Days ahead of a US Army announcement that named units to be cut as part of a 40,000-soldier force reduction, Lt. Gen. Anthony Ierardi, the deputy chief of staff (G-8) at Army headquarters for resource management, provided a window into the decision. Ierardi, who has been in the job six months, sits at the intersection of strategy, requirements, resources and acquisition — weighing the Army's strategic plans against its shrinking resources — as he advises Army Secretary John McHugh and Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno.

Q. What are the end-strength targets, and which units will the Army cut?

A. We're on our way right now, essentially, to a force that's 980,000, and we were over a million soldiers when we began this journey a few years ago. So the immediate target will be the active component reduction to 490,000 at the end of this fiscal year, down from 570,000 just a few years ago. That's an 80,000-soldier reduction on our way to 450,000, so another 40,000 soldiers will come out of the active component. In the Army National Guard, a reduction of about 8,000 thus far, and plans for another 20,000 or so as we look out to future numbers. And, the Army Reserve, a proportionate reduction there as well down below 200,000.

We're looking at end-strength ramp reductions — I'm talking end-strength now, these are soldiers — on the order of about 15,000 a year in the active component, and proportionate reductions in the reserve components down to their targets, over the next three years. By the end of this, about 2018, we'll be at about a 980,000 force. Under full sequestration, we talked about going down as low as 920,000.

We followed a deliberate process to determine the best construct for the Army, based on the threats we face and the current fiscal environment. Having said that, this is going to be a very painful thing to do. We will try to use natural attrition to the maximum level, but attrition won't be enough. We will need some involuntary departures to achieve these kinds of reductions. The next few years will be trying for all of us.

Gen. Odierno has testified, and the [Army] secretary, that at those levels, meeting our mission will be challenging, and there will be risk associated with being at those lower levels, and we'll look for all ways to mitigate that risk as we move forward.

Q. What is the Army doing to plan for the worst-case scenario? We hear about 420,000 in the active force.

A. We've not provided a formal plan on that, and we're not right now under a requirement from OSD to provide a [Program Objective Memorandum], for the lower force. We've looked at some of these potential outcomes, and I'll just frame it for you this way: At those levels, whether we're at 420,000 in the active component and 920,000 total Army force, everything, really, in the Army comes under scrutiny and is on the table when you look at force structure, readiness and modernization. We'll obviously protect to the greatest extent possible the ability of our units to be ready for their missions. But there'll be significant impact and high risk to our operations at the low levels of resources under sequestration.

Q. Is there a real difference between 450,000 and 420,000 end strength?

A. Absolutely. It's significant. Percentage-wise it is, as well as just in terms of the kind of capability that we would be talking about, whether it's in terms of headquarters, units providing mission command capabilities, command and control for subordinate forces would be impacted. The actual numbers, capacity of units that conduct missions, depth in our formations to execute requirements of our war plans and missions overseas all come into question.

Q. What is the Army really going to look like under sequestration?

A. We'll be less ready. I think we'll be less modern and less able to accomplish the mission. In some ways, the Army in fiscal year '15 is near sequestration levels of funding. We're down only about a billion dollars over the Budget Control Act level of funding, after the legislative relief we received. The soldiers aspect of that is set aside. So, the areas in which you have decision space is in readiness and modernization. The Army's leadership has prioritized ensuring we have adequate units to perform the missions that we'll be asked to perform. So the focus of the allocation of resources have been in those areas.

The bill-payer really has been in the investment for future modernization. When you look at where we are, we're down 25 percent in terms of investment and modernization to where we thought we would've been just a few years ago. So the impact is less investment in future capabilities.

Q. What are three big things the Army's doing to meet the defense secretary's drive for innovation?

A. Our proposal to enhance lethality on Strykers, the use of manned-unmanned teaming with Apache helicopters and unmanned aerial systems are reflective of this kind of idea. So the secretary clearly has an intent to explore innovative ideas about personnel. In the case of Stryker lethality, the operational needs statement requested this capability for Europe, we then have an opportunity to make a difference. And we're going to seek to do that in a way that provides value and maybe also opens the aperture to see whether or not that can be leveraged in other ways.

Q. Is there going to be a competition to up-gun the Stryker?

A. I really can't speak to the acquisition strategy on that. We're trying to line the resourcing up to be able to get going now, to get the integration of this set up so that in two years from the time we get the go-ahead, we can start delivering Strykers to our units in Europe. Based on how that goes, I'm sure that there'll be considerations for an acquisition strategy that's appropriate to meet the Army's needs in the future.

