Home » Land » QDR Watch: Army Force Structure

QDR Watch: Army Force Structure

By Colin Clark Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 4:49 pm
Posted in Land, Policy

It could have been the big story of the Quadrennial Defense Review — major increases or decreases in the number of Army soldiers and changes to how the service is organized to fight.

But it looks as if the move by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to bring on 22,000 troops over three years may trump any longer-term plans to beef up or rebuild the service, according to a service official familiar with the deliberations. Instead, it looks as if Gates wants to see how things go in Iraq and Afghanistan and provide the Army with a bit of a cushion to get through the next three years. That cushion is desperately needed, as the Army suicide rates, tales of troubled troopers and broken marriages testify.

In fact, this relatively small growth may considerably tax the service. The Army can comfortably accept infusions of about 10,000 new troops each year, according to the official. Any more than that and budgets and people have to increase at Training and Doctrine Command. They would need to boost the number of drill sergeants and find places for those soldiers to live.

Barracks loom as a major constraint today. The last base closure round left the Army left with so little room to grow that it can’t really accept a major force structure increase without the creation of new bases. “BRAC has completely hemmed in the Army’s ability to grow,” the service official said.

These new troops won’t be built into the Army. Instead they will serve as pool to cushion the service and help it field units that are at least 95 percent of their official full strength. At the same time, Gates said the money for this will have to be stripped from programs, showing just how tight the zero sum budgeting has become.

One of the interesting back stories to the added troops is that Gates was presented a range of options, to add anywhere between 9,000 and 22,000. “Gates immediately approved the larger size,” our source said. He did so even though it will cost about $100 million through Sept. 30, and about $1 billion in the next fiscal year. Gates did not offer any estimates beyond that.

This all happened against the backdrop of OSD suggesting at the beginning of the QDR that the Army might have too many heavy brigades. You aren’t likely to hear many of those complaints any more.

