Merrick “Mac” Carey
Today the United States and the U.S. Army are once again positioning for a two-front war, as we did in the Spanish American war, World War Two, and during the Cold War. The U.S. is the chief outside architect of the assistance to Ukraine as it battles Russia. Meanwhile, we and our friends in Asia prepare for what many believe will be an inevitable clash of arms with China. Otto von Bismarck’s guiding strategy for the 19th century German Empire was to avoid a two-front war. But America keeps finding them. We could even get drawn into a three-front war if the gloves come off between Israel and Iran in the Middle East.
While some think the U.S. Army should not become a big player in the Western Pacific, we know from World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam how quickly our land component will be essential in what initially looks like a naval or air power campaign. The Army’s Big Six modernization efforts are already flowing into the Pacific basin. Long range fires, medium lift, and air defense place the U.S. Army in the Pacific sweet spot. Those missions are enormously needed. The new Army tiltrotor’s long range and flexibility will make it invaluable in both the first and second island chains of the Western Pacific. Land-based air defense is essential in a limited land geographic environment, as are long range fires. You cannot sink an island.
Army modernization and transformation are also helping our friends and allies overseas. Just when you thought insurgents and terrorists might be receding into the past, Gaza has exploded on the world scene to pull us back into a type of land conflict like those of the early 21st century.
Israel aligns nicely with U.S. Army modernization efforts, as the IDF needs to be more connected on the battlefield. U.S. Army modernization efforts are great timing for the Jewish State. The Israeli Army has always been a few steps behind the Air Force. Israeli land power is now catching up with similar requirements for precision fires, future vertical lift, and being connected in the network.
Given that Israel has a small defense force, it has to be connected. However, Israel has been moving faster than America on ground combat vehicles, with better situational awareness and active protection systems. The U.S. Army has benefited from that. Israeli situational awareness is being imported to America for ground combat vehicles. Israeli-developed advanced aviation helmets have adapted software and digital capabilities for building a sensor net around a ground combat vehicle, and the U.S. Army is experimenting with that.
Russia is, of course, the perfect foil, or forcing function, for U.S. Army modernization, and Ukraine is the early-warning laboratory. Armor, artillery battles, air defense, commercial and military networks, and sophisticated ISR and deep sensing, are all front and center in Ukraine and all nested in Army modernization and transformation. U.S. Army systems have once again proven to be the world’s best in a nose-to-nose fight. Even OSD’s testing and evaluation office has admitted that. The pattern of warfighting in Ukraine is validating the Army’s six-point plan, and our frontline allies like Poland are piggybacking nicely on Army modernization with large American armor and air defense purchases. Poland will also be conveniently interoperable with U.S. Army formations that are forward deployed, or on their way to Europe, in a crisis. Poland has even built tank and HIMARS service centers in-country. Further west, two of the most pro-America nations on earth, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, are already nosing around the Army’s V-280 tiltrotor for potential foreign military sales, thus giving the U.S. Army yet another potential force multiplier in Europe.
None of this has been easy. Things do not always happen fast or run smoothly in large organizations like the U.S. Army. But if you want high quality control, especially for warfighting systems and intercontinental logistics, those things take time, and they cost money. Likewise, our decentralized political system, with myriad power centers and endless elections, keeps the ground shifting underneath the feet of anyone trying to pull off something as complicated as Army transformation. But Army leadership through both the Trump and Biden administrations is, against all odds, pulling off an ambitious and necessary plan that just might keep that two- or three-front war, from breaking out.
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