(US) Army Scrambles On 4 Continents: Odierno Previews New Doctrine

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/army-scrambles-on-4-continents-odierno-previews-new-doctrine/



Bradley armored vehicles from the 1st Cavalry Division shipped out in August for Eastern Europe.

Army Scrambles On 4 Continents: Odierno Previews New Doctrine
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on September 19, 2014 at 2:32 PM

WASHINGTON: The Mideast may have the spotlight right now, but it’s not the only area that has the Army of Chief of Staff worried. In an uncanny parallel to the 1990s, the end of a large-scale ground deployment — in Europe then, in Iraq and Afghanistan now – has led to steep Army budget cuts even as multiple new missions, smaller but demanding, pop up all around the world. With new threats arising and complexity increasing as funding declines, Gen. Ray Odierno said, a new “Army Operating Concept” will help reorient the service for the post-Afghanistan era.

Not that we’re in the post-Afghanistan era yet, given the continuing advisor mission there. The stress of the accumulated stresses, old and new, is already starting to show. “I have two division headquarters in Afghanistan. I have a division headquarters in Korea, (and) I’m going to send another division headquarters to Iraq,” Odierno ticked off this morning at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. “I’m going to send a division headquarters to Africa to work the response to the Ebola virus. I might end up sending a division headquarters to Europe.”

That’s a broad and curious mix of missions, from old-school Cold War deterrence, to post-9/11 counterterrorism, to what sounds unnervingly like the first chapter of an apocalyptic science fiction novel. “It’s very clear the disease is accelerating faster than we initially thought,” Odierno said of Ebola. But diverse, far-flung, and simultaneous missions is what the new Army doctrine expects to characterize the future, rather than the traditional focus on one or two all-consuming “major theater wars.”

“Where in the past we focused on maybe one big fight somewhere, the new Army Operating Concept (says) we have to be able to do multiple small-scale things simultaneously,” Odierno said, “so for example we might have to operate with smaller capability on four different continents at the same time.”

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Could this be the US' entry into a new Hundred Years War?

[newfie11]

1. Someone will end up using nukes

So I don't think it will last a hundred years.
Boys and their toys, playing war, are going to distroy civilization as we know it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. What is a "division headquarters "?

Interesting source/link, thanks.

[malthaussen]

3. The command and administration group of a division.

The Army's combat troops are divided into battalions, which are units of ~1000 men that are attached to various headquarters depending on mission. A division typically directs 9-12 battalions in operations. They provide administrative and logistical support for the combat elements, and are where the commander of the division (usually a Major General (two stars)) hangs out.

-- Mal

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Wow...that is a lot of troops, then.

NO wonder our defense budget is so high.