(Military Times) Op-Ed: Shaping a New Army

[unhappycamper]

Shaping a New Army
Brandon Friedman | November 25, 2008

With the shift to a new presidential administration, there's likely to be an intensification in the ongoing fight over the focus of the post-Iraq Army. Do we shift to a concentration on counterinsurgency? Have we shifted too far already? Should we revert back to a traditional force-on-force model?

~snip~

The predicament is so serious because, in many ways, this is a zero-sum game. However, the bottom line is this: In the 21st Century, a cutting edge Army has to be able to do both.

When I was "fighting" the insurgency as an infantry officer in Iraq, it involved drinking a lot of chai. I spent one afternoon arranging local transportation to get university students from Avgani to Mosul so they could take their finals. Another day I spent troubleshooting a rural pump station. And one night, on the way down to the Tal Afar airfield, I shot some bad dudes who tried to kill me.

That's the unpredictable counterinsurgency lifestyle to which many of us have grown accustomed. And I don't think anyone doubts that it's going consume the bulk of the Army's missions for the next several decades. So preparing for it is certainly necessary. But therein lies the problem.

As my unit became more proficient at operating this way in Iraq, we lost much of our talent for counterattacking against the Persian or Korean hordes who could've come crashing over the border. It just wasn't a focus. But, as MacFarland has noted, that doesn't make force-on-force know-how any less important. The primary role of the military is to defend the United States -- and an unbalanced shift toward counterinsurgency will jeopardize our ability to do that. So here's an idea:


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,179952,00.html



About Brandon Friedman



Brandon Friedman is the author of The War I Always Wanted, and has served since 2007 as the Vice Chairman of VoteVets.org -- a 100,000-member organization dedicated to getting veterans elected to public office.

As an infantry officer in the Army's 101st Airborne Division, Brandon led a rifle platoon into Afghanistan's Shah-e-Kot Valley as part of Operation Anaconda in the months after 9/11. A year later, he commanded a platoon during the invasion of Iraq -- leading troops during combat and counterinsurgency operations in Hillah, Baghdad, and Tal Afar throughout 2003. Since leaving active duty in 2004, Brandon has promoted national security issues and veterans affairs across a wide variety of media outlets, including ABC News, the Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, and C-SPAN. He is currently the Editor of VetVoice -- a blog on politics and the military.

Brandon holds a BA in History from Louisiana State University and an MPA in Public Policy and Administration from the University of Texas at Dallas.



uhc comment: Brandon frequently posts at --> http://www.vetvoice.com/