THE ARMY IN 2025: THE CHIEF OF STAFF’S VIEW.

Complete document (pdf)  (Spanish only)

A document by the Chief of the Army Staff, Army General Coll, compiles the keys that will define the Institution in the future and the elements that must serve as reference to its members.  The horizon is situated in 2025.

The expression of all that the Chief of the Army Staff aims to undertake during the coming years at the core of the Army has been compiled in a text.  This constitutes the guide to achieve its being an organisation prepared and equipped to face the future with guarantees of success, and it includes the keys and references that the organisation’s heads must bear in mind.

The Chief of Staff’s view must be reality in a little over a decade.  To this end the level that has been reached must be maintained and the preparation procured that is needed to resolve the coming challenges.  Achieving this requires the involvement of all personnel, and for this reason everyone must know the objectives toward which we aim the action and not lose sight of a series of references that are going to be permanent within this time frame.

The Army must continue fulfilling its mission in defence of national interests within an international context in which there are threats present such as terrorism, organised crime, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the struggle for basic resources, through its participation in peacekeeping operations and in crisis management and resolution.  The most likely actions will be in the scope of stabilisation missions and counter insurgence scenarios; urban combat will also be frequent.  This context will demand an Army that is versatile when faced with the diversity of the threat of a globalised world. 

References

To achieve a prepared and equipped organisation to face the future, the Chief of the Army Staff has pointed out a series of references that must not be lost sight of and that all members of the organisation must know.

Professionalism is one of these elements.  To achieve this, there is the commitment to training, which must be as solid as possible and allow for continuing to update knowledge, as well as being put to the test in the execution of the missions assigned and in achieving excellence in the work that each one aspires to at his or her post.

Dynamic evolution in the introduction of new military capabilities as the result of permanent adaptation to the strategic scenario and continuous improvement, which is materialised in the re-designing of organisational processes to improve costs, efficiency, speed and service quality, are also more aspects to be taken into account. 

Conflicts must be faced in an integral manner through joint action, which in order to be efficient, requires the habitual rehearsal of the assigned missions.

Another of the essential values in the Army of the future will be equal opportunity among all its members, with a balanced vertical and horizontal integration, in addition to the values that are characteristic of the Institution and which must be practiced and disseminated. 

Finally, and as a demonstration of their link with global preoccupations, service members in 2025 will keep in mind respect and care for the environment in planning and executing their actions. 

Also included in the document are key aspects to be conserved and necessary improvements that have been identified in order to act adequately in conflicts of a disparate nature.  These are grouped under five headings: the human factor, command, organisation, armament and materiel, as well as logistics. 

KEY ASPECTS

THE HUMAN FACTOR

The human factor, the role performed by the combatant, is the most valued asset within the Army, and this will not change in the future. In fact, the soldier will continue to bear the main weight of combat, due to his very high capability to adapt himself to any scenario and as at present, he will continue to undertake a fundamental role within the Institution.

This is the most complex, most decisive element and the basis for any operational organisation.   Despite technological progress, no new weapons system can replace this role completely.  For this reason, efforts will be put into improving both the combatants’ instruction level as well as their knowledge of tactics and techniques.

Global Training

Only rigorous and extreme training guarantees the execution in any scenario and their adaptation to the different aspects of the conflict.  The soldier must be physically, technically and morally prepared to carry out his work under the most difficult and demanding circumstances.  Due to this, he will be instructed in the principles of austerity and resource economy, which will facilitate his performance in desolate and devastated environments.  The Combatant must be versatile and capable of using the material available in the assigned scenario.  He must be prepared to face the missions that he is required for. 

Knowledge of the cultural environment that surrounds him is also considered to be a fundamental part of that preparation, especially necessary in the scenario of operations abroad.  For this reason, the soldier will be provided with the necessary knowledge on the social reality at whose heart he is going to fulfil a series of tasks that he has been commissioned.

Along with this training, effort must be focused on achieving his motivation, on his evaluation and on retaining the best service persons to make up the Army of 2025.

 THE COMMAND

Officers and non-commissioned officers must exercise exemplary leadership based on initiative, creativity and analysis of complex situations, as well as be a constant reference in the exercise of military virtues. 

To do so requires constantly updating their knowledge and abilities as well as global technical training that provides them with a vision of the overall situation.  The non-commissioned officer’s role of leader must be strengthened, given that he is the one in charge of executing the soldier’s individual training and his function is to bring out the best in each of his soldiers. 

The Road to Excellence

His work must be aimed at excellence, in such a manner that there is a commitment to the quality of the processes that each one carries out at his post.  There must be special emphasis on strengthening military virtues and on exercising leadership based on the example.

The Importance of Languages

Spanish participation in international organisations and missions abroad make the knowledge of other languages take on special importance.  Thus, Spanish service personnel in the future must master English and use it routinely, even at the level of elemental units, as learning another language is also necessary for certain specialities.

