David H. Ucko

Maj. Kenneth J. Burgess, U.S. Army, has an excellent piece in the latest issue of Military Affairs, where he discusses the possible changes that are needed to align U.S. Army force structure to the requirements of today’s operating environment. He cleverly flips the Army argument against force specialisation on its head by pointing out that Heavy Brigade Combat Teams (HBCT) are already ’specialised’ for conventional combat. From then on, he provides some really valuable ideas on how the other BCTs – the Stryker, the Infantry – could be rendered more relevant to stability operations, to conduct the mission components of stability operations that U.S. Army doctrine now recognises as on the same level of importance as major combat operations.

Maj. Burgess also takes issue with the ‘more of the same’ approach with which the Army is expanding the force (though it should be said that the recent decision to convert to two HBCTs to SBCTs is a step in the right direction). Nonetheless, he says: “The Army’s answer to current brigade shortages in its Iraq and Afghanistan rotational pool is to increase the supply of available brigade combat teams. Instead, more effective brigades should be the goal.” He then goes on to provide some ideas on how this could be done.

The article, which you can find here, is an excellent and much-needed contribution to the debate on how to reform force structure for today’s operating environment. I suspect Maj. Burgess’ 175-page Masters thesis, “Organizing for Irregular Warfare: Implications for the Brigade Combat Team” (which I have yet to read) provides more details than possible in the MR article.