Small Wars Journal

Army Task Force Takeover Could Spell Doom for Infantry Reform

Fri, 02/07/2020 - 12:25am

Army Task Force Takeover Could Spell Doom for Infantry Reform by Todd South – Army Times

A co-founder of a task force focused on radically improving close combat across military services said the initiative may be headed toward irrelevance outside of a small sector of the Army.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told an audience at Johns Hopkins University today that the Close Combat Lethality Task Force, launched in 2018 under his predecessor Secretary of Defense James Mattis, would likely move to the Army.

“What we’re probably going to do is transition that to the Army because something like that needs a strong foundation, a backbone on which its ideas can then filter out,” Esper said.

Esper is a former Army infantry officer and with the 101st Airborne Division during the Persian Gulf War and later commanded a rifle company. He also previously served as Army secretary.

But retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales told Army Times Monday that the move was a “bad idea” that could spell the end of the effort…

Read on.