Training Blends Conventional Warfare with Side of Counterinsurgency by Chris Carroll, Stars and Stripes.
... “We’re entering the first time period since perhaps the early 1940s when over 90 percent of the Army will based in the 50 United States,” Barno said. “The Army’s going to have a challenge in that it’s going to have to commute to the fight.”
Before the counterinsurgency wars of the post-9/11 era, rapid global deployability was a core Army aim, Barno said. As it returns to those roots, it will have to do so without the massive worldwide Army presence of prior decades, meaning that new logistical and troop-basing concepts will have to be put in play, he said.
If the living conditions of the troops taking part in the current training rotation at Fort Polk’s Joint Readiness Training Center are any indication, the Army is pondering the supply issue.
Unlike recent, counterinsurgency-focused exercises, the 2nd BCT lacks the amenities available when operating out of mock forward operating bases. They’re not sleeping in bunks, taking showers or eating in chow halls. Instead, they’re living much as paratroopers might early in a real war...