Talk:Restructuring of the United States Army

Terms that come to find as fodder for this article

UEx nd UEy are the first restructuring terms that come to mind Eric M Gearhart 12:03, 30 July 2008 (CDT)

The Army is rapidly infusing state-of-the-art, commercial off-the-shelf information technology into brigade combat team (BCT),
unit of employment x (UEx, a division equivalent), and unit of employment y (UEy, a theater and corps equivalent) 
warfighting platforms, strategic reach-back sites, and signal formations.

See this article for more info Eric M Gearhart

Yep. I had them going in on the revision in progress, and the more restructuring refs the better, since some conflict, which may be only a question of date (e.g., how many aviation brigades, if the Airborne and Air Assault immediately become IBCTs).

UE presents some interesting real-world problems. One of the things that hindsight shows us is that the UEy model gets a little strange in the real world. Ignoring the very real Korean politics, having a four-star in Korea commanding a reinforced division works because he heads a "sub-unified command" of PACCOM. I've been rereading Tommy Franks' autobiography and the command structure to deal simultaneousy with Afghanistan and Iraq. It was fine for McKiernan to be a UEy commander running the conventional combat until the Iraqi Army broke up, but I believe the seeds of Abu Ghraib, among other things, came by creating MNC-I, a UEy equivalent, in the post-high-intensity phase. I'm not saying Sanchez did the world's best job, but I wonder if MNF-I had existed, MNC-I was a UEy running operations, and CG MNF-I had oversight of things like rear area and prison/intel operations.

So, look to today's world. Neither MNF-I nor ISAF are three-star commands, as they would be if they were UEy. I recognize that the multinational aspects of both make calling them sub-unified commands of CENTCOM, justifying a four-star, have some political problems, but that's really what both are. Maybe we need to define an UEz, which is assumed to be multinational from the start, and presented to allies as a headquarters designed for coalition operations where the CG (HMFWIIIC would violate CZ family-friendliness).

This is beyond the scope, I believe, of the restructuring article, which should report what is being planned and done. OTOH, it's not unreasonable to have a criticism section, with authoritative sources that have problems with some of the plans. I really, really don't want to get in the middle of the Stryker debates; I'm C3I-ISR and SOF. Incidentally, I was amazed to discover that it's named for two real soldiers named Stryker -- I had long assumed it was John Wayne's SGT Stryker, which would fit with everything I've heard about GEN Shinseki having a very strange (but funny) sense of humor. Apropos of Shinseki, it would be a braver man than I who would touch Restructuring of the United States Army Berets. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:45, 30 July 2008 (CDT)

Hahaha yep I used to ask Lieutenants about "this new UEy and UEx thing" just to watch them trip over themselves trying to explain it to Private Gearhart :) Eric M Gearhart

Howard, do you plan to go into subjects like rebasing, TRO of the Guard and Reserve, NORTHCOM, JFCOM relationships and so on?--Robert W. White 15:25, 31 July 2008 (CDT)