Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 64

significant consideration for future force designs. Army
2020 designs approach prudent limits on the useful
extent of force pooling, require excessive task organization (which introduces significant training and span
of control challenges), and place increasing reliance on
low-density, high-value enablers.

Conclusion
The examination of Army 2020 initiatives will
lead to better force design and planning factors
for assessment. Later in 2014, the Joint and Army
Experimentation Division expects to disseminate a new
document describing the Army 2020 organizational
and operational concept.13 This document will discuss
the successes and challenges experimentation has identified with the Army 2020 force construct. All units
in the operating force undergoing transformation are

expected to receive the document as part of an educational support package.
Systemic pressures such as budget and force reductions have forced the acceleration of Army 2020
concepts and planning factors for implementation in
2015. Therefore, the Army is shifting its focus to 2025.
The force needs to assess not only the characteristics of
the threat but also how to meet and defeat it. As the
Army marches into the future, experimentation
remains the most cost-effective and lowest risk venue to
test new concepts. The use of modeling and simulation,
war games, and other types of experiments allow the
Army to explore capabilities and force designs before
investing scarce resources. Experimentation helps
identify challenges, risks, and opportunities. Finally, it
ensures that today and tomorrow the U.S. Army will
remain the pre-eminent land force in the world.

Notes
1. Congressional Research Service report, Army Drawdown
and Restructuring: Background and Issues for Congress, by Andrew
Feikert, R42493, prepared for members and committees of Congress. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office
[GPO], 28 February 2014, 14.
2. Combat Studies Institute (CSI) report, Sixty Years of Reorganizing for Combat: A Historical Trend Analysis, no. 14, prepared
for the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center. Fort Leavenworth, KS:
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Combat Studies
Institute, December 1999, 16.
3. Ibid., 16-17.
4. Congressional Research Service, 28.
5. Combat Studies Institute, 41-49.
6. The Joint and Army Experimentation Division ( JAED) of
ARCIC, TRADOC battle laboratories, and Army battle laboratories
collaborate as the Army’s experimentation community of practice.
Other joint and interagency participants include sister services,
Department of State representatives, unified action partners from
the UK, Australia, and Canada, and other government agencies.
7. For joint operational phases, see Joint Publication ( JP) 3-0,
Joint Operations (Washington, DC: GPO, 11 August 2011), V-6.

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Phases 0 through V represent efforts before, during, and after
combat operations.
8. Data in table 1 originally appeared in an internal Army 2020
assessment report prepared by ARCIC in 2014.
9. The phrase unified action partners captures all types of
entities with whom military forces synchronize, coordinate, and
integrate activities (formerly called joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational [ JIIM] partners).
10. A 2012 TRADOC tasking order outlined a plan for Army
2020, based on the concept originally developed by Department
of the Army. The order had listed 40 issues to be addressed; the
JAED staff selected eight areas for experimentation.
11. Data in table 2 originally appeared in an internal Army
2020 assessment report prepared by ARCIC in 2014.
12. A draft Army 2020 Organizational and Operational Concept was under development at the time this article was prepared,
in cooperation with the staffs of the JAED, the 2nd Infantry Division, the 8th Army, the Mission Command Training Program, and
other members of the community of practice.
13. Internal Army 2020 assessment report prepared by ARCIC
in 2014.

July-August 2014  MILITARY REVIEW