ZakCarter
04-29-2012, 09:36 AM
General Ray Odierno (chief of staff of the Army), Foreign Affairs, May/June 2012 — Opening:
After six months as chief of staff, I can see clearly that the coming decade will be a vital period of transition for the U.S. Army. The service will have to adjust to three major changes: declining budgets, due to the country’s worsened fiscal situation; a shift in emphasis to the Asia-Pacific region; and a broadening of focus from counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and training of partners to shaping the strategic environment, preventing the outbreak of dangerous regional conflicts, and improving the army’s readiness to respond in force to a range of complex contingencies worldwide.
(2) Macgregor’s response
General Odierno’s article is a noble attempt to make everyone inside the beltway happy. It gives evidence for an awareness of the Army’s financially constrained future, but no expressed understanding of the need for fundamental change to cope with it. Some of the statements invoke the memory of General Malin Craig, former Army Chief of Staff (CSA) from 1935-1939. Craig preceded Marshall who became CSA on 1 September 1939.
Craig was equally well intentioned and sought money for the Army, but Craig was unable to address the critical need for sweeping change inside the Army in terms of force design, mechanization and effective training, as well as education for future combat. As a former Cavalry officer, Craig proved incapable of dismantling the Army’s large and irrelevant horse cavalry and horse drawn artillery formations.
Read the rest of the article at http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/38050/
After six months as chief of staff, I can see clearly that the coming decade will be a vital period of transition for the U.S. Army. The service will have to adjust to three major changes: declining budgets, due to the country’s worsened fiscal situation; a shift in emphasis to the Asia-Pacific region; and a broadening of focus from counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and training of partners to shaping the strategic environment, preventing the outbreak of dangerous regional conflicts, and improving the army’s readiness to respond in force to a range of complex contingencies worldwide.
(2) Macgregor’s response
General Odierno’s article is a noble attempt to make everyone inside the beltway happy. It gives evidence for an awareness of the Army’s financially constrained future, but no expressed understanding of the need for fundamental change to cope with it. Some of the statements invoke the memory of General Malin Craig, former Army Chief of Staff (CSA) from 1935-1939. Craig preceded Marshall who became CSA on 1 September 1939.
Craig was equally well intentioned and sought money for the Army, but Craig was unable to address the critical need for sweeping change inside the Army in terms of force design, mechanization and effective training, as well as education for future combat. As a former Cavalry officer, Craig proved incapable of dismantling the Army’s large and irrelevant horse cavalry and horse drawn artillery formations.
Read the rest of the article at http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/38050/