Gates at West Point: End to Ground Wars?

Danger Room has a solid commentary on the seemingly bizarre speach Secretary Gates gave recently at West Point, where he suggested that the age of large-scale deployments of ground forces has come to an end. This may seem like a strange, even questionable, message to deliver to a graduating class of future Army officers, but it's really not different than what has been happening to the Army since before the Iraq war.

Gates is not really implying an end to the importance of the Army or ground forces, just a continued shift away from heavy armored/mechanized forces to lighter, more deployable expeditionary forces. 

“The strategic rationale for swift-moving expeditionary forces, be they Army or Marines, airborne infantry or special operations, is self-evident given the likelihood of counter-terrorism, rapid reaction, disaster response or stability or security-force assistance missions,” Gates said.

This trend started nearly 15 years ago with the initial fieldings of the lighter, wheeled Stryker brigades and the reflagging of heavy armor units into (relatively) lighter forces. Gates' message is likely a sign that the Army will continue to look at this heavy/light balance -- but it's probably not an indication that big cuts to the Army's force structure are imminent.

Having said that, however, some observers are right to challenge Gates' ideas about the restructuring of ground forces and their role in future conflicts. As the same article points out:

Readers might be forgiven for hearing echoes of Rumsfeld’s doomed “net-centric” Army in Gates’ comments. There was a good reason Rumsfeld’s Army reforms stalled: traditional, big war ground forces are still really useful — even for so-called “low-intensity” operations, like counterinsurgencies. As both Iraq and Afghanistan proved, it’s the heavy weaponry that opens up a country for the lighter forces to chase guerrillas or rebuild shattered states. It’s the heavy weaponry that often protects those light forces. Your infantry may not survive without plenty of armor, in other words.