The Army Is Out Of The Conventional Warfare Business

ComNavOps rarely comments on Army issues but this item ties directly back to what we’ve repeatedly discussed about the focus of the Navy and the military in general.  I’ve stated that under CNO Greenert the Navy has become focused on the low end of the threat spectrum and peace time operations such as humanitarian assistance instead of the Navy’s primary responsibility which is to wage and win high end combat.  Well, here’s an example of that loss of focus in the Army.  From the DoD website (1),

“The NTC [National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA] has changed its focus from conventional warfare, Work [Deputy Defense Secretary] said, to hybrid and counterinsurgency warfare.”

That’s just stunning.  The Army is no longer focused on conventional warfare.  This at the same time that Russia is actively gobbling up countries using conventional arms and developing whole new families of heavy armor vehicles and China is building a massively capable conventional army and navy.  The rest of the world is gearing up for large scale, high end conventional combat and we’re focusing on counterinsurgency.  At some point, the world is going to hand us our heads if we don’t remember what a military is for.

Back to the Navy …  Converting a third of the combat fleet to the LCS is just insane.  We need hard hitting, hard fighting warships not glorified Coast Guard cutters.

Well, apparently the Navy is not alone in choosing the wrong path.  This is an indictment of our senior military leadership.

(1)US Department of Defense, “Work Observes Large-Scale Military Exercise at Fort Irwin”, Terri Moon Cronk, 7-Aug-2015

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=129430

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