The group tasked with drafting recommendations for the future size and structure of the Army has just a handful of weeks left to finalize its report so that it can be vetted for security concerns in time for its Feb.12 publication deadline.
The National Commission on the Future of the Army (NCFA) met for its penultimate meeting Thursday and now faces the unenviable task of drafting its report without knowledge of the Army’s fiscal year 2017 budget request and in the midst of a resurgent global campaign against international terrorism.
NCFA Vice Chairman Thomas Lamont, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs from 2009 to 2013, said the draft report needs to be submitted for security clearance soon after the first of the year to be printed and published by the congressionally mandated Feb. 1 deadline.
The Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays will take a substantial chunk of time remaining for writing the report, shaving the available working time to less than three weeks, Lamont said.
“We have seen the NDAA and we know, within some range, what FY ’17 looks like and it’s causing us to pause, let’s put it that way,” Lamont told reporters Thursday following an NCFA meeting outside Washington, D.C. “Our authorization wording was to look at and come within ‘anticipated resources’–an ill-defined term–but we obviously can’t just hand the Congress a bill.”
“We have to take into consideration what is going on in the world and what’s happened most recently since the establishment of this commission,” he added. “That, too, gives us some pause in our recommendations just looking at our security outlook.”
Fortunately for the commission, members have coalesced around a set of largely agreed-upon recommendations for the Army’s future size and force structure, Lamont said. Even some of the issues expected to spark controversy have proven less contentious than anticipated, he said.
The commission was created almost entirely as a reaction to the Army’s plan to restructure its rotorcraft fleets by moving Boeing [BA] AH-64 Apache helicopters from reserve to active units while retiring entirely the Bell Helicopter [TXT] OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed scout, among other aircraft shuffling. Army brass calculate the so-called Aviation Restructure Initiative (ARI) could cut $12 billion up front and another $1 billion annually because they would ultimately own about 700 fewer aircraft.
Photo: U.S. Army
Former Pentagon Comptroller and NCFA Commissioner Robert Hale said the cost implications of the ARI and other proposals to supply the Army’s requirements for operational attack and scout helicopters are “murky.” At present, he said, the active Army does not have enough Apaches to perform attack and reconnaissance roles while maintaining the 1:2 deployment-to-dwell ratio.
The commission is considering various options, including the ARI, a National Guard counterproposal and alternate organizational structures that would have active and reserve aviation units share both Apaches and Lockheed Martin [LMT] UH-60 Black Hawks, Hale said.
“We’re looking at not only force-structure options that affect the number of Apaches and where they are located, but also…organizational options,” he said. “As we work to arrive at a recommendation for the final report…we have considered several criteria, wartime capacity being a key one…effects on Apaches to function in key wartime scenarios, wartime surge and peacetime deployments.”
The Air Force currently has a “reserve-associate” program where reserve and active airmen share equipment. Hales suggested the Army could model its multi-component units on the Air Force program, but that it may have limited applicability “because in a number of cases, the Army pilots need their own helicopters so they can train and join operations.”
“But there may be other approaches that would work in terms of greater use of multi-component units,” Hale said. “We think they are worth looking at first because they could improve training and readiness by bringing to bear the strengths of different organizations, but also because they raise the potential for better integrating the regular Army with the Guard and Reserve moving forward to what some call the One Army concept.”
The subcommittee has not reached a final decision on the force structure or organizational issues surrounding the ARI, Hale said.
Regardless of the recommended solution for the Army’s aviation requirements, the report likely will propose continued if not greater integration of the active Army with the Reserve and National Guard. Commission Chairman and retired four-star Gen. Carter Ham said the overwhelming theme of public comments to the commission has been institutionalizing the operational experience the reserve components have gained over the past 14 years of war and strengthening the Guard and Reserve as a readiness pool to allow rapid expansion of active forces in a crisis.
A letter to the commission signed by more than 40 senators had that as its main message, saying “the only realistic way” for the Army to “prevail in any fight…is to invest in our reserve component in order to provide the requisite warfighting functions and operational capacity.”
“We also want to emphasize our concern about providing depth across all missions,’ the letter said. “We believe the Army National Guard is the combat reserve of the Army and we believe it is the most cost-effective way to ensure combat capabilities and capacity for the nation…We believe the Reservists and Guardsmen have participated and should continue to participate in the full range of mission both as individuals and as units around the world.”