THE ORGANISATION

Doctrine, which is the recompilation of military thought and which is intellectually in harmony with that of the allied countries, is what drives transformation and change in the Army, the source of military training, organisation and planning.  It must serve as orientation for the operations in which units are involved most habitually, which have an expeditionary character and are aimed toward joint action.  For this reason it must be procured that the training of large units be frequent and permit unification of procedures. 

In this scenario, obtaining results will depend mainly on land actions.  That is why the Army must maintain a very significant representation in joint organization and have available capability to lead combat and stabilization operations, regardless of the scale of the conflict. 

Land forces will be based on Light Forces.  In Medium Forces armoured wheeled assets will predominate, while in Heavy Forces it will be armoured tracked assets.

The Brigade

The organic is constituted as the fundamental base of the operational, and in the theatre of operations, the Brigade is constituted as the basic module for deployment.  Its structure will be permanent, as homogeneous, multipurpose and versatile as possible to permit the integration of all members of the unit and strengthen their training as a team.  In this sense, the Chief of the Army Staff’s intention is to continue promoting the undertaking of joint programmes.  

This stability will also be produced at command level, and for this reason, with the core of the permanent organic unit headquarters the operational structure headquarters will be constituted, thus avoiding the insertion of elements that may originate dysfunction in the established criteria.  Their capabilities will be evaluated regularly by means of planning and conducting exercises and manoeuvres.

Their members will have the capacity to manage multinational environments of a civic-military nature, where integration capability becomes critical due to the diversity of procedures, actors, atmospheres and mentalities. 

OPTIMISATION OF RESOURCES 

The criteria of sustainment and efficacy will be applied in all scopes, as well as in missions.  To optimise costs the projection phases will be expanded up to 24 months, at least, for each 6 in the theatre.

Likewise, not all force personnel must rotate at the same time nor in the same period, with the distinction of critical elements, key posts and general posts.

 And regarding the choice of materiel and design of modules that are projected in the Area of Operations, the criteria are those of sustainment and autonomy.

WEAPONS AND MATERIEL

The principles to which the equipment fielded by future units must respond have been laid out by the Chief of the Army Staff and are: guaranteeing Force interoperability, force protection, the strength and mobility required in each case.  It must be procured that in each scenario they are equipped with the most suitable weapons system in function of the nature of the mission to be undertaken, and taking into account the need to optimise the relationship between protection and efficacy. 

The fundamental element toward which vehicle, weapon and other materiel acquisition is oriented is that of increasing the security of the forces deployed abroad who undertake their mission in urban environments, and the weapon systems and technology will be oriented toward this mode of combat.  In the same manner, tactical and logistic vehicles that are incorporated in the units will increase their degree of protection against eventual attacks.

Improvement in telecommunications systems is another manner of increasing security.  With their integration at the strategic, operational and tactical levels, command and control may be exercised in real time, as well as information in conducting operations, including all the elements intervening in the action.

Adding Materiel 

The Army of 2025 will be equipped with more detection, decontamination and deactivation assets for threats of a Nuclear, Bacteriological, Chemical and Radiological nature, both at the individual and collective level.

Likewise, the concepts of intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance will be applied by means of the incorporation of the necessary materiel at the brigade and battalion levels.  Also, added to small units will be collective weapon resources such as night vision and target acquisition elements. 

The use of guided weapons, whose precision permits causing damage to the enemy in a modular manner, avoiding civilian casualties and minimising destruction while avoiding own troop exposure to danger, becomes fundamental.

Balance of Specialities

The labours commissioned to troops posted abroad many times focuses on infrastructure reconstruction and support to unit deployment.  This, along with the predominance of urban scenarios, makes it necessary to achieve a balance between the specialities of engineers and sappers.

In turn, support to combat units must increase their light unit instruction and specific training in order to obtain the necessary versatility required by present operations.

LOGISTICS

Combined and integrated.  So will be Army logistics of the future.  It will be organic and projected with the units, so forming a whole.  Through functional structure they must meet all force sustenance needs, both in the theatre of operations as well as in Spain.  On the other hand, small unit logistics will be reduced in order to leave the smallest footprint on the terrain.  The principle to be applied in the design of small unit logistics will be that of modularity, to the end of adequately articulating the supports required.

Externalisation

Non-critical capabilities will be externalised, since this facilitates soldiers’ specialisation in the processes that befit them, so freeing up personnel and resources from those tasks that can be carried out efficiently from outside the military structure.  The services that are not considered essential for combat, its direct support, or for command and control may be obtained from external sources supported by the commercial network in the area where the forces are deployed, while always maintaining the essential functional autonomy to act in any situation that may arise. 

Owing to that, in the short and medium term, the scale of this transfer of capabilities will be decided and the consequences of this decision evaluated; in any case, all externalised critical processes will be known and monitored in order to optimise their result.