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1 1 (May 08, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdach0001 and id is 1 raw text is: - cy, ' c ns ........ ... May 8, 2020 The Army's AimPoint Force Structure Initiative The 2018 National Military Strategy describes how the U.S. military is to defend the homeland and retain its competitive advantage to deter competitors and defeat adversaries, whether great power competitors like China and Russia or other security challenges. It is a fundamental departure from other National Military Strategies post- September 11 , which focused on counterinsurgency and defeating violent extremist organizations. In essence, the 2018 National Military Strategy refocuses the Army from fighting counterinsurgencies and violent extremist organizations to countering and possibly confronting Russian and Chinese military forces. The Army's new AimPoint initiative is intended to be the means to build the force structure needed to implement this new focus. During the Cold War, the U.S. Army was primarily a division-centric force whereby divisions, consisting of a mix of specialized brigades, battalions, and companies, were the primary warfighting organization. Within the division, the commander controlled a variety of assets such as artillery, engineers, and logistical units that could be assigned to subordinate infantry or armored brigades as the tactical situation required. Divisions were part of corps, which also had their own organic units such as artillery and engineers that the corps commander could allocate to divisions to support operations. In the early 2000s, as the Army became committed to long- term counterinsurgency combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army units would rotate in and out of these theaters on an annual basis. Based on observations of how these rotations affected soldiers and units, Army leadership determined that the division-centric force was not the best structure to support a rotational force. In September 2003, the U.S. Army began converting from an organization centered on divisions (numbering from 10,000 to 18,000 soldiers) to a force based upon brigade combat teams (BCTs) of around 4,000 soldiers. This new brigade-centric force, known as the modular force, assigned a number of division-level assets to the newly formed BCTs, thereby lessening the operational and tactical roles of the division. Muk~on~nOperatiurtinCm According to the Army, current conventional warfighting doctrine is still largely based on the Air-Land Battle concept developed in 1981 to counter Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. As the name indicates, Air-Land Battle is primarily based on operations in the air and land domains. However, competitors now possess increasingly capable anti-access and area denial strategies, meant to separate the Joint Force physically and functionally and alliances politically. Furthermore, near-peer competitors are capable of securing strategic objectives by means other than armed conflict with the United States and its allies. More importantly, the Army can no longer guarantee dominance over a near-peer threat-an advantage that the United States has held for decades. Unlike Air-Land Battle, MDO addresses the notion that competition and conflict occur in multiple domains (land, air, sea, cyber, and space), and that there will be multiple threats across the competition continuum in the future operating environment. As the MDO concept continues to be refined and updated, it will likely drive Army modernization and force structure. The Army aims to achieve a full MDO capability by 2035. Conceptually, the Army, as an element of the Joint Force, plans to conduct MDO (not necessarily in every domain at each moment), primarily by deterrence, in order to prevail in competition. If deterrence fails, and if it becomes necessary, Army forces would penetrate and disable enemy anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) systems and, if successful, exploit any resulting freedom of maneuver to achieve strategic objectives and force a return to competition on favorable terms. The primary means by which the Army intends to build its MDO capability is through what it calls the AimPoint Force Structure Initiative. According to the Army, the AimPoint Force being developed by the Army Futures Command's (AFC's) Army Futures and Concepts Center is to be a flexible force structure. While little change is expected at brigade level and below, the Army suggests major changes will occur at higher echelons-division, corps, and theater command-that have primarily played a supporting role in counterinsurgency operations such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under MDO, higher field headquarters will now be required to take the lead in coordinating large-scale campaigns against well-armed nation-states such as Russia and China. The Army also notes that the AimPoint Force will be resource-informed, meaning it will be subject to budget constraints and political considerations. Because of the geographic distinctions between the European and Indo- Pacific theaters, individual higher-echelon AimPoint formation force structure will likely differ by theater as opposed to current one-size-fits-all units. MUzR PNr->- -- Fm 'c. The following sections provide a description of some of AimPoint's major proposed force structure changes. Wy's C.,, gm 100 ILI

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