Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made waves earlier this month when he said the Army should consider a new mission: defending coastlines. In a report out today, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says the idea makes perfect sense as the Army seeks to reinvent itself amid the pivot to the Pacific and the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The report says the Army should widen its focus from just fighting land wars to also being able to engage enemy ships and aircraft. And the service should look to China as an example. The People's Liberation Army has long frustrated Pentagon planners with its increasingly sophisticated capabilities in what’s known as anti-access/area denial — the ability to use missiles, mines and other weapons to deter enemies from nearing its shores. “With these capabilities, the PLA can now hold at risk U.S., ally and partner forces entering or operating in large parts of the Asia-Pacific region,” the report says, according to our sneak peek.
Why the Army, and not the Air Force or Navy? Ground forces have advantages over air and sea forces because they’re free of platform constraints and can “rearm, resupply and refuel in theater,” according to the report. “The Army is right to think that it can and should prioritize winning wars on land — that is central to its very being and its value to the nation,” the report says. “But too narrow a focus on the land discounts the Army’s inherent potential to project power into other domains, with all the advantages of doing so from the land.”