Defense Policy

Opinion: U.S. Army Must Develop A Force for Modern Warfare

Aviation Week: The world is on fire and the U.S. Army’s response is to announce plans to rebuild its Cold War-era, 10-division force with all the trimmings. Whenever the Army is pressed for new ideas, senior leaders seem inclined to dust off yet another version of the Future Combat System (FCS).

FCS cost $20 billion dollars and produced nothing of value for the Army, although it did redistribute that money to defense contractors, retired generals and, indirectly, members of Congress via campaign donors. The outcome is today’s confused and decayed American ground-combat force, burdened with an anachronistic and expensive single-service organization for combat that includes too many echelons of command and control. Most important, the Army cannot deploy a single formation in under six months that can fight effectively.

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