If We are Reducing GOFO Numbers...

...focus on where you are willing to accept risk...

Let’s revisit the SECDEF’s memo on reductions in the numbers of General Officers and Flag Officers.

How many numbers are we looking at? The below from the end of march shows the total GOFO by services as;

• Army: 266

• Navy: 211

• USMC: 90

• Air Force: 222

• Space Force: 28

Also included in the report is this bastard child of the Goldwater-Nichols cargo cult that messes up the percentages. The percentages below are a bit different than if you ran the numbers below, but it is close enough for this conversation. Let’s clear away the Cult of the Joint chaff and look at real percentages by adding the “XXX Joint” and “XXX” together:

• Army: 35%

• Navy: 24%

• USMC: 10%

• Air Force: 28%

• Space Force: 3%

How many GOFO is that per service member?

• Army: 1,691 in a total force of 449,875

• Navy: 1,585 in a total force of 334,372

• Marines: 1,870 in a total force of 168,288

• Air Force: 1,431 in a force of 317,568

• Space Force: 345(!) in a force of 9,671

A couple of things:

1. No one can justify the bloated GOFO force. It isn’t just the people, it is the staffs and bureaucracy that comes with each one of them. A culling is long overdue and the SECDEF’s numbers are a good start.

2. Look again at those total force numbers. Does that look like a military of a maritime and aerospace power designed to fight its major competitor in the Western Pacific?

Of course, for the second question the answer is an easy, “No.”

Let’s look again at the SECDEF’s memo. Nowhere does he state that those percentages have to come equally from each service. No, not specifically. He uses the term “…across the Active Component.”

As we restructure, let’s use this opportunity to shape the total force towards the most likely and most dangerous fight we could see in the next thirty years: a Great Pacific War against the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

When it comes to a possible Pacific fight, it will be predominately a maritime and aerospace battle. Outside the Korean peninsula, we would be stupid to have any land component ashore on the Asian mainland.

We are lucky in that by geography and the nature of our neighbors, we are a maritime and aerospace power and have a comparative advantage when it comes to a Pacific fight.

The PRC is a land power, and even with her significant naval, air, and rocket forces, she is not leveraging her natural advantages in any fight to her east across the Pacific.

With a limited budget, it is clear not only where a higher percentage of GOFO reductions should come from, but where additional funds from the budget can be found to leverage our natural advantage at sea and in the air—the U.S. Army.

We should assume risk in our land component and shift a much greater percentage of Army Active Component forces to the Army Reserve and National Guard. If war requires activation of our Army, we should have time to get them up to speed following mobilization. All our Asian allies who face China’s land forces have the ability to hold the line until the bulk U.S. Army arrives to back their play…if needed.

Any fight in the air and at sea will be a true “fight tonight” and will need to be at a much higher readiness state. While some of our allies such as Japan have good and growing naval forces, they are regional in effect and have nothing that can compare to what the U.S. Navy can put to sea. Same in the air.

So, sure—we can get by with fewer Admirals…but especially in round two of reductions, I think it is time for Army to accept the strategic requirements the second quarter of the 21st century and take a much greater bite of the cuts.

GWOT was a land fight. The Great Pacific War—unless the USA makes a huge strategic error—will not.

h/t Sadler.