Army, Guard Chiefs Strive For Compromise As Subordinates Quarrel
Breaking Defense (USA) - March 13, 2014
Author/Byline: Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Poor General Ray Odierno. While the Army Chief of Staff took pains this morning to have only kind words for the National Guard (watch the video clip), one of his subordinates’ statements about the Guard’s post-9/11 performance keeps causing angry ripples across the Internet.
Those ripples started spreading after I reported what Maj. Gen. John Rossi told me: that Guard brigades couldn’t handle the most tactically complex counterinsurgency missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since we published Rossi’s remarks, our website and that of military satirist, cartoonist, and commentator Doctrine Man, who picked up the story, have been deluged with hundreds of comments pro and con. There are active-duty troops who feel relieved that someone has finally attacked a sacred cow, and there are Guard soldiers who feel personally insulted. Those comments include a fierce refutation by Maj. Gen. David Baldwin, no less a figure than the state commander of the California National Guard.
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Big Army For Big Wars? Yes! GCV? Probably Not.
Breaking Defense (USA) - November 13, 2013
Author/Byline: Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Army won’t be able to replace its ’80s-vintage M2 Bradleys, like the one shown here in Iraq, for years to come.
PENTAGON: Do we still need a big Army that can wage big wars? Hell yes, the Army generals say. Will the Army get a new Ground Combat Vehicle to replace the 1981-vintage Bradley Fighting Vehicle that currently carries foot troops into battle? Probably not for a long, long time.
That’s my assessment based on an exclusive interview with two two-star generals and a senior Army civilian: the director of the Army office supporting the Quadrennial Defense Review, Maj. Gen. John Rossi; the G-s director of “force development,” Maj. Gen. Robert Dyess; and the director of the Army’s QDR office, Timothy Muchmore.
“There’s still a requirement out there to defeat a large ground army,” Maj. Gen. Rossi said. “It’s a deterrent. The ground force is going to be the singular force capable of what we term ‘regime change.’”
Wait, “regime change”? I asked. Isn’t that the phrase the now-reviled Don Rumsfeld used to describe the US invasion of Iraq?
“I don’t know if you can find another term for it,” Rossi replied.
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“We have a long-term view that we’ll get through this period,” said Maj. Gen. Rossi. “The Army will still be here.”
“It would be easy to sit back and say, woe is us,” Rossi went on. “But we’re not sitting on our hands, saying ‘let’s just get through it…. I don’t see it as ‘a hurricane’s coming, so get in the shelter and we’ll stick our heads out in five years.’”
The Army will still modernize its equipment, still deploy “regionally aligned forces” to build up allies abroad, and, for that matter, still fight in Afghanistan through at least the end of 2014. It’s just that, for the foreseeable future, the only dramatic change the Army will make is to get smaller.