Thoughts on Force Design in an Era of Shrinking Defense Budgets

ABSTRACT: Colonel (ret.) Douglas A. MacGregor stands out as one of the voices who has for years been calling for radical transformation of the US military in general, and of its Army in particular. MacGregor was praised in the First Gulf War for his role in battle against the Republican Guard, and he is considered an outstanding field commander. MacGregor dedicates his intellectual life to pointing out the paradigmatic crisis into which the US Army has fallen and on the ways to overcome it. This paper, which was first published in the US military's Chiefs of Staff's journal Joint Force Quarterly in 2011, builds on Macgregor's books Breaking the Phalanx (1997) and Transformation under Fire (2003). The paper calls for the organization of American forces into multi-domain tactical units, by breaking up the traditional service branches and utilizing the technologies of the digital age. These units will benefit from more tactical and C2 independence, and will be able to sustain a decentralized combat method appropriate to the era of precision strikes on the battlefield. In his recent book Margin of Victory (2016) five historical examples are detailed on the link between forward-thinking force design and victory on the battlefield.

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