The Most Critical Strategic Leadership

The Most Critical Strategic Leadership
Issue
One of the most critical strategic issues that face my organization and which requires accelerated change is army readiness. The distribution of power across the globe is changing as new, previously unforeseen threats begin to emerge. China and Russia, along with other regional actors like North Korea and Iran, are increasingly becoming assertive and pose a significant threat to America’s security, interests, and allies. Moreover, violent extremism and terrorism, both local and international, continue to threaten a stable and open global system.
Background
The United States is currently situated in a progressively challenging national security setting: in addition to dealing with an unsustainable fiscal situation, a reduced force structure and personnel, insufficient equipment, and limited modernization of its forces, the U.S. Army is faced with the growing threat of large-scale conflict. After a decade of conflict, cutbacks in force structure, and budget uncertainty, the U.S. army finds itself unprepared for large-scale conflict. The biggest threats to America's prosperity and security are tied to the incredible power competition the country is currently embroiled in with China and Russia. Army readiness for large-scale combat is imperative to success in the current security environment. However, DOD reports indicate that army readiness continues to be challenging and has remained so for the past nine years. The DOD has had to deal with the challenging decision of balancing ongoing operational demands and making provisions for future challenges. Choosing between maintaining and improving weapon systems currently in use or modernizing their abilities to ensure they match or even outpace those of advancing competitors has not been easy.
This strategic issue has been further complicated by America’s years of sustained conflict, especially regarding personnel and equipment. Some factors contributing to the strategic issue of inadequate army readiness include insufficient personnel, training, and equipment; a high operational tempo; and limited funding. Concerning personnel and force structure, the U.S. army is currently experiencing challenges in expanding its forces owing to missed recruitment targets, significant shortfalls in critical skills like civilian flight test pilots in depots, poor monitoring, and management of personnel time away from home, as well as limited cyber and security force assistance units. Missed recruitment targets have severely affected America’s ground force preparedness. The decade spent fighting violent extremists and executing contingency operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria has adversely affected balancing the country's forces in recent budget requests. The DOD has acknowledged that continuous demands by geographic commanders for specific types of forces have disrupted equipping, manning, and training cycles.
As a result, there are currently significant gaps in building and sustaining necessary operational capabilities in the event of a full large-scale conflict. Although some service branches have managed to improve their army readiness, significant issues remain in several areas of each. For instance, the Marine Corps h...