Non-Subscriber Extract
Reflecting change: 2007 Annual Defence Report
21 December 2007
Transformation has been an essential driver for many of the world's armed forces in recent years, but 2007 certainly brought the concept to the fore in a variety of incarnations.
For those forces engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, transformation has meant different things for each contingent. For the indigenous security forces in Southwest Asia, transformation has meant nothing less than being able to generate forces capable of securing peace and stability in their own country. For the newer NATO members, transformation has implied leaving behind the doctrine - and, where funding allowed, the equipment - of the Soviet era and standing up contingents alongside their NATO elders as fully operational integrated contributions.
This process in turn is serving to gradually transform the armed forces of these nations as a whole, as more and more units rotate through NATO-ready formations.
For the United States and UK armed forces the process of transformation through the procurement of future armoured vehicle fleets made qualified progress in 2007 via the Future Combat Systems (FCS) and Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) programmes respectively (although the anticipated November downselection within the latter never came). In 2008 increasingly more might be glimpsed of the promise these programmes hold for how future armoured forces could deploy and operate.
However, the process of transformation does not just apply to the West, for China is now very much a practitioner - as opposed to a mere student - of the Revolution in Military Affairs and has been increasing its international footprint. In this respect 2007 saw everything from the testing of a Chinese anti-satellite weapon in January and a concerted cyber attack on the Pentagon in June to the increased use of more subtle economic and diplomatic initiatives, such as expanding bilateral ties as far as Africa and promoting the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation as a counterbalance to NATO and the EU.
In Russia, by contrast, the emphasis has foregone transformation for a more traditional muscle-flexing posture, with Putin returning long-range reconnaissance aircraft and ocean-going naval assets to operations at the limits of their old Cold War domain.
Back in the West, the various incarnations of transformation have generally not taken today's armed forces where they expected to be, the harsh lessons learned fighting asymmetric threats having diverted many from that predicted path. The British Army, for example, now talks about 'transforming in contact', where the very nature of the operations at hand in Iraq and Afghanistan serve to change everything from the tactics employed to the equipment procured - quite alongside and on top of the anticipated effects of battlefield digitisation and network-centricity.
As 2008 comes into view, the experiences of the past year have shown that flexibility and adaptability as much as any technological innovation will serve those forces wishing to be futureproof.
In the US, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to dominate the headlines. President George Bush's administration, smarting from election setbacks in 2006 that ceded control of Congress to the Democratic Party, shifted course in Iraq. Rather than accelerating withdrawal, it announced the US would bolster its troop contingent there.
On 10 January, Bush unveiled plans to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq - a 'surge' of five combat brigades that aimed to keep violence in check and allow the Iraqi government to shore up stability. The surge was also part of a broader plan to counter the regional influence of Iran.
"The violence in Iraq, if unchecked, could spread outside its borders and draw other states into a regional conflagration," said US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on 11 January.
"In addition, one would see an emboldened and strengthened Iran, a safe haven and base of operations for jihadist networks in the heart of the Middle East, a humiliating defeat in the overall campaign against violent extremism worldwide and an undermining of the credibility of the US. Given what is at stake, failure in Iraq is not an option."
What emerged was a serious test of the US military's new counter-insurgency doctrine. Bush named General David Petraeus, one of the authors of the US Army/US Marine Corps (USMC) counter-insurgency manual, to succeed General George Casey as the commander of coalition forces in Iraq. That document, published in late 2006, emphasised the importance of providing security for the population; Gen Petraeus directed his forces to establish a greater presence in Iraqi communities instead of being concentrated inside large forward operating bases.
As US troops took to the streets, new counter-insurgency guidelines encouraged troops to patrol on foot. "Get out and walk - move mounted, work dismounted," the guidelines read. "Vehicles like the up-armoured HMMWV [Humvee] limit our situational awareness and insulate us from the Iraqi people we intend to secure. They also make us predictable, often obliging us to move slowly on established routes."
By year's end, commanders in Iraq were reporting steady progress in reducing violence, though they remained cautious about whether that trend could be sustained after the surge of forces ends in 2008. In early November, US Army Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, the commander of Multi-National Corps - Iraq, said that improvised explosive device (IED) attacks - the favoured tactic of insurgents - had dropped to their 'lowest level' since the third quarter of 2004. While 2007 was overall the deadliest year for US forces in Iraq, casualties had dropped significantly by late in the year, with US casualties in October reaching their lowest number in 20 months.
Part of the progress in Iraq was attributed to the 'awakening': a process of political reconciliation with Sunni tribal leadership and the recruitment of local security volunteers. The reduction in US casualties could also be credited to the fielding of increasingly sophisticated countermeasures. The US Department of Defense (DoD) Joint IED Defeat Organization has spent billions of dollars in fielding counter-IED jammers, accelerate new technology and train troops in better tactics.
Most significantly, the US military services began investing heavily in the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle: a class of heavyweight armoured trucks purpose-built to survive IED strikes. While MRAP procurement was slow to get off the ground, the vehicles quickly emerged as a top priority for the Pentagon in 2007. They also gave a serious boost to industry: the services ordered MRAP models from seven different suppliers.
With all the communications equipment and jammers installed, MRAPs cost roughly USD1 million each. On 17 July, Gates asked the US Congress to shift USD1.2 billion from the department's Fiscal Year 2007 budget into the MRAP programme; the funds were to pay for an additional 2,650 MRAPs. By 19 November, the Pentagon had sent 669 of those new vehicles to Iraq and 45 to Afghanistan.
The US Marine Corps (USMC) initially led the way on the MRAP programme, but in early December the service signalled that it might not need as many vehicles as originally planned. Cumulatively, however, the services have a stated requirement for nearly 14,000 of the vehicles: 2,300 for the USMC; 10,000 for the army; 544 for the US Navy; 697 for the US Air Force (USAF); and 333 for the US Special Operations Command, plus around 100 MRAPs for ballistic testing.
Regardless of the changes in the security situation in Iraq, MRAPs remain a top priority for the services. In late November, the department began sealifting more of the vehicles to the US Central Command theatre.