Follow InsideDefense.com on TwitterInside the Army -- The Army is turning to its red-teaming experts at Training and Doctrine Command to kick off what could turn into an existential debate about the ground service's role in dealing with China and its reported arsenal of capabilities for keeping U.S. influence in the region at bay, according to officials.
The request to study the issue comes as the Obama administration is putting in place a wholesale reorientation of its defense posture toward China and its environs following the planned drawdown of forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. Depending on who is asked in defense circles, the reason for the new focus is a either an intricate line of arguments concerning so-called "anti-access, area-denial" capabilities and the need to operate freely in the "global commons," or it's fears about Chinese military prowess that could curtail U.S. ambitions.
Some Army officials have been watching with suspicion the "Air-Sea Battle concept" begun by the Navy and Air Force ahead of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. While the concept is classified, it appears to give little consideration to land power, as evidenced by the fact that the Army was not a part of its development, some officials have said.
The new push to better understand the concept's implications for the ground service comes from the Army's QDR office, which is part of the G-8 staff at the Pentagon. Analysts at TRADOC's University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies, headed by retired Col. Gregory Fontenot, are expected to produce articles for dissemination in peer-reviewed journals on defense and foreign policy, according to a senior Army official who asked not to be identified.
"The open question is, 'What does this really mean?'" the senior Army official said. And: "What should the Army be doing going forward, if anything?" It would take about a year for the debate to crystallize into "a few ideas that make pretty good sense," the official predicted.
The Army's analyses are sure to bring to the fore a May 2010 report crafted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The think tank's study on the subject has become something of a public face of the Air-Sea Battle concept. Its lead author, retired Navy Capt. Jan van Tol, was a "special adviser" in the vice president's office during the George W. Bush administration, according to CSBA's website. Another author, Mark Gunzinger, helped initiate the concept while working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense until shortly before the 2010 QDR was released.
Gunzinger emphasized that the CSBA work and whatever the Air Force and Navy are now doing are separate efforts. Public affairs officials for the services did not respond to requests for comment on any similarities.
While DOD officials have gone out of their way to keep China out of the public discussions about their Air Sea Battle proposal, the People's Liberation Army features prominently as an adversary in CSBA's work. Still, Gunzinger said, this is only because China happens to be a country where anti-access and area-denial strategies are best exemplified.
The think tank is getting ready to roll out a follow-on study on countering Iran's anti-access and area-denial capabilities that may allay some Army fears to be left out the debate over the Western Pacific as the dominant guidepost for war planning and, by extension, budget dollars.
Titled "Outside In," the Iran report will be neither a war plan nor a case for regime change involving a large-scale ground invasion in a country that many Western governments believe is striving for nuclear weapons, Gunzinger said in an interview with Inside the Army. But it will lay out particular roles for the Army in countering Tehran's ballistic-missile and precision-weapons capabilities. The ground service, along with the Marines, also would have a part to play in securing the Strait of Hormuz and initiating "theater-entry operations" along Iran's coast for the flow of additional U.S. forces, he said.
The report's title stems from an assumption that U.S. operations against Iran may have to be conducted without a foothold in the region, as is currently the case, according to Gunzinger. This is because the proliferation of precision-guided rockets, artillery and mortars is expected to pose an increasing danger to U.S. strategic bases from which American forces can operate with relative security today, he argued.
Meanwhile at the Pentagon, there is talk about making a "formal overture" to the Army to partake in a recently created Air-Sea Battle office, according to the senior Army official. Army representatives recently received a briefing by Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris, who heads the ASB office, after asking for more information about the concept, the official told ITA. It was at that meeting when ASBO officials offered a spot for Army in the office, the senior official said. "They're trying to figure out how to do that," the official said.
Addressing concerns held by some Army officials that the Air-Sea Battle focus amounts to a resource grab by the Air Force and Navy, Gunzinger said: "I don't think there's cause for a great deal of angst on the part of the Army, especially when you start thinking about the broader anti-access challenge" connected with Iran. -- Sebastian Sprenger
