The Army is conducting a complete review of its missile defense portfolio to see how the service can meet requirements in the Asia Pacific region and around the world, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno said.
"We need to take a really hard look at how we can do this in a more efficient, effective way because [missile defense] is clearly becoming a requirement that is not only in [the Asia Pacific region] but in other places around the world that are becoming really important to our combatant commanders," Odierno told Inside the Army in a brief interview following an April 25 House Armed Services Committee hearing. "The secretary [John McHugh] and I have directed a review to look at what we are doing in this area/.../"
Think-tankers have recently argued that the Army could maintain its relevancy in the Asia Pacific region by employing its missile defense assets there.
Notably, Jim Thomas, the director of studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, argues in an essay in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs that as the Defense Department shifts its attention to the Asia Pacific region, the Army can burnish its case for a greater role by focusing more on land-based missile systems and less on its ground expeditionary forces. Thomas says the Army stands to "bear the brunt" of defense cuts in the wake of a shift to a region traditionally dominated by the Air Force and the Navy.
Remaining relevant "would require [the Army] to reduce its traditional emphasis on expeditionary land warfare and instead focus on establishing a constellation of forward-based missile forces stationed on the territory of U.S. allies and partners," Thomas states. "Such a shift would represent a major change in course for the Army."