STATEMENT
BY
MAJOR GENERAL (P) JOHN M. CURRAN
DIRECTOR, FUTURES CENTERS
U.S. ARMY TRAINING AND DOCTRINE COMMAND
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
REGARDING
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TRANSFORMATION
26
FEBRUARY 2004
Mr.
Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee,
as Director, Futures Center, United States Army
Training and Doctrine Command, I welcome the opportunity
to testify before you as we transform an Army that
is at war.
We are aggressively
meeting challenges today that we will continue
to face tomorrow. Rather than focusing on
a single, well-defined threat or geographic region,
the Army is developing
a range of complementary and interdependent joint
capabilities that will enable future Joint Force
Commanders to dominate any adversary or situation
across the full range of military operations. A
capabilities-based approach to concept and force
development, as articulated in the 2001 Quadrennial
Defense Review, is the major focus of our transformation.
The imperative
for America's Army to change rapidly has never
been more compelling than today. The reasons
have been and are visible, visceral and real - we've
seen them on television as the events of 9/11 unfolded
in nearly every workplace and home. That
single event constituted a strategic inflection
point. It revealed the outline of a new kind
of threat and shadowy enemy that the Army would
be called upon to engage in Afghanistan, Iraq and
around the world. This new kind of attack
broke from past practices and assumptions that
were the foundation of US defense planning. The
enemy did their threat assessment much as we do
ours. They concluded that they would fail if they
were to engage the US in a head-to-head conventional
fight like Iraq did in 1990-1991 or if they tried
to avoid US land power like the Former Republic
of Yugoslavia did in Kosovo.
Our enemies developed
new strategies focused on new techniques and operational
methods. Using dysfunctional nation-states
as sanctuaries, terrorists, rogue actors and non-state
adversaries sought to exploit the tools of modern
societies and science to attack where the US was
most vulnerable - directly against our homeland
and interests abroad. Pictures of attacks
against the US like the USS Cole bombing and destruction
of our embassies in Africa further underscored
their change in tactics. Their persistent
efforts to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction
are a specter that we must not overlook.
Our
collective responsibility in the defense of this
nation is to intertwine the capabilities that
all Services will bring to bear as a shield for
democracy. The end-state of our work will
be a joint interdependent force that maximizes
Service complementary and reinforcing effects
while minimizing their vulnerabilities and redundancies. Although
each Service contributes its own unique capabilities
to joint operations, each dominating its respective
domain, joint interdependence is critical to
improving Joint Force effectiveness. Joint
Interdependence is achieved through the deliberate,
mutual reliance of each Service on the capabilities
of other Services or agencies to optimize overall
effectiveness of the Joint Force. Because
of this imperative, the Army has forged a solid
relationship with Joint Forces Command and its
sister Services. While embodying attributes
of the joint force, as stated in joint doctrine, "The
Army is the nation's decisive land warfare force. The
Army's contribution to the Joint Force Commander
is the power to exercise direct, sustained, and
comprehensive control over the land, its resources,
and its people."
To
fully realize the contribution of Army capabilities
to the joint fight, we are an active participant
in the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development
System (JCIDS) and the Joint Requirements Oversight
Council (JROC) for articulating Army requirements. This
process identifies, assesses and prioritizes "Born
Joint" military capabilities. Although
complex at times, this process produces capability
proposals that consider the full range of doctrine,
organization, training, materiel, leadership
and education, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF)
solutions in order to advance joint warfighting.
To fight effectively
in a new operating environment and engage a more
elusive enemy, the Army must accelerate its transformation
efforts. The transition from the current
to the future force must happen at a pace beyond
that which the institutional Army moved in the
last years of the 20th century. The
picture of what the Army needs to be is clear.
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The Army of the future must be agile to
conduct simultaneous, distributed, non-linear operations.
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The Army of the future must be lethal to
fight at multiple austere entry points.
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The Army of the future must be networked to
self-synchronize through shared, enhanced situational
awareness from global and robust Joint Command
and Control and Intelligence.
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The Army of the future must be precise to
directly attack centers of gravity that are the
enemy's source of strength.
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The Army of the future must be rapidly deployable to
have a small logistics footprint with robust reachback
for required support.
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The Army of the future must be modular to
give Regional Combatant Commanders the capability
to apply decisive land power at the right place
at the right time.
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The Army of the future must be born Joint - a
member of an interdependent team -- so that the
synergy of joint operations is ready to unleash
the full military power of the US on unknowable
battlefields around the globe.
Transforming our
Nation's military capabilities while at war requires
a careful balance between sustaining and enhancing
the capabilities of current forces to fight wars
and win peace while investing in the capabilities
of future forces. We
must craft new solution sets that generate technologically
sound, sustainable and affordable increments to
our capabilities. Joint
concept development
and experimentation,
science and technology
(S&T) investment,
and future force design
will enable interdependent
network-enabled warfare
and ensure future capabilities
meet the requirements
of tomorrow's Joint
Force. The Joint
Team will use a process
of experimentation
to identify solutions,
capabilities gaps,
all supported by a
robust analytical process
which incorporates
innovative practices-including
best commercial practices,
collaborative environments,
modeling simulation
and electronic business
solutions.
