One of the Army’s leading futurists believes
Army forces on the ground is the solution to the growing anti-access,
area-denial threats to US power projection capabilities, rather than the
“standoff capabilities” that would be provided by Air Force and Navy long-range
strike assets. Speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19,
Lt. Gen. H.R.
McMaster, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, said the new Army Operating Concept—Win in a Complex
World—“gets to the problem of cross domain operations, gets to air, space, and
maritime domains, that are increasingly challenged by advanced technologies
that we’ve seen in recent years.” The fact that Army forces operate on land “is
important because, guess what, all your problems, in cyberspace, in space,
maritime, air, where do they originate? They originate on land, because people
live there,” and that is where the political decisions are made that cause the
problems, he said. McMaster, who also serves as deputy commanding general,
Futures, in the Army Training and Doctrine Command, said the Army’s mission is
to operate on land to defeat enemy forces, to control territory, and to deny
the enemy the use of that ground.
Noting the recent threat to Israel from missiles
fired from the Gaza strip, McMaster asked: “Do you want to deal with it only
with standoff capabilities? It’s not going to get it done properly,” he said.