In a fascinating article published on September 27th in the National Defense Magazine, retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales argues that  the Department of Defense (“DOD”) “has failed to pay adequate attention to improving the equipment and training for small infantry units” currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Gen. Scales, a former commandant of the Army War College and military historian, claims that while “we’re still the best ground force in the world . . .”   when it comes to ground combat, the American military “hasn’t come as far as it should.  It doesn’t dominate in the tactical fight.”

In a speech delivered to a gathering of defense experts and journalists at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Gen. Scales argues that the tactical superiority the United States enjoys in the air and on the sea hasn’t manifest itself on the ground.  According to the National Defense Magazine article which

“Years of combat have shown that the soldiers and marines who are the most likely to die are the ‘least trained and equipped for this dangerous calling,’ Scales says.”

Citing a “Beltway culture this is fixated on big-ticket weapons,”  policy-makers ” dodge meaningful discussions about the tactical aspects of war on the ground because close-contact combat is ‘dirty, horrific and bloody,’ says Scales. ‘People just don’t want to talk about that.’”   Citing his experiences at a recent congressionally mandated panel, Gen. Scales commented that during countless hours of testimony “I don’t believe the topic of ground combat ever came up.”  “These wonderful neat things inside the Beltway tend to trump the bloody and uncomfortable aspects” of the wars U.S. troops are now fighting, he says. “There are so few people in positions of authority who have had experience with that sort of thing.”

The Defense Department’s scientific communities have never made small units a strategic priority in research and development. Scales specifically pointed his finger at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “The greatest disappointment is DARPA,” says Gen. Scales. “It doesn’t appear that the reality of the tactical battlefield has worked its way into the scientific and technological development entities . . . We still view the preparation of small units as an industrial process of mass production.”While we spend billions of dollars on instrumented training ranges and digital simulators, Gen. Scales notes that “small unit leaders still have to gain proficiency the old fashioned way: in combat, by shedding the blood of their soldiers.”

Gen. Scales is not the first to point out that the grunts on the ground appear to get short-changed in the procurement process when it comes to making sure that they have reliable – why not the BEST? – combat gear and protective gear. Are we too fascinated by the techie toys such as the Predator to consider the well-being and safety of our troops?  Perhaps, it is as Gen. Scales so eloquently argues, “there are so few people in positions of authority who have had experience with that sort of thing . . . close-contact combat is dirty, horrific and bloody!”

General Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  recently argued that “low-end” wars would become increasingly common and that these wars would call for increased emphasis for troops to be deployed in hostile war zones.   If this is a war-planning scenario that our military leadership believes probable, shouldn’t we be making haste to insure our ground troops have the best combat equipment and protective gear available.     Gen. Scales believes so – as do many of the families of troops currently deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.