AUSA Winter 2013: Army working new strategy to modernise with less funding

The US Army is to soon release a new broadly outlined modernisation strategy as it seeks to account for sequestration and its possible long-term effects, according to the officer responsible for co-ordinating army funding, fielding, and equipping.

To plan for the potential of sequestration's full 10-year effects, which could be first implemented on 1 March, the army has completed a new modernisation strategy to give guidance to the force and for industry to see where the service is likely go in the future, said Lieutenant General James Barclay, deputy chief of staff for Army G-8.

Sequestration forces equal across-the-board cuts in Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13), but in FY14 and beyond the army will have more leeway to make cuts as it chooses. So it will look at which programmes and budget lines it can cut, which can be stretched out and delayed, and which it wants to protect.

The new modernisation strategy is not programme specific, but rather a broader outline, Lt Gen Barclay told an audience at an Association of the US Army meeting in Ft Lauderdale, Florida.