AUSA President: Uncertainty Is Stifling Modernization

The budget uncertainty that continues to plague the Army is the "number one concern, the number one impediment" to the service’s ability to properly balance its readiness with personnel and modernization, the new president of the Association of the United States Army said.

"Because of funding, [Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Army Secretary Eric Fanning] have been very clear that they have prioritized readiness over end-strength and over modernization because of the need to meet current requirements," said retired Gen. Carter Ham. "That is simply not a sustainable model if you want to have the Army you need in 2040, 2050. But that is what they have been forced to do."

Ham, a former commander of U.S. Africa Command who took the helm at AUSA in July, also decried the lack of budget predictability.

"We will see it again this year, a continuing resolution," Ham said. "Those continuing resolutions insert uncertainty and unpredictability into the budget process."

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The impact of this unpredictability extends to industry partners as well as the reserve component, said Ham, who before AUSA was the chairman of the National Commission on the Future of the Army.

"One of the things that I learned in serving on the National Commission on the Future of the Army that, frankly, I did not understand before, is the significant, detrimental effect that continuing resolutions can have, particularly in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve," he said. "These budgetary issues have a larger operational and strategic implication, to be sure, but they have a very real personal effect as well."

Ham cited as an example how budget uncertainty can affect a soldier’s opportunity to attend a professional development or military education course.

"In the regular Army, that’s bad, but you can recover to say, ‘OK, sergeant, you cannot go in October, but we’ll send you in January,’ and you can kind of make up for that," he said. "In the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, the sergeant might be a college student, and she is not registered for the next quarter or semester of college because she’s expecting to go to this course. Now that does not happen, and you’re in limbo." 

In addition to concerns about the budget, Ham discussed a range of priorities and challenges facing the Army in the run-up to AUSA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Here’s what he said.

This year’s annual meeting

This year’s theme is "America’s Army: Ready Today, Preparing for the Future."

"As I look at the annual meeting, it is first and foremost the Army’s professional development forum, an opportunity for soldiers of all three components, Army civilians, veterans, retirees, industry, to hear directly from Army leadership and to hear from knowledgeable people from a wide variety of areas," Ham said.

This year’s meeting will feature discussions on readiness, various regions of the world, homeland security, modernization, families, noncommissioned officers, and more, Ham said.

Highlights of this year’s show will be hearing from Fanning, who will be attending his first AUSA annual meeting as the Army secretary.

Attendees also will hear from Milley "on his assessment of where is the Army now, where do we need to be headed," and from Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey, Ham said.

The size of the Army

The Army is slated to shrink to a total force of 980,000 soldiers, about 450,000 of them in the active Army, in 2018.

"It will not surprise you that as a former commander and former senior leader, and now as the president of the association, I would say bigger is better," Ham said. "But it is not exclusively bigger is better, because one of the things I do worry about is Congress to say, ‘OK, you can have a bigger Army,’ but if they do not fund the necessary equipment, modernization and training, then you will end up with more soldiers but they’re not prepared to do what the nation may require of them. That is the essence of a hollow force."

If the funding is there, Ham said he believes an Army of 1.1 million or 1.2 million that is properly equipped, modernized and trained "would be about right to meet the nation’s requirements."

"But I also understand these are very, very difficult calls for the Army leadership," he said.


The role of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve

"What I’ve found is there exists in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers, unit commanders, noncommissioned officers, senior leaders, who are fully committed to the aspect of service," Ham said. "They joined the Army for a particular reason. They want to serve the nation, and they want to be operationally employed."

All the soldiers seek is some predictability, Ham said.

He added that it’s important to ensure the Guard and Reserve have the right amount of time and funding to train. This includes "more professional development. More combat training center rotations. More flight hours for aviation units," he said.

"All of that requires resourcing, so there is a strong message to the Congress that says in order to keep the total Army trained and ready, there are some very difficult budget choices to be made," Ham said. "And from the Association of the United States Army, I think in order to achieve the nation’s requirements, Army funding has got to increase."

The threats around the world

"For most of my career, during the Cold War, it was a very dangerous world, but it was a fairly predictable security environment in which we operated," Ham said. "We knew our adversary, they knew us. We do not have that today."

The U.S. faces a Russia that is "expressing its influence largely through military means," but it’s also dealing with a "very unstable and unpredictable North Korea," Ham said.

China is exerting its influence regionally, and there’s the continued threat of terrorism, he added.

"Today’s Army has to prepare for a major land campaign against a state actor, but they also have to be prepared for other contingencies and ongoing counterterrorism campaigns that are almost certain to last beyond our lifetimes," Ham said. "And I think the other thing that is dramatically changed is that there is now a threat to the homeland that did not exist before."

Looking into the future, with the proliferation of capabilities such as robotics, the United States’ technological advantage over its adversaries is diminishing, Ham said.

Ham said he is concerned about the military’s ability to maintain its advantage over its adversaries.

"The United States Air Force, and I would include the Naval and Marine Corps air forces, have largely been able to operate with impunity wherever we were," he said. "What that means is we, frankly, in recent years, have not really had to worry much about any threat to ground forces from the air. That’s no longer the case."