army and the Objective Force. BRAC will also allow The Army to re-allocate resources from closed or realigned installations to other high priority requirements.
The Army continues to improve its utilities infrastructure by divesting itself of non-core utility systems’ operation and maintenance through privatization. As of December 2002, we had privatized 64 of the 351 systems in the program, and we have an additional 104 presently under negotiation.
As part of our Army Knowledge Management (AKM) – described later in more detail – we are modernizing our Installation Information Infrastructure – infostructure – to support a network centric, knowledge-based Army. The Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program (I3MP) executes a multi-year, $3.2 billion program for upgrades to optical fiber and copper cable, installation of advanced digital equipment, and upgrades to Defense Global Information Grid gateways. This program will ensure worldwide, high-speed data connectivity at Army installations. To date, we have completed 22 of 95 CONUS installations and initiated upgrades at four installations outside of the continental United States (OCONUS). We plan to complete I3MP in 2009.
TRANSFORMATION – CHANGING THE WAY WE FIGHT
The Army is fundamentally changing the way we fight and creating a force more responsive to the strategic requirements of the Nation. We are building a joint precision maneuver capability that can enter a theater at the time and place of our choosing, maneuver at will to gain positional advantage, deliver precise joint fires and, if necessary, close with and destroy the enemy. The Objective Force is an army designed from the bottom up around a single, networked, integrated C4ISR architecture that will link us to joint, interagency, and multi-national forces. It will be a rapidly deployable, mounted formation, seamlessly integrated into the joint force and capable of delivering decisive victory across the spectrum of military operations. Consolidated, streamlined branches and military operational specialties comprised of professional warfighters will be poised to transition rapidly from disaster relief to high-end warfighting operations. The Objective Force and its Future Combat System of Systems will leverage and deliver with precision the combat power of joint and strategic assets. It is a capabilities-based force that rapidly responds to the requirements of the strategic environment in which our Soldiers will be the most strategically relevant and decisively capable landpower – no matter the mission, no matter the threats, no matter the risks. In the final analysis, The Army’s combat power does not wear tracks or wheels – it wears boots. No platform or weapon system can match a Soldier’s situational curiosity and awareness. It is the Soldiers’ ability to discern and to think, their ingenuity and resourcefulness, their endurance and perseverance, and their plain grit that make them the most reliable precision weapon in our inventory. Soldiers remain the centerpiece of our formations. To help guide our Transformation efforts, The Army leverages lessons-learned from extensive experimentation and wargaming. We are working to harness the power of knowledge, the benefits of science and technology, and innovative business solutions to transform both the Operational and Institutional Army into the Objective Force. The Army’s annual Title 10 Wargames provide critical insights for developing the Objective Force. Likewise, results from joint experiments – Millennium Challenge ’02 and other service Title 10 Wargames like Global Engagement, Navy Global, and Expeditionary Warrior, to name a few – also inform these efforts. The Army is fully committed to joint experimentation as a means to examine and assess Objective Force contributions to the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of joint warfare. The Army has established a joint / Army Concept Development and Experimentation (CD&E;) Task Force to ensure that Army CD&E; efforts are synchronized with joint CD&E.; This task force makes certain that joint experiment lessons-learned inform the design and development of the Objective Force. This year, The Army’s Title 10 Wargame – co-hosted by Commander, Joint Forces Command – will focus on the Joint Force that will fight the next battle. Linked to Joint Forces Command’s Pinnacle Impact 03 experiment, it will be conducted within the context of a future 1-4-2-1 global scenario and the emerging Joint Operations Concept. The Army is committed to these efforts, and in this budget we have nearly doubled last year’s funding of these exercises. Joint, interagency, multinational, and Army warfighting experiments provide invaluable opportunities for The Army to experiment with innovative approaches to warfighting and to test new tactics, techniques, procedures, organizations, processes, and technology. In Millennium Challenge 2002, the largest joint experiment in U.S. history, The Army demonstrated four vital capabilities it brings to the joint fight: • the ability to attain and maintain information superiority (knowledge) • the ability to conduct decisive maneuver to enable dominant joint maneuver • the ability to defeat the opposition in an anti-access environment through rapid entry and employment capabilities • the ability to support and sustain rapid combat power efficiently by reducing the operational and tactical logistics footprint To evaluate the effectiveness of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) concepts for battalion and company operations in a Joint Force, The Army employed a SBCT unit during Millennium Challenge. Less than four weeks after Stryker vehicles were delivered to the first unit at Fort Lewis, the unit demonstrated rapid air and sealift deployability and integrated into the exercise well. Additionally, when given a mission on short notice to support a Marine Corps unit in ground operations, the SBCT unit demonstrated its agility and versatility.
BALANCING RISK AS WE MANAGE CHANGE
Balancing risk is integral to Army Transformation. To maintain current readiness while we transform, we are managing operational risk: risk in current readiness for near-term conflicts with future risk – the ability to develop new capabilities and operational concepts that will dissuade or defeat mid- to long-term military challenges. The Army has accepted risk in selective modernization and recapitalization, and we continue to assess these risks as we balance current readiness, the well-being of our people, Transformation, the war on terrorism, and new operational commitments. Since 1999, The Army has terminated 29 programs and restructured 20 others for a total savings of $12.8 billion. These funds were reallocated to resource the Stryker Brigades and essential Objective Force research and development.
In Program Budget 2004 and its associated Five-Year Defense Plan (FYDP), The Army has generated an additional $22 billion of savings by terminating 24 additional systems and reducing or restructuring 24 other systems. To accelerate achieving the Objective Force capabilities and mitigating operational risk, The Army reinvested these savings in the development of transformational capabilities in these and other programs: • Future Combat System - $13.5 billion • Precision Munitions - $3.2 billion • Sensors and Communications - $2.3 billion • Science and Technology - $1.1 billion • Missile and Air Defense - $1.1 billion The operational risk associated with the decreased funding for certain current programs is acceptable as long as we field Stryker Brigades on schedule and accelerate the fielding of the Objective Force for arrival, this decade. We will continue to reassess the risk associated with system reductions and related organizational changes against operational requirements and the strategic environment.
AN INFORMATION ENABLED ARMY Achieving the full spectrum dominance of the Objective Force requires changing the way we fight. Changing the way we fight requires a holistic transformation of Logistics, Personnel, Installation Management, Acquisition, Aviation, business practices – every aspect of The Army must transform. The Objective Force requires innovative changes and out-of-the-box ingenuity in the way we take care of our people and manage the information and material that enhances their readiness and answers their needs – both personal and professional, at home and in the short sword warfight at foxhole level. Simply put, we cannot achieve the Objective Force capabilities without leveraging the full potential of the technological advances that our Nation’s industrial base and science and technology communities are developing. The Army has consolidated management of Information Technologies (IT) into a single effort – Army Knowledge Management (AKM). AKM capitalizes on IT resources unique to our Nation and harnesses them for Transformation, for The Army, and for the Combatant Commanders.