At the same time,
we will take advantage of a high rate of current
operations and learning to drive change in our
current force. New ideas are gathered and
explored to solve pressing near-term operational
challenges; they are also extended to describe
how future joint operational capabilities may be
improved. We will look for opportunities
to accelerate the fielding of proven technologies
to enhance the capabilities of our current forces
at war.
This continuous
process forms the basis for transformation. Joint
Concepts may be revolutionary, driving new technology;
or evolutionary, building upon newly discovered
knowledge; or innovative, applying off-the-shelf
technologies to the development of future concepts. Our
transformational path may seem very foreign compared
to past methods of change. We must accelerate
our change from the current Army now winning the
Nation's wars and ensuring our security, to the
Army of the future that will be even more relevant
and ready. We cannot focus only on material
solutions - weapon systems that were visible and
measurable indices of military power and were our
focus during the Cold War.
We must harness
all supporting enablers to be successful on our
transformational path:
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Visionary doctrine that describes how we
will fight.
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New kinds of organizations that can rapidly
go, fight and win anywhere.
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Innovative training within the Army and
in joint and combined arenas that prepares each
individual soldier for success.
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Comprehensive programs to grow future leaders who
can function in ambiguous situations.
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Continued energy at accessing and retaining the
right personnel through our recruiting
process.
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Developing the right kind of facilities that
help us train and retain the very best Army for
the future.
The U.S. Army's
Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is the institutional
center that is the launch platform of the two Army's
core competencies: (1) Train and equip soldiers
and grow leaders; and (2) provide relevant and
ready land power capabilities to Combatant Commanders
and the Department of Homeland Security as part
of the Joint Team. We are the first and primary
step in accessing, training and equipping soldiers
and growing leaders. We determine the required
capabilities for the land force which HQDA, the
Joint Staff and OSD put forward for Congress to
resource.
TRADOC is the primary
point of entry into the Army's Future Force development. Our
core competencies span the entire spectrum from
creating intellectual capital in ideas to defining,
experimenting and deploying fielded capabilities. Chief
among our partners is the Joint Forces Command. We
have built a rapport and trust that underpins a
great team. The Army's Future Force will
evolve to meet Joint rather than Service defined
requirements, and we are the Army's agent for joint
concept and capabilities development.
In 2003, for the
first time the Army and the U.S. Joint Forces Command
entered into a partnership and co-sponsored Unified
Quest (UQ03), the Army's premiere transformational
wargame which goes back many years. This
now joint wargame explores not only Army concepts
but also Joint and inter-Service concepts in a
future force whose capabilities must be "born joint". This
leap in transforming our military through application
of spiral concept development also creates an environment
where both U.S. Joint Forces Command and the Army's
Service component, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command (TRADOC), will be able to examine several
unique embedded experiments that are specific to
each organization. Following in the footsteps
of UQ03, this year's wargame, UQ04, will set a
new precedent-breaking path by extending the exercise
play from that of UQ 03. Game organizations
will examine scenarios that involve major combat
operations, stability operations, transition to
post-conflict and network-centric command structure
in the year 2015. We are also engaged with
our sister Services in their wargames like the
Navy's UNIFIED COURSE 04, the Air Force's UNIFIED
ENGAGEMENT VII, and the Marine Corps' JOINT URBAN
WARRIOR.
As the architect
of the future, TRADOC's Futures Center is the Army's
scout. We are continually assessing the future
and our assessment is driven by real-time guidance
and direction from policy documents like the National
Security Strategy and the Strategic Planning Guidance. TRADOC's
Futures Center is the nexus of Army innovation. Few
organizations have a greater degree of influence
on how the Army thinks, acts, trains and fights. The
Futures Center at TRADOC, while relatively new,
is the lead action agent to develop the Future
Force. We have subsumed the mission and roles
of the Objective Force Task Force and we are building
on the foundation of their successes. We
are also enabling soldiers in the current fight
by determining capabilities gaps and integrating
the spiraling of discreet Future Force capabilities
that add significantly to the Current Force. Too
often we think of these spirals as materiel solutions,
but our efforts span the breadth of doctrine, organizations,
training, materiel, leader development, personnel
and facilities. This is a very challenging
mission but we are uniquely postured to do the
job.
At the same time,
we fully recognize that we cannot do this alone. Partnering
with the Department of Defense, joint community,
other Services, industry, academia, our Allies
and the Army family is critical to our success.
The Army, therefore,
faces the supreme test of all Armies: We
must rapidly adapt to a future we did not foresee
and we must do this in the midst of fighting a
war with forces deployed globally; a challenging
mission that mandates a new transformation methodology.
Further, successful
transformation requires clear direction. Many
avenues of change will present themselves as we
delve more deeply into these complex issues, and
a clear azimuth is necessary to avoid veering off-course. To
transform quickly, the Chief of Staff for the Army
has sponsored several focus areas that each require
exploration and immediate action. Each focus
area has General Officer oversight and places special
emphasis on incorporation of joint capabilities,
spiral development of emerging technologies and
inclusion of future force initiatives where they
enhance combat effectiveness. The guiding
tenets of these activities are a joint focus, modularizing
the field force, building a network capability
and enhancing capabilities of the individual soldier.
