The challenge the United States faces is not one of establishing simple priorities for a few high technology fixes, or developing new shopping lists of expensive equipment. The challenge is to restructure virtually every aspect of its force plans to make the most effective use of what it already has, or has under development, to both exploit key threat vulnerabilities and correct the major weaknesses in U.S. forces. If the United States is to deal effectively with the complex mix of new contingency requirements, threat vulnerabilities, and weaknesses in U.S. forces, it must do so on a force-on-force basis where the resulting force mix is designed to fixed resource limitations, and not to theoretical military requirements. This will not be easy for a military organized around a requirements-driven approach, or for a civil-military bureaucracy that emphasizes individual "magic bullets" or high technology "shopping lists." It will not be easy for a system whose structure and biases are built around four decades of emphasis on the Warsaw Pact threat. This is not a matter of organization as much as one of priorities and methods: Integrated planning and budgeting will be needed at a functional level that is far more responsive and easy to update than the current system. Service-dominated planning based on vaguely defined global requirements must be replaced by inter-Service planning based on examination of the force packages necessary to deal with a range of contingencies similar to that listed earlier. Clear priorities need to be set within each area of technology and procurement with clearly designed cost and resource constraints. The present project-oriented shopping lists need to be replaced with tight management of an affordable overall force mix. Once technologies enter the development stage they must be integrated into an overall force mix plan that clearly shows their intended deployment dates and numbers and how they will affect the overall force mix. Firm and well-defined gates need to be established for all projects delineating cost, time, performance. Given past enforcement of such gates within the services, they will probably have to be legislated for major programs so that it is clear they must be met or the program will no longer be funded. This will also require Congress to cease its pork-barrel approach to technological procurement. The improvements made in individual areas of R&D and procurement management need to be matched by much tighter review of overall programming. The current emphasis on lead technology needs to be replaced by a more realistic examination of trade offs in continuing existing production, multistage improvement programs, and growth versions of existing systems. Integrated readiness reporting and planning are needed to ensure that suitable O&M funding, sustainability, and training are included to ensure that the full costs of development and procurement are considered, and that they are affordable within projected resource limits. Far more careful control will be needed of requirements and changes to requirements to halt the past bias towards worst case optimization and procurement of "because it's there" technology. The gradual evolution of operational test and evaluation systems that integrate field and technical testing into a hierarchy of simulations needs to be sharply accelerated to permit adequate force mix and force-on-force analysis. This is a deliberately ambitious agenda for changing the way in which the Department of Defense and the Congress approach the use of technology in compensating for smaller forces, and is almost certainly an unrealistic one. The United States cannot, however, rest on the technological advantages it gained in planning to fight the Warsaw Pact, or rely on the "edge" it had during DESERT STORM. The lastfewyears have led to a long series of program problems and terminations that provide a warning of what is likely to happen if these changes do not occur. Similarly, the United States has failed to correct long-standing weaknesses in many of this power projection capabilities, and has slowly allowed many elements of its combat readiness to decline. In many ways, the most serious threat the United States faces in an era of diminishing resources is itself. No major foreign threat exists that can defeat the United States if it organizes properly to down-size its forces and adapt its technology mix to meet its changing contingency requirements. Historically, however, victors tend to refight past wars and bureaucracies are slow to adapt to the need for change. If the United States is to avoid defeating itself, it must improve its methods of integrating technology into its force plans and force mix. ENDNOTES [1] "Effects of Deeper Defense Budget Reductions," Congressional Budget Office, January 1992, pp. 6 and 14. [2] Figures taken from DoD Press Release 26-92, January 29, 1992. [3] "Effects of Deeper Defense Budget Reductions," pp. 6 and 14. [4] Figures taken from DoD Press Release 26-92. [5] "An Overview of the Changing Department of Defense Strategy, Budget, and Forces," Department of Defense, October 1991, p.4. Compesating for Smaller Forces Continued Introduction Diminished Technology Technology and Prioritization Technology and Future Contingency Requirements Establishing Effective Force-on-Force Priorities Back to Table of Contents Compensating for Smaller Forces Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by US Army War College. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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