Force Structure: Army Lacks Units Needed for Extended Contingency Operations : Report to Congressional Committees

United States. General Accounting Office

Jan 2001 · U.S. General Accounting Office

About this eBook

"The National Military Strategy calls for U.S. forces to fight and win two nearly simultaneous major theater wars. Accordingly, the Army calculates its force structure requirements on the basis of this scenario. The strategy also calls for the Army to support operations in a series of concurrent contingencies and assumes that forces thus engaged will be withdrawn and re-deployed if war occurs. The Army's difficulties in supporting contingency operations without repeatedly calling on certain types of units have raised questions about whether forces structured to meet the two-war scenario are also adequate to support multiple peacetime contingency operations. In past years, the Army has not defined force requirements for contingency operations, leaving the matter somewhat open to conjecture. However, during the most recent iteration of its force planning process, known as Total Army Analysis 2007,2 the Army for the first time separately identified the forces necessary to support seven simultaneous illustrative contingency operations that would require its participation. These seven operations are based on the types of contingencies in which the United States has recently been engaged, such as noncombatant evacuation operations, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief."--Abstract.