Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond: The U.S. Army's Challenges in 2010.

• Author: Jones, David T.

Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond: The U.S. Army's Challenges in 2010

By General George Casey, Army Chief of Staff

Text: www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2010/0128_casey/20100128_casey.pdf

Reviewed by David T. Jones

In January, General George Casey, Army Chief of Staff, provided a State of the Army appraisal after two and a half years under his guidance as Chief. Unsurprisingly, he found that it had improved significantly during that period. To be sure, there were still a wide variety of problems (e.g., a rising and puzzling suicide rate and slight increases in "positive" drug tests), but most metrics (e.g., recruitment and retention of key personnel groups) are positive.

General Casey recalled the circumstances in 2007 when the Army was strained and "out of balance," with troops rotating too frequently to Iraq/Afghanistan and having insufficient time to prepare the Army for challenges further into the 21st century. Simultaneously, the Army needed to be trained and equipped to fight the fights in progress, continue to be restructured from Cold War organizational verities to more ambiguous challenges, and surmount the "turbulence" associated with relocating and...