The conclusion of the mission in Iraq and transition in Afghanistan means the Army now has the opportunity to “to make sure that we are an integral part of all of our combatant commanders,” and reinforce service support to combatant commanders, the Chief of Staff said.

Gen. Raymond Odierno said, “Looking at how we are going to regionally align forces and headquarters from Corps level and below, we will work with them to develop a series of engagement tools that include a combination of assigned and rotational forces to conduct training and multi-lateral exercises, as well as develop partner capacity, provide planning capability for future contingency operations.”

At the AUSA Winter Symposium in Florida, Odierno said he sees this alignment as a model for a future tailored approach to create a more expeditionary Army, “which will add flexibility and predictability for the COCOMs and with our sister services across the Joint Force.”

The Army has reached out to its Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) to examine and recommend changes as part of its work in building the land force of 2020.

“I’m very excited about it,” Gen. Robert Cone, TRADOC commanding general, said at the symposium. “I think in dealing with this young generation of warfighters they’re very interested in maintaining their energies in the world that they live in and not necessarily in notional training scenarios.”

Cone said right now “we’re working through the specific mechanisms: assign, align, apportion and working through the combatant commander in terms of what that would be.”

For the Army, those words have specific meanings, troops are “apportioned” to meet a combatant commander’s war plan with a specific joint meaning, said Rickey Smith, director, Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) Forward, part of TRADOC. “Aligning” forces have a training focus on the combatant commander’s theater engagement plan.

Cone said, in general, regionally aligning forces would not mean that units stationed in the United States would be under the combatant commander’s control, rather on a day to day basis, the units would be under Army control.

Additionally, don’t expect the G-8 Force Developer, Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, to need more money to equip soldiers or units if the recommendation is to move toward regionally aligned forces, or need to send liaison officers to the COCOMs to find how he can help match resources with units that will be deployed.

The office might have to spend funds on something like the jaws-of-life for specialized consequence management teams for a unit aligned to U.S. Northern Command, but equipping smaller units with specialized skills would not be hugely expensive, Cucolo said at a recent Pentagon briefing.

“As the Nation transitions forces out of Iraq and then Afghanistan, the demand and supply of formations comes more in balance and troops can be rotated to other COCOMs needs met by regionally aligned forces,” Smith said.

While Cone said TRADOC would not support the idea of specialized units to meet Army missions, aligning forces does not create a specialized unit.

Troops would still have to train on combined arms maneuver and wide area surveillance, Cucolo said.

The brigade combat team would still have to have the ability to conduct offensive, defensive and stability operations, though for a cycle it would focus on a specific combatant command and its priorities.

Smith said, for example, what would a National Guard brigade work on over the next two years? If it was aligned with U.S. Southern Command with its huge area of operations, the unit would then train and prepare to help that command where it’s needed to help fulfill theater engagement plans, security cooperation plans, and even possibly relieve stress on special operations by augmenting their training missions.

“It’s all based on the combatant commander’s view,” Smith said. “The combatant commander establishes the priorities and employs regionally aligned forces to build relationships and conduct missions.” 

The Army is beginning to identify units to align to combatant commands, Smith said. In Fiscal Year 2013 U.S. Africa Command will most likely be the first combatant command to receive aligned forces.