By Ann Roosevelt
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla.–The Army must focus on improving how it connects, survives and builds its systems to meet the challenges of an environment of persistent engagement, according to the Vice Chief of Staff.
The focus needs to be on “connectivity, commonality and survivability,” Gen. Peter Chiarelli told the Association of the United States Army Institute for Land Warfare Winter Symposium here Feb. 26.
In increasingly dynamic operations that can change and escalate in minutes, it is the enlisted and junior officers who are dealing with the situation on the ground, he said. “It is no longer realistic that all or the majority of game-changing decisions be made at senior levels of command.”
For example, in the last few years, new Army technology has pushed “significantly” more information and analysis to troops on the ground for immediate use or further analysis, Chiarelli said.
Distributed and collaborative command and control feed into the “strategic corporal” and “three block war” concepts that former Marine Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak talked about a decade ago.
The Army must improve, since information is power, he said, and the service must make sure it is pushing power down to the lowest level where it’s most needed.
“We are committed to the network and to networking every soldier,” Chiarelli said.
Commonality also needs to be a focus, he said. For example, the Stryker family of vehicles includes 10 variants with a high degree of commonality within the fleet that leads to reduced cost and wait time for parts, improving efficiency. The Future Combat Systems manned ground vehicles are being developed on the same principle of commonality, he said. The Army must drive for still more commonality.
Survivability also is a focus because the service has learned the value of protection to the “confidence and capability” of soldiers, Chiarelli said. Survivability means programs such as the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles have made a difference. On Feb. 20, the 10,000th vehicle arrived at Camp Liberty. The program that reached that number in less than two years “[has] saved untold numbers of arms, legs and lives,” Chiarelli said.
“Warfare as we know it has changed,” he said. The “three block war” Gen. Krulak spoke of has become a reality. It impacts across the entire Army in how it trains, equips budgets and modernizes.
The Army has made progress with sweeping changes in policy and processes, he said. But more needs to be done.
Industrial base development half a century ago made sense and was an acceptable procurement system measured in decades. Such development kept pace with technology advances, too.
However, Chiarelli said, in an information-driven environment, it can’t take 10 years to field a system.
The ability to use commercial off-the-shelf technology means procurement can be done in months, and support a 75 percent solution and impact success on the battlefield.
The Army needs a system that integrates the best of the normal budget cycle and supplementals, he said. The Defense Department, Congress and industry must work together to fix the problems.
“Flexibility will be a key to success,” Chiarelli said.