The Army is too top-heavy
Surplus generals, swollen staffs, and excess headquarters drain headcount and resources from warfighting units.
R.D. Hooker, Jr. | December 10, 2024 04:38 PM ET
With its many missions, the U.S. Army is hard-pressed to meet the requirements of the National Defense Strategy at its current authorized end strength. A major part of the problem is that the Army is awash in staffs, many of which did not exist during World War II, or even in the 1990s. After 9/11, the Army Staff grew by 60 percent, while headquarters and staffs Army-wide ballooned. All of these headquarters consume resources withheld from the warfighting Army. Nor can it be shown that Army functions are being executed more effectively or efficiently because multiple large headquarters have been created to run them.
A case in point is the Army Installation Management Command, or IMC, created in 2006 and chartered to “reduce bureaucracy, apply a uniform business structure to manage U.S. Army installations, sustain the environment and enhance the well-being of the military community.” IMC is headed by a lieutenant general, with a major general as deputy and brigadier general as chief of staff. IMC includes a workforce of 30,000 soldiers and 70,000 civilians. Formerly, Army installations were managed by garrison commanders reporting to local commanding generals, with an Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installation Management. In theory, centralizing the installation management function promised common standards and greater expertise. In practice, results have fallen far short, with the Army experiencing a “crisis” in installation management in recent years.
Another compelling example is the Army Acquisition Corps, created in 1989 and today employing 1,600 commissioned officers plus many more senior civilians. Since its creation, the Army has failed badly with major program acquisitions, squandering billions on programs like the Crusader Field Artillery System, the Future Combat System, the Ground Combat Vehicle, the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter and the XM1299 Extended Range Cannon Artillery system, among others. No major Army program has been successfully fielded since the 1980s, a trend described by one Secretary of the Army as a “tale of failure.” In 2018, the Army doubled down by creating Futures Command, adding another large 4-star headquarters to supervise an existing, labyrinthine set of acquisition headquarters which includes the Army Futures and Concepts Center, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command and its associated battle labs, the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command; and the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, among others. Despite this massive infrastructure, the Army has not improved performance in this key sphere.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/12/army-too-top-heavy/401571/?oref=d1-featured-river-secondary
