By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
PENTAGON: From hunting jungle animals to communicating across the ocean, US Army soldiers learned much in the first Pacific Pathways wargames that Iraq and Afghanistan never taught them. Those exercises are part of the service’s effort to reinvent itself as it shrinks, heading from a wartime peak of 570,000 to 450,000 or below.
Instead of prolonged, large-scale warfare in a single theater, the “complex world (PDF)” envisioned by the new Army Operating Concept requires smaller forces dispersed across the globe working with friendly nations, especially in Asia, to which US strategy is ostensibly “rebalancing.” (The word “pivot” is now déclassé). Last fall’s exercises with local forces inwere the first-ever Pacific Pathways event. So what is the Army doing differently?
Bottom line up top: It is not spending more money. In an ugly and uncertain budget environment, new spending is not an option, especially for the incredible shrinking Army. Instead, Pacific Pathways repurposes existing funding for longstanding wargames. Last fall’s exercises were annual events that have been going on for years: Garuda Shield in Indonesia,Keris Strike in Malaysia, and Orient Shield in Japan.
One difference with Pacific Pathways, though, is that a single Army unit ran all three exercises. That was the Fort Lewis, Washington-based 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, one of the Army’s regionally aligned units that focuses its training on the culture, geography, and likely crises of a particular region.
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