Small Units, Big Problems? | AFCEA SIGNAL Scape: "Following the Gen. Patreus VTC at the Joint Warfighting Conference was a group of experts discussing small unit excellence who took a serious look at what troops on the ground face today and in the future. Few deny that the all of the services are at least looking at operating in smaller groups—a la special operations units—to fight in environments like Afghanistan. The panelists agreed that outdated processes that govern the U.S. Defense Department need to be changed. From training, to personnel and acquisition, to the term “lessons learned,” the U.S. military organization is still designed to fight WWI scenarios against today’s adversaries, they concurred.
Col. Thomas X. Hammes, USMC (Ret.), proposed that what the U.S. military will have in the future is a smaller budget and worn out equipment. One of the reasons this is particularly disturbing is that much of the equipment in use by most warfighters today was only available to special operations units in the past. Once the budget has been reduced, however, commanders will have to decide what is needed and what is just nice to have."