The Army equipping strategy was designed in conjunction with the Army operating concept to enhance the lethality, the mobility and the protection for all our units, and to give them the situational awareness they need. As a component of that, the combat vehicle strategy seeks to fill gaps in unit types. So in our infantry brigades we want to provide additional mobility, and we want to provide them a way to have additional firepower and protection. And so we're looking at mobile protected firepower. Our chief has talked about this.

Q. Are we talking about a light tank?

A. I'm not going to categorize it as a light tank. At the end of the day, it may look like a light tank.

At this stage, it's more important to develop what we need. What we need is a way for our units to move, which today they don't have in our infantry brigades, in a protected fashion with firepower that can provide a decisive advantage. We also would look to enhance our ability to conduct mounted recon in these units. In the case of the Strykers, we're beginning this effort on the initial phase to enhance lethality. So all of this combines to be able to look at where we are, and in our heavy fleets, in our tanks and Bradleys, investing in making those proven fleets even better, enhancing the fire control systems, the optics, the suspension systems. We have less money in research and development, but we're not sitting on our hands.

Q. What about the ultra-light combat vehicle?

A. The ground mobility vehicle seeks to fill the gap that allows our infantry brigades to move rapidly around, to get soldiers around the battlefield quickly. We are working with Special Operations Command to further the assessment here. But it is innovative in that it's something that we can do quickly. We'll go small, we'll begin with units that are reflective of the kind of units that would be employed rapidly, such as the global response force, and we'll learn from that.

Q. It seems like the Army's getting out of the business of developing new technology and instead going for incremental upgrades. it, and how is that affecting the Army's modernization plans?

A. I don't think there's dissonance between developing technology and developmental programs and incrementally upgrading, innovating what we have. They're not mutually exclusive. In our modernization equipping program, we have preserved investments in science and technology for the future. We've not reduced those accounts where we look at the development of future type concepts, whether it be enhanced armor, power for ground and aviation equipment, new ways of sharing information, reducing the load in logistics, things that we could look to the future. We've not stopped investing in that. That's still going on.

Meanwhile, we have some important programs in play. We're going to replace all of our M113s and our armored units with the armored mobile protective Vehicle, AMPV. It really fits between both incrementally upgrading and a new program, which is the Paladin and Paladin Improvement Management program, which puts the Paladin 155mm system on a Bradley chassis.

We're not totally off developing programs, but where we are budget-wise, and where we are with respect to the time it takes to make some of these changes, taking what we have, innovating with them and upgrading them is the way to go.

Q. The chief of staff of the Army has repeatedly said that the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program is safe, but how is that so, given that end-strength cuts and sequestration are looming?

A. As we sit here today, based on what we have programmed, we're emphasizing this as an important program. The JLTV's going to bridge the protection afforded by an MRAP [mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle] and sort of the lighter characteristics of an armored Humvee. It's going to get us to a sweet spot that provides greater protection and greater performance and payload, and we need that as we look at the types of operations that we're going to be conducting in the future. It's an important program.

Q. Is there a push and pull in Europe? The Army was moving everybody out and now it's figuring out how to maintain a presence there.

A. There's a plan right now to continue to rotate. I anticipate that that will continue, but in terms of the decisions about what gets stationed and what doesn't across the globe, Army forces will meet the missions that we're assigned with a greater proportion of rotational forces since we're getting smaller. We're going to have fewer forward-stationed forces, but these units are very capable units. They all go through formative training events before they are assigned these missions. They're all equipped with the most modern equipment we have. And so this push and pull that you described can be addressed really with having capable forces that can meet the requirements of the combatant commander.

Q. Not permanently stationed, but rotational?

A. In the end, it'll be a mix. We'll continue to station forces as appropriate and in accordance with the posture that we end up with as we look at where we have to have soldiers, but also with rotational forces, which we're proving very well, by the way, with the regionally aligned forces concept.

Q. We're hearing that S&T is kind of the seed corn of the future, we've got to continue to invest in S&T.

A. We are investing in S&T. There are a lot of different areas that we'll continue to do that, because there'll be a return on investment there that I think will be important for us as we look out to the future. The Army G8 went through a period during the last 10 years where we received resources to enhance the equipping of the Army. And in many ways, we're continuing along based on those investments. Where sequestration is going to hurt the Army is in the future ability of the Army to preserve its over-match, because we have not kept up with the level of investment in procurement, and research and development, as we would like to do.

Email: jgould@defensenews.com

Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.

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