As we explore and
prioritize opportunities, we need to assess possible
solutions from a Joint and Expeditionary perspective. Our
military has no peer with respect to combining
technologies and tools in all dimensions of warfare. The
synergies we generate give us a military advantage
that overwhelms our adversaries. This is
a good news story that improves with each increment
of increased Joint Integration, but we can do better. We
need to actively seek opportunities to leverage
the capabilities of the Joint Team.
Bereft of organic
strategic lift, the Army depends largely on the
Air Force and the Navy for strategic deployment. The
challenge is to extend such Joint Interdependence
to the tactical level. The range of weapon
systems and capabilities extend beyond their "dimension
of origin" making it both possible and advantageous
to synchronize their effects at the lowest possible
level. Our enemies will attempt to protect
themselves by locating in the most austere and
inaccessible regions of the world. Possessing
redundant and separate capabilities complicates
our operations rather than enhancing mission execution. We
must be able to seamlessly employ all the Joint
tools at the point of contact. We cannot
and should not go it alone.
The Army and the
other Services have addressed the spirit of Joint
Interdependence in recent joint training initiatives. The
Joint Forces Command's Joint National Training
Capability (JNTC) exercise trains America's Joint
forces. The JNTC links Service training facilities
and ranges into a real-time, around the world joint
training environment effectively bridging communication
gaps to apply the full range of multi-level joint
capabilities into joint exercises. These
exercises also bring to bear the mutual supporting
relationships of the Services and explore the seams
and gaps in operational settings. Never before
has this type of training been executed incorporating
live, virtual and constructive maneuver and support
making Joint Interdependence come alive.
Effective change
is continual. We will have intermediate objectives
along the transformation path, but we will not
reach a point where we declare that we have in
fact fielded the Future Force. Rather, our
forces will always represent a hybrid of capabilities. The
goal is to continually strive to pull mature capabilities
into the Current Force so that over time our Army
more closely resembles the vision of the Future
Force.
The Army is aggressively
moving forward to restructure into more modular,
capabilities-based forces to give the Combatant
Commander a more robust array of options. The
Army will continue to support operational deployments
and rotations while restructuring itself. Changing
the Army organization structure will be logical
and account for future force concepts. To
accomplish this, forces at the brigade level will
restructure to enhance expeditionary and campaign
qualities of the Army to better integrate into
joint and coalition operations.
This new capabilities-based
Army will result in a net enabled force. It
will have Battle Command capabilities to leverage
and enable interdependent network-centric warfare
within Joint, Interagency, and Multinational full
spectrum operations. Accelerating the Future
Force network will enhance the Joint Command capabilities. New
networked forces will leverage an infrastructure
that provides for end-to-end movement of data,
information and knowledge. This will provide
connectivity between vertical and horizontal forces,
across Joint/coalition forces and Army echelons
down to the soldier. This new pathway will
facilitate the Army's ability to adaptively plan
within the Joint Force operating environment. Networked
soldiers will have real-time and reliable information
through a collaborative environment in a global
information grid enabling the Joint Force to maintain
information superiority. Capitalizing on
actionable intelligence, networked forces will
have the capabilities to filter and disseminate
information that are integral to a common operational
picture.
While technology
and training inform us on what the future force
will use to fight the next war, it is the individual
soldier who is the centerpiece of our efforts and
remains indispensable to the Joint team. Flexible,
adaptive, and competent Soldiers infused with the
Army's Warrior Culture fight wars and provide hope
for world peace. An American Soldier as a
Joint Warrior represents the ultimate linkage between
sensor and shooter and confirms the irrefutable
maxim that quality is more important than quantity. War
is a test of wills and the human dimension is its
most pivotal aspect. Our philosophy of equipping
the Soldier as opposed to manning the equipment
is enduring. When we enhance the Soldier's
lethality, protection and situational awareness,
we enable individual initiative at the point in
which battles and wars are won.
In
summary, we're taking on the biggest challenge
an Army can face; transforming while at war. Our
transformation path is marked by some clear signposts - experiment
widely with our Joint and Service counterparts,
never be content with only materiel solutions,
aggressively use spiral development to get elements
of the future force into the hands of the soldier
on today's battlefields and ensure our innovation
results in "born joint" capabilities that contribute
to successful mission accomplishment at any point
on the globe across the spectrum of conflict. The
window of opportunity to do this is finite; we
must not tire in our efforts.
It has been said
many ways: Soldiers are our credentials;
The Soldier is the centerpiece of our formations
and the American Soldier represents the ultimate
linkage between the U.S. Army and the Joint Force
Combatant Commander. This is not a coincidence. The
United States Army Training and Doctrine Command
exists to keep the American Soldier the preeminent
symbol of both American military power and values. This
is more than just a paper statement or something
that hangs on the wall for show, it's a level of
commitment and challenge that drives us as we show
up for work each day.
