The Army’s push to reduce headquarters and general officer positions made more progress Friday with the activation of U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command, which will replace Army Forces Command and eventually absorb U.S. Army North and U.S. Army South.
The new command will take on FORSCOM’s mission of preparing troops for deployment and combine it with Army North’s experience in supporting civil authorities and Army South’s expertise in working with allies across the Caribbean, Central America and South America, an Army official told reporters Tuesday.
“This is now the priority theater, and the Army is saying, ‘Look at what we’re going to do: put a four-star here, and we’re going to unify the entire hemisphere,’ “ the official said.
In doing so, Gen. Andrew Poppas, who currently leads FORSCOM, will retire, and the Army’s deputy chief of staff for operations, Lt. Gen. Joe Ryan, will put on a fourth star and assume command of the newly minted USAWHC, or WESTHEM for short.
“Your record in this command is real, but the world is changing, and we must change with it,” Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, said Friday during a ceremony to shutter FORSCOM and activate USAWHC. “Our environment has grown more complex and dangerous … You’re seeing unparalleled cooperation between our adversaries around the globe and rapidly evolving commercial technology with major battlefield implications. Now is the time to cut through the organizational layers that we’ve added over the years. It is the time to build and find and build efficiency in our system so that our formations can stay flexible to their environment, survive, adapt and win.”
This move follows the September inactivation of Army Training and Doctrine Command, which merged with Army Futures Command to form Army Transformation and Training Command, netting the Army one less four-star organization.
The moves are part of the larger Army Transformation Initiative, ordered by the defense secretary in May, but George has been open about his desire to reduce the number of generals in the Army since he took responsibility in early 2023.
“Gen. George asked the Army Staff to look at ways to reduce the number of headquarters and gain efficiencies,” an Army official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told Defense One, and merging these commands is one of the “common sense ways to reduce bureaucracy, return leaders to fighting formations, and create headquarters that can better coordinate one with another.”
The Army was not able to give an updated number Friday of general officer billets cut so far.
It also feeds into the second Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, including a forthcoming National Defense Strategy that promises to make military operations in support of domestic law enforcement a core mission.
Making moves
In practice, USAWHC will occupy the same headquarters space that FORSCOM held at Fort Bragg, N.C., meaning that staff from U.S. Army North and South, both of which are housed at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, will make their way east, with a smaller, forward command post left in Texas. The Army plans to have USAWHC at full operational capability this summer, with moves from Texas completed by September 2027.
The other task will be delegating out the missions of FORSCOM, whose website has already been taken down. Since 1973, that command has been in charge of evaluating readiness and selecting units to deploy worldwide. Readiness requirements will now be pushed down to the corps level, said USAWHC spokesman Col. Mike Burns,, with reporting up to either their component commands (U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Army Europe and Africa, U.S. Army Central, etc.) or to the Department of the Army Headquarters at the Pentagon.
“And in all fairness, they were probably a lot closer to the fight, and probably have a lot more vested interest in the readiness and success of their units,” Burns said of the corps.
At the same time, some FORSCOM missions, like keeping track of units ready for deployment, will move up to the Army’s operations, plans and training office in the Pentagon.
Read the full article here