Lightning Over Water: Sharpening America’s Light Forces for Rapid-reaction Missions: Executive Summary

As the world continues its post-Cold War thaw, fears of major theater-level war have given way to a reality of increased numbers of smaller regional conflicts and crises. There is a growing need for a quickly deploying, rapid-reaction capability - in particular, U.S. Army light forces - to directly respond to these events. To address this need, both the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army are calling for developing forces that are strategically responsive across the full spectrum of military operations. Although there is new dialogue on what might be done, there is also considerable research that has examined many of the issues now coming to light, such as, How might light forces be changed to offer greater rapid-reaction capability? This executive summary synthesizes research drawn from numerous studies conducted by the authors in the past few years on the topic of improving light air-deployable forces. The full report, MR-1196-A/OSD, provides more detail for the analysis and conclusions presented in this document. The focus is on the topic of new operational concepts along with the underlying enabling technologies. Three very different means for improving rapid-reaction capability are considered and analyzed in detail, with both strengths and weaknesses included in the assessment. This book was written primarily for the soldiers who will be developing such future capabilities; however, policymakers and technologists involved in improving rapid-reaction capability should also find it of interest.