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	Mike Burleson August 5th, 2009 at 6:46 am Funny how flippantly we will spend many billions on a new navy battleship, or a handful of stealth fighters, or a R&D program which may or may not bear fruit decades in the future. Yet we shriek in horror when spending the same amount on the troops, who we need the most.
	Drake1 August 5th, 2009 at 10:20 am Money for manpower takes away from money for hardware. At least that’s the mindset of the hardware minded guests on programs like Vago Muradian’s “This Week in Defense News”.
	Charles D Phillips, LtCol, USAF (Ret) August 5th, 2009 at 3:53 pm The news these days is sure turning me into a cynic! Anyway — where are they gonna put all these new people? I have stories from as far back as Nov 2007 that we were ceasing to pull troops out of Europe — due to lack of buildings for them in the US. I know that Ft Bliss, El Paso, has been expanding rapidly to replace antique buildings and give adequate classroom space, etc. Our CONUS bases have been cut and the remaining ones are full. And where are the trainers going to come from? What vehicles and equipment will these new folks use for training? We can expand the military but this is a slow process — don’t expect an overnight fix. On the other hand, this is good news to my brother who is coming up for O-6 in the Army this year! More people means more senior officers. Army promotion rates are already better that AF or Navy and should only get better.
	pfcem August 5th, 2009 at 5:22 pm More proof that Gates has no clue what he is doing.
	ArmyDad Baker1 August 5th, 2009 at 7:40 pm You win a war by eliminating enough of the enemy that they quit. Collateral damage happens. If that is unacceptable, get the hell out and stop wasting your own people and resources on a war you don’t intend to win. We have the power but so-called “leaders” lack the will. Two choices: get out and be prepared to take the occasional hit at home, or FIGHT TO WIN. All that’s happening now is that a guerilla enemy is bankrupting us. I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if a small asteroid slammed into the Persian Gulf and took out the entire Middle East. But that’s just me.
	Chief Houston August 5th, 2009 at 8:52 pm We have to look at the economic reality of bringing on the draft. Housing, training etc. are all part of the true cost of maintaining a standing Army. What is the cost of not directing our youth to support of their country in wartime? What is the cost of not understanding the complete warfighter support system from start to retirement, disability or end of tour. Your after mission agencies like the VA have to be bonded with DOD and DHLS in rating systems, ancillary support for severely disabled veterans past and present, not just after 9/11, jobs for veterans in GO’s and related NGO’s at an expanded rate. This is an equation that must be balanced in order to sustain this country from future threatcons. Need proof? Why is it that the disability rating system has not been upgraded since the 1950’s except for a sometime cost of living adjustment that under Bush was less than the military rate that it was supposed to based on? You can’t have it both ways, either you look at the total environment for the warfighter or you do not. We care more for our fighting systems than we do for the people that use them. This has to change in any QDR.
	Jon Davis August 6th, 2009 at 2:02 am Remember, missions take 3rd place in line behind defense corp profits and careers,always has.always will.
	Tony Conner August 6th, 2009 at 8:39 am The post cold war drawdown under former president Climton led to the reduced size of all the services. We weren’t going to fight anymore manpower intensive conflicts. Now the DOD wants to increase the size of the Army until we pull out of Iraq and the Stan, then another drawdown? This yo-yo approach to fielding the Army has led to the current manpower crisis. Many good troops got the ax during the last drawdown, now the moral is low due to over extended units.
	The Cenobyte August 6th, 2009 at 10:25 am I just saw the motor pool at Ft. Picket in Blackstone VA yesterday. There is at least a whole Heavy Armor Div worth of tanks, a Mech Inf div worth of Bradleys, hundreds of trucks, HMMWVs, M113s of all kinds, etc. Rapped up in white plastic for storage. That’s 30,000 men worth of equipment right there. As to housing, there is enough room on that base to house at least a inf div without upgrading anything (Although it’s not the nices places) and there are at least another div worth of housing that would just need upgrades. So I guess Ft. Picket doesn’t count, or the empty spaces at Ft. Lee. And those are just the bases I see a lot.
	Charles D Phillips, LtCol, USAF (Ret) August 6th, 2009 at 11:00 am Cenobyte has a good point — and anyone who has visited a Reserve/National Guard training center might agree. Having visited North Fort Hood in Texas, there are lots of vehicles and facilities there. Many of them might be available. Complicating that are the valid reasons for having facilities for Reserve Forces training — having vehicles there avoids the need to haul a unit’s vehicles to training. You just bring the people. Having permanent buildings means that training is easier — people are not trying to sleep in tents in the summer in Texas! They are not trying to train under a tree in the summer as well. So — some facilities might be re-activated, some vehicles and equipment might be re-purposed. But we would have to avoid the timeless complaint then that the Reserve Forces have inadequate training facilities, inadequate equipment, etc. if all of their facilities and equipment is given to the Active Duty.
	pennst98 August 6th, 2009 at 1:50 pm How the heck do you know the needed personnel increase in ground forces when no one can clearly articulate what our goal/end game is in Afghanistan? Determine our desired outcome; develop an overarching strategy. That should be our immediate focus. Once you tell me what you want, we can discuss how to get there. (weapons/troops/tactics)
	Navybrat111 August 6th, 2009 at 3:20 pm I guess BRAC worked. All the services trimmed assets because of it. Now if we want to grow those services we will have build the facilities we need. That’s better than using barracks and hangars built before the Korean war.
	Keeg August 6th, 2009 at 4:41 pm I find it so sad that we went through over a decade of drawdown and now they turn around and say the services are over extended. Personally, I think the generals need to be replaced with someone who has some damn common sense and is not a political animal.
	Stephen August 6th, 2009 at 5:23 pm “The post cold war drawdown under former president Climton led to the reduced size of all the services.“ +++ Anyone who’s been around knows that the draw down was a result of BRAC which was signed into law by GHWB (Bush 41). The reasoning in establishing BRAC was to realign the US military posture as a result of the demise of the USSR. Up to that point, the US military was designed and funded to wage war against the USSR and it’s proxies. With the disolution of the main body of those potential enemies, it made good sense at the time to reduce expenditures on defense against a threat that no longer existed.
	Rhyno327 August 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am Unless we can eliminate the prob in PAK, we are p-ssing in the wind. That does not in ANY way reflect on the job our guys/gals are doing. i mean, if ur gonna go, in for a penny, in for a pound.…
	Daniel Russ August 11th, 2009 at 11:14 am BRAC was a Republican initiative. Period. It had bipartisan support. But it was Bush’s idea and policy. It was called by Bush 41 “The peace dividend”. Daniel Russ Civilianmilitaryintelligencegroup.com
	Clay Sikes August 24th, 2009 at 7:23 pm We have been busy preparing our community for two plus years for another brigade. Millions have been spent on Ft. Stewart and nearby Hinesville, yet Gates announcement ‘killed’ the new ‘promised’ 5th Brigade. Stewart is poised to handle many new troopers as is partner-community Hinesville. New schools, roads, water, sewer, nearby communities anxiously await and stand prepared for 4000 new soldiers who were suppose to start arriving in October of 2009.