Assessing the Army Profession

Abstract

This is a revised and expanded paper based on C. D. Allen, Impact of a Decade at War in the Armed Forces Journal, May 2011. The author is a member of the Army Profession Campaign's research team. Civilian and military leaders might easily discount the conjecture that America's Army is in trouble. After all, it is unmatched as a force and successfully conducted military operations that achieved regime change in two countries in the space of 18 months. Total US military spending averaged nearly $720 billion over the past four years and exceeded 46 percent of global defense spending in 2009. The $6.73 trillion spent by the US Department of Defense in the 21st century dwarfed the annual gross national product of most other nations. Commensurate with this level of resourcing, the Army possesses the most modern equipment, the latest technology, and an unequalled training program for its people. Combine all this with the relatively high confidence placed in the Army (as part of the US military) by the American people, and it would be easy to feel invincible. Harvard's Center for Public Leadership National Leadership Index ranked the US military as the American institution with the most confidence in its leadership (a trend since 2005); a similar Gallup poll ranked the military at the top since 1989. (1) A recent study reported that while over half of American survey respondents said that the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were worth fighting (52 and 57 percent, respectively), 91 percent felt proud of the soldiers serving in the military. (2) While Americans may have doubts about current wars, they are supportive of their warriors. Even with such levels of fiscal support and public confidence, we should be cautious of our enthusiasm and reminded of the retort to a comment made by COL Harry Summers during the latter days of the Vietnam War. Summers is quoted as saying, 'You know, you never beat us on the battlefield,' I told my North Vietnamese counterpart during negotiations in Hanoi a week before the fall of Saigon. He pondered that remark a moment and then replied, 'That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.' (3) Public support and confidence may indeed be irrelevant if America's Army does not adequately prepare for the future. Reflections of the Past The past four decades provide lessons derived from myriad challenges and successes as the US Army prepares for the next 10 years. We have witnessed America's Army transition from its focus on military operations in Vietnam, its triumph in the Cold War, its successes in Southwest Asia in Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, its struggle with the impact of Francis Fukuyama's End of History in the 1990s, and finally its arrival at its current station in the 21st century. (4) That journey was marked by successive Chiefs of Staff assessing the Army they inherited, establishing a vision, and charting a path to the future. Their preferred methodology was to commission a series of White Papers in an attempt to identify the issues that would serve as the basis for key initiatives during their tenure. In 1978, at the end of the US military's involvement in Vietnam and faced with the challenges of establishing the All-Volunteer Force, General Bernard Rogers published, Assessing the Army. (5) One year later, General Edward C. Shy Meyers declared the hollow army and penned, A Framework for Molding the Army into a Disciplined Well-Trained Force. (6) It would be all too easy to simply generalize that the Army during these years was ill disciplined and untrained, requiring drastic actions by leaders to address unacceptable conditions. In 1986, General John Wickham wrote Values, the Bedrock of the Profession in an attempt to establish a moral touchstone for members of the force. (7) From these White Papers, the Chiefs of Staff initiated a number of campaigns to redress shortfalls and professionalize an Army that was struggling with its identity while attempting to redefine itself. …