How the Enemy Could Hit the U.S. Army at Home by Patrick Duggan - War on the Rocks
What good is having the best fighting forces in the world if the U.S. Army loses the ability to employ them? What happens when the 82nd Airborne Division isn’t physically able to deploy because its paratroopers and families are psychologically targeted where they live, train, and go to school? What happens when installation infrastructure is sabotaged by multiple attacks timed to natural disasters? What happens when bases at home become the first skirmish lines of future war? It is time for the U.S. Army to change the way it thinks about its installations.
Today, U.S. Army installations are a complex ecosystem where soldiers live, train, conduct warfighting missions, generate combat power, and raise families. They are dealing with issues such as chronic underfunding, outdated organizational structures, and most importantly, technological change. Future adversaries will attempt to exploit these critical vulnerabilities to defeat the U.S. Army long before it deploys. Rivals will seek to strip away the Army’s ability to maneuver using cyber, information, and unconventional warfare to take down its warfighting functions one by one. To prevent this, the Army should update its concept of installations and accept that they are the first skirmish lines of tomorrow’s defense so that it can better prepare itself for the coming salvos in its own backyard…