Page 12 - Williams Foundation Integrated Force Design Seminar

Designing the Integrated Force: How to Define and Meet the Challenge?

And then added the comment by Lt General Campbell made in the same presentation last year with regard
to the nature of real world challenges and combat outcomes as a driving test of combat success.
“Notwithstanding the proliferation of technology and the associated emergence of new domains, war without
submission requires decision on land, where people live. The need for Orwellian ‘rough men’ (and women) is
not going away anytime soon. War as a contest of wills, settled by close combat, and is the enduring
responsibility of the Army. However, the context in which that contest takes place has and continues to
change.”

The focus of BG Wainwright’s presentation was on the outcome of evolution of the jointly enabled and jointly
contributing ground maneuver force.
“The Land Force Must be ready to fight into, through and beyond Complex Terrain – Here I will steal the
Marine Corps definition of complex terrain; where the additional layers of informational and human
complexity further complicate traditional geo-physical challenges.”

“Future land forces will face unprecedented levels of complexity in cluttered, congested, hyper-connected and
lethal future operating environments. Even the most benign mission may pose hidden challenges. This will
require ready land forces capable of achieving tactical objectives in complex, possibly contaminated urban
environments – in and amongst fragile populations; all while being challenged across multiple domains,
simultaneously.”
“The Land Force Must have the ability to form robust, lethal, and networked combined arms teams; fully
integrated into the wider joint force and capable of operating dispersed or distributed, then to aggregate
rapidly to deliver precise and discriminate effects. Not simply another insatiable consumer of information,
fires and enabling support, or a stand-alone ‘battlespace owner’… but a true joint player capable of
delivering and integrating joint effects in partnership with, and as an important element of a larger inter-
governmental, interagency and multinational team.”

“Land forces must be survivable. Even the most seemingly benign operational contingencies can deteriorate
rapidly and even the smallest commitment can require hard fighting, against well-equipped, determined and
adaptive enemies. As much as we might wish for a future where long range sensors and stand-off fires
mitigate the joint force need for land forces ready and prepared for the demands of sustained close combat
in complex terrain – this represents wishful thinking, not sound force design.”

“Moreover, the proliferation of next generation Air to Ground Missiles, explosive Unmanned systems, loiter
munitions, advanced IED and mines, CRBN threats including everything from chemicals to thermobarics. And the
consequences of efforts to disrupt our access to the Electro magnetic Spectrum and space borne enablers must
be accounted for by a holistic approach to survivability and force protection.”

“To achieve this will require the Integrated Joint Force to evolve from the best-equipped Army in our history,
to the best-equipped land force, of its size, in the world.”

The land force needed to be inherently joint given the evolving nature of warfighting domains. “Future land
forces must be capable of potent cross-domain effects – projecting land power from the land into multiple
domains, including the electromagnetic spectrum and the arena of human perception. This will undoubtedly
create new challenges, demand new responses and require cultural change to see where land forces may best
serve the interests of the joint interagency intergovernmental and multinational ‘team of teams’.”

Second Line of Defense

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