ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Military leaders are taking on a “holistic review” of troops’ footprint around the world as the U.S. remains focused on “great-power competition,” according to the Pentagon’s top general.

“There’s a very strong argument to be made that we may have forces in places that they shouldn’t be, and we may have forces that are needed in places that they’re not right now,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Dec. 2 while speaking with the Brookings Institution. 

The Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment is expected to continue playing a key role in Europe even as the Pentagon carries out a plan to bring the Stryker unit home to the U.S. 

Speaking Oct. 20 at the Atlantic Council, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that after talks with his counterparts in Romania and Bulgaria as well as the Baltic States, “there is now the real opportunity of keeping the 2nd Cavalry Regiment forward in some of these countries on an enduring basis.”

The Army is developing a new model that would prepare soldiers for current and future missions by aligning divisions with geographic regions on predictable deployment and training rotations.

The force generation model, known as the Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model, or ReARMM, is expected to be ready to launch at the beginning of fiscal year 2022, Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, deputy Army chief of staff for operations, said in a contemporary military forum at AUSA Now, the virtual annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army.

The U.S. military is “on a path” to reduce troop levels in Afghanistan to between 4,000 and 5,000 this fall and a complete withdrawal in 2021. 

Testifying before Congress, David Helvey, the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific affairs policy chief, said the evolving U.S. strategy “prioritizes ending the war through a political process, acknowledging that there is no military solution to the conflict.” 

There are more than 180,000 soldiers serving in more than 140 countries around the world, including thousands who are supporting COVID-19 response efforts here at home, and their work is being highlighted in a new essay from the Association of the U.S. Army. 

“The Army on Point: A Detailed Summary of Current Operations and Responsibilities” is part of an upcoming edition of Profile of the United States Army, a reference book published every two years by AUSA that provides a top-to-bottom guide to the organization, mission, structure and operations of the Army.

The National Guard has proven to be an “indispensable force” for federal missions, and it should be leveraged more, the National Guard Bureau’s departing chief said.

“If the events of the past six months have taught us anything, it’s the role of the reserve component,” Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel said during a July 2 discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution. “The National Guard has proven an indispensable force that America needs.”

The Pentagon is preparing to extend stop movement orders halting almost all travel, including permanent change-of-station moves and temporary duty, for troops, their families and civilian employees.

The original order, impacting domestic travel, went into effect March 16 as the COVID-19 virus spread across the U.S. and is slated to expire May 11. A similar directive halting overseas travel for 60 days was announced March 25.

The Army has stopped movement of soldiers and equipment from the U.S. to Europe for the Defender-Europe 2020 exercise, the service announced March 16.

The decision comes as the Army works to modify the exercise, which was slated to be the largest Army exercise in Europe in more than two decades, in response to the global COVID-19 outbreak.

The Army is reinvigorating its presence and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region as the U.S. looks to gain an edge against near-peer competitors such as China, the Army’s top civilian leader said.

“The U.S. must maintain overmatch against our adversaries, and the Army is foundational to the joint force’s success in the [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] area of responsibility,” Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said while speaking at the Brookings Institution on Jan. 10.

The Army should focus on deploying smaller National Guard and Army Reserve units, which are quicker and easier to train, alongside active-duty troops if the service is called upon to quickly mobilize for a major conflict overseas.

A recent RAND Corp. report found it would take too much time to get larger reserve component formations—such as brigade combat teams or combat aviation brigades—properly mobilized and trained during the earlier periods of a conflict or contingency.