Ground Forces for a Rapidly Employabel Joint Task Force: First-Week Capabilities for Short-Warning Conflicts

by Eugene C. Gritton, Paul K. Davis, Randall Steeb, John Matsumura

Overview

A key element of the Department of Defense's effort to transform the force is developing capabilities for rapidly employable joint task forces (JTFs). In many plausible military interventions, long-range precision fires alone wouldn't be sufficient and the JTFs would need ground-maneuver forces that could be employed within days of a decision to take action. A first, provisional version of such capability could be achieved in the near to mid term by using existing airlift and ship-based prepostioning and by zer-basing. This monograph recommends a three-component first-week ground force of Army and Marine units that would incorporate modern doctrinal concepts emphasizing agility, dispersal, networking, and precision fires.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780833027979
Publisher:	RAND Corporation
Publication date:	03/13/2000
Pages:	107
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.34(d)
Lexile:	1550L (what's this?)

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Ground Forces for a Rapidly Employable Joint Task Force

First-Week Capabilities for Short-Warning Conflicts

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By Eugene C. Gritton Paul K. Davis Randall Steeb John Matsumura

Rand Corporation

Copyright © 2000 Rand Corporation
All right reserved.

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Preface

This monograph is a think piece about rapidly deployable future ground forces that would be used in time-urgent joint-task-force missions. We sketch a vision of what is needed operationally, describe forces responsive to those needs, and then discuss the feasibility of achieving such forces-first with near-term systems but new operational concepts, and then, for the longer term, by drawing upon advanced technology often discussed under the rubric of the revolution in military affairs or RMA. Thus, our proposals call for a vigorous evolution with tangible accomplishments within five years, rather than a discontinuous revolution in 10 or 20 years. Our analysis suggests that such forces would potentially be quite valuable, while also indicating their likely limitations and the many uncertainties of our assessment.

The monograph grew out of our efforts during the 1998 Defense Science Board summer study, a study for the Department of Defense on "transforming the force," and a small study for the Joint Staff on strategic mobility. Those efforts, in turn, drew on RAND work for the Army, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Air Force, and Joint Staff. In preparing this integrative study, we drew heavily on work initially performed in RAND'sArmy-sponsored Arroyo Center. As a result, this monograph is being jointly published by NDRI and the Arroyo Center. The monograph is intended for a broad audience interested in future ground forces in a joint-taskforce context.

Our work has been accomplished in the Acquisition and Technology Policy Center of RAND's National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the unified commands, and the defense agencies.

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