There is a lot of discussion right now about what the future of our Army will look like. The discussion can be whittled to two camps: those that want the Army compartmentalized into specialized units trained to deal with particular threats and those that think the Army should have the versatility to rapidly adapt to a shifting environment. I would like this to be an open discussion, with both camps weighing in on their opinions. It’s a discussion that must be debated publicly before we commit to a course of action. Secretary Robert Gates recently challenged the Army to organize and prepare for asymmetric warfare and advising and training foreign armies, which has fueled much of the debate. In full disclosure, I’m with the full-spectrum crowd. And I’m in good company.

GEN Martin Dempsey, Commanding General of TRADOC, feels the same way. He recently gave a speech on the subject at the Joint Warfighter’s Conference in Virginia Beach, Virginia. During that speech, he spoke about the importance of training and maintaining an Army that is capable of adapting to the “uncertainty, complexity, rapid change, and persistent conflict” as we look at the operating environment of the future. During his speech, General Dempsy made the following observation:

The operating environment of the future will be even more complex than today. The threats we will face will be increasingly hybrid, more decentralized, and highly networked. In turn, we will have to become increasingly comfortable with complexity and decentralization and will have to embrace a network mentality. There will be no silver bullet solutions to the complex problems of our future and certainly no solutions that will rely on single instruments of national power. I believe one of our truly innovative military leaders, LTG Stan McChrystal, had it right when he said, “to defeat a network, you have to be a network”. In our case, the network of which I speak is the network of Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational partners.

The future American military must be able to handle any future conflict we commit ourselves to. The flexibility of our current military ensured success in the two very complex operating environments of Iraq and Afghanistan. Because our military is not specialized beyond the separation of the various services, we have been able to adapt – though with difficulty at times – to all the mission changes thrown at us. While painful, our Army made the transition from combat operations to peacekeeping operations to rebuilding operations. If we had relied on various specialized forces to handle each of the different phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Can you imagine the difficulty in in continuous operations when troops have to turn over an operating environment every time that environment shifts to a phase of conflict or peace? It’s bad enough trying to maintain continuity between units as they rotate our on an annual basis.

There are many proposals on how we should specialize units in the Army. One proposal would divide the Army into units specializing in one of the following three disciplines: conventional warfighting, counterinsurgency and stabilization operations, and homeland defense. According to a Congressional Research Services report given to Congress two days prior to the inauguration of President Barack Obama,

The warfighting component would consist of traditional mechanized and armored units and conventional support units (artillery, attack helicopters, etc.) needed for combat operations against conventional forces. The second component would combine Army special forces with additional support units that have been trained specifically for counterinsurgency and stabilization operations. Units in this second component would have language and cultural training and would be able to conduct law enforcement, governance, and infrastructure repair operations when U.S. civilian capacity is absent or available only on a limited scale. The third and final component would consist primarily of Reserve units and would be organized, trained, and equipped for homeland security missions.

The problem with the CRS report is that it is incredibly biased towards convincing Congress to agree to specializing the Army. Creating specialized units would be costly and cumbersome. Missions would have to be prioritized in accordance with the availability, training and experience of units capable of handling those particular missions. We would not be able to force project as easily because the enemy has a say in when the operating environment changes. They “get a vote” so to speak in when and where we fight.

During General Dempsey’s speech, he recounted his personal experiences to emphasize the importance of developing future leders who will “thrive in complexity and be comfortable with this phenomenon of increasing decentralization” of capability and decision-making, as we’ve done in both theaters of combat today. Our junior officers have been given more authority to manage their battlespace than any previous conflict in recent history. It’s not uncommon for a Captain or Lieutenant Colonel to be wholly responsible for all decisions made in their AO, sometimes comprising hundreds of square miles or more.

If our leaders are forced to focus on one aspect of warfare, they are not well-rounded leaders. Dempsey also addressed this during his speech:

[We] must develop leaders by challenging them with “complexity” and “extended time.” We “raise the bar” on the leader in training by adding the complexities of societal, religious, tribal, and economic factors—and occasionally by adding mass—and we develop leaders who can anticipate the adaptations and transitions an enemy will make during the course of an extended campaign. That is, over extended time.

Think of it this way…if, as conventional wisdom suggests, necessity is the mother of invention, then, in our terms, complexity is the mother of innovation.

And we have done that. During my most recent two years as an Observer/Controller at the National Training Center, I personally saw how our training scenarios changed to reflect the current operating environment in theater. With each passing rotation, the way we trained troops rotating to the sandbox adapted as necessary. Initially, we focused almost primarily on force on force engagements. By the time I left, we were training units on everything from kinetic fighting to assisting with peaceful elections to counter-insurgency. And the technologies we utilized changed as well to ensure that the training was as realistic in California as the real thing in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In my opinion, specialized units would unfairly place our troops at a disadvantage and possibly even place their lives in danger. What does a “counterinsurgency and stabilization unit” do if a conventional war breaks out between the occupied lands in which we are located and a neighboring nation? That unit hasn’t been trained as a “conventional warfighting unit”. Or turn the tables, how does a “conventional warfighting unit,” untrained in counterinsurgency and stabilization make the sudden shift after a short fight? Specialized units would have to be pre-positioned for an unknown length of time. Again, we alone can’t decide the length of a particular phase of combat operations.

It’s important that we have this debate and that it happens publicly. There are forces on both sides of the argument – especially the specialized unit side – that are already lobbying in Congress. The CRS report is proof of that. I want to leave you with a final quote from General Dempsey that he gave during his speech to the Joint Warfighter’s Conference:

We will never predict the future environment exactly right which means we’ll probably provide inadequate guidance on occasion, our doctrine may lag, and our modernization programs may provide equipment somewhat late to need, but if we develop leaders who can adapt to the uniqueness of the conditions they encounter, they will carry us through an unpredictable future.

While I was at USCENTCOM first as Deputy and then as Acting Commander, we observed the conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Hamas as well as Russia’s conflict with Georgia and we saw the hybrid threats that will characterize future conflict. Combinations of traditional, irregular, and disruptive forms of contact. Cyber attack as a discrete phase of operations. Militias organized, trained, equipped, and fighting as regular forces. Regular forces conducting kinetic operations in support of Information Operations.

Future conflicts will introduce an array of threats that defy simple categorization. We have at times tried to categorize threats in discrete operational themes such as conventional or unconventional, regular or irregular, high intensity or low intensity, traditional, terrorist, or criminal. However, the world is just not that accommodating.

Now, let the discussion begin!