The Army will begin regionally aligning forces next year to meet the Obama administration’s revised global strategy that focuses on the Asia-Pacific region and to be more adaptive to the needs of combatant commands, Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno said yesterday.
The alignment will also capitalize on the lessons of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and will be centered around creating more agility and building on special operations capabilities and intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions, Odierno told reporters at the Pentagon.
“With operations in Iraq complete and an ongoing transition in Afghanistan, we will have the opportunity to adapt this process to be more wide-ranging, especially as we rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region,” Odierno said. “As such, we will implement a progressive readiness model for both the active and reserve components to be more responsive to all of our combatant commanders.”
“It’s important to me that we continue to apply the lessons of more than 10 years of continuous combat,” he said. “We will be leaner. We’ll be a more agile Army that is an adaptive, innovative, versatile and ready component of the joint force.”
Odierno said the Army plans to conduct a “pilot” operation next year when a brigade combat team from the 10th Mountain Division is to execute the concept in coordination with Africa Command, which is based in Stuttgart, Germany.
President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta unveiled the new strategy in January geared at beefing up the U.S. presence in the Asia Pacific while keeping a focus on the Middle East, an approach widely viewed as putting special emphasis on the Navy and Air Force. But Odierno said the Army has a “vital role” in the new policy.
“The regionally aligned forces concept will be especially important in the Asia- Pacific region as we move forward,” he said, adding that part of the world is “home to seven of the 10 largest armies.”
The Army is planning the alignment even as it plans to reduce troop levels with the conclusion of the wars. By the end of fiscal year 2017, the service will see the force draw down to 490,000 active members from the current 570,000.