The U.S. Army recently released "Serving a Nation at War—A Campaign Quality Army with Joint and Expeditionary Capabilities." This white paper—posted on our Web site—outlines the Army's vision for the future. Our continuing series of special reviews appraises this vision for the Army.
"Serving a Nation at War" has something of everything for the Navy reader. It also has some food for thought regarding possible future directions for the Navy it self to take.
Readers conversant with the concepts of the Navy's "Sea Power 21" will find much that is familiar: the emphasis on jointness, an expeditionary mind-set, and networks; the call for new service force packages; the willingness to divest per sonnel of "ownership" of their equipment; and the relatively short shrift given to close -in and domestic homeland security and de fense. Thus, the Navy's ForceNet, Sea Swap, car rier strike group, and ex peditionary strike group initiatives all have their counterparts in the Army paper, which bodes well for jointness. The Navy, of course, has a fairly clear idea of why it need not focus on close -in offshore homeland defense: there is a well-equipped, capable Coast Guard that fulfills much of that role. In con trast, the Army paper is almost silent on who steps up to the homeland security and defense plate ashore, or how (despite men tion of the current commitment to devote more than a division's worth of soldiers).
There are deeper contrasts between the two service visions as well. "Sea Power 21" points with pride at the progression of changes to the Navy's vision over the past 15 years. From "The Maritime Strategy" to ". . . From the Sea" and "Forward . . . From the Sea" to "Sea Power 21," the Navy sees itself as keeping abreast—even a little ahead of-the great changes in the world situation, domestic and national security policies, and technology that have characterized the period. The white paper, however, laments throughout that the Army has been slow—even reluctant—to change since the Cold War, and now must move quickly and dramatically to catch up with the new era and its challenges. Like wise, while the Navy long ago abandoned its attempt of the early 1990s to base its operations on doctrine, the Army paper unabashedly proclaims that the Army of the future, like the Army of the recent past, will "rightfully" be "doctrine-based." Thus, a key difference in the Army's and Navy's fundamental approaches to war fighting seems bound to endure.
Besides the similarities and differences, there also are some challenges—and not just for the Army. The Army, as always, wants more than just "jointness" from the Navy and the other services; it wants guarantees and commitments. One man's guarantee, however, can be another man's ball and chain, tethering inherently mo bile and flexible forces to routine duties in predictable locations. The Army also is embarking on a dramatic transforma tion of its operational headquarters struc ture, planning to "sever the routine asso ciation between headquarters and the units they control." This is potentially much more than rearranging the components of tactical force packages or reshuffling and recombining senior staffs in the administrative chain of command. Translated to the Navy's point of view, this would mean a rethinking of the role and even existence of the various operational Navy compo nents and numbered fleets.
There also is an obvious challenge regarding sea basing. To the sea services, sea basing provides a way of dealing with an environment in which U.S. military access to facilities ashore is limited or nonexistent. Central to Navy thinking on sea basing is sea-based missile defense, with Navy ships providing an essential air -defense um brella for U.S. ground forces in combat ashore. It is therefore somewhat startling for a Navy audi ence to read in the Army paper that one intended result of the Army's trans formation is increased ca pability for the ground forces to provide "air defense protection of the advanced sea base."
"Serving a Nation at War" is not a symmetrical companion piece to "Sea Power 21." At 19 pages, it cannot be. "Sea Power 21" and its sup porting concepts are loaded with spe cific programmatic directions for the Navy to take. The reader of "Serving a Nation at War" will find very few such specifics. For those details, the reader needs to turn to the Army's new "Army Campaign Plan," hopefully to be released soon.
EDITOR'S NOTE: "Serving a Nation at War" is online at www.usni.org/proceedingslArticles04IPROC06ArmyServiceNation.html. A final review will appear in next month's issue.
Captain Swartz is a senior analyst at the CNA Cor poration's Center for Strategic Studies.