In a war against a near-peer competitor like Russia, the Army would be at “high military risk” given its decreasing size and inability to invest in current and future weapon technologies, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told lawmakers April 7.
“We have sufficient capacity and capability and readiness to fight counterinsurgency and counterterrorism,” Milley said during a Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing. “High military risk refers specifically to what I see as emerging threats and potential for great-power conflict and I’m specifically talking about…high risk of not being able to accomplish all the tasks in the time necessary and the cost in terms of casualties.”
Milley was responding to comments earlier in the week made by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to a SASC subcommittee that the Army is “outranged and outgunned by many potential adversaries.” Milley said the characterization was partially true, but does apply to the relative ground-based offensive and defense capabilities of Russia and Army forces in Europe.
“To say many is probably an overstatement,” Milley said of McMaster’s characterization of the Army and its potential adversaries. “But to say that the gap is closing … between major great-power adversaries and the United States in terms of ground forces? Absolutely true.”
Since taking over as the Army’s top officer last year, Milley has made near-term readiness his top priority. Modernization and research and development accounts have been slashed to pay for that readiness to fight tomorrow. End strength already is on a slide to 450,000 active-duty soldiers – 420,000 if sequestration were to go into effect – and was thus not cut further to pay for readiness in the fiscal 2017 budget request.
The Army is too small to handle its current global missions and fight a major conflict, Milley said. A 980,000-troop total Army is stretched to execute its global commitments. Milley said a total Army of about 1.2 million soldiers with a little more than 500,000 active duty troops would be adequate to fulfill current obligations and handle a potential high-end contingency should one arise.
“But it’s not just numbers,” Milley said. “It’s the readiness of that force. It’s the technological capability of that force. It’s how that force plays into the joint force, how we fight, the doctrine. It’s the sum total of all those things. We tend to laser-focus on size. I think that’s critical…But there are other factors to calculate beyond just the number of troops.”
Modernization has been the major bill payer for other Army needs as its budget has shrunk over the past decade. Since 2008 the Army’s modernization account has been cut nearly 75 percent, Milley said. Research and development likewise has fallen by 50 percent over that time.
“If we think 10 years ahead and 10 years behind, if that trend continues, that is not good,” Milley said. “In addition to readiness, we have got to invest in our modernization and [research and development] over time,” Milley said. “If we continue to attrite that as we have over the last eight years. … That will result in a bad outcome five to 10 years from now.”
Milley said the relative degrees to which the Army is outranged on the ground by peer nations is a “mixed bag,” but Russia in particular has artillery and tanks that are superior to what the Army currently has stationed in Europe, where the Army’s fundamental task is to deter Russia from further aggression and incursion against NATO.
Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all have tiered, integrated air defense systems that are increasingly sophisticated and “complex, very lethal and very robust,” Milley said. The systems pose a threat to Navy and Air Force fixed wing aircraft and to Army and Marine Corps helicopters, he said.
“If we got into a conflict with Russia, then I think it would place U.S. soldiers’ lives at significant risk,” Milley said. “With either direct or indirect fire systems, ground based systems – tanks, artillery, those sorts of things, it’s close. It’s not overly dramatic. But it is the combination of systems.”
For that reason, the Army has initiated continuous rotations of armored brigades, equipped with M1 Abrams tanks, to Europe. It also has launched a program to enhance the survivability and lethality of the Stryker fighting vehicles it already has stationed on the continent.
“The Stryker just can’t match a tank, no matter which way you cut it. It’s a good vehicle. It’s a great vehicle,” Milley said. “But it’s not going to go toe-to-toe with any tank. So that’s what Gen. Breedlove has. He has a Stryker regiment over there and a paratroop regiment. So he’s got light infantry, foot infantry and Strykers and very little else over there. That’s why we are rotating in armored brigades.”