Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno elaborated a vision for the Service’s future that left many questions unanswered. Specifically, he called for the Army to be more expeditionary as well as more scalable, tailorable, and regionally aligned. General Odierno’s successor and the current Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, similarly has spoken of the need for the Army to be “agile,” “adaptive,” and “expeditionary,” and to have an “expeditionary mindset.”1 Lieutenant General Gustave Perna, writing in the March–April 2016 issue of Army Sustainment, has also evoked the imperative of having an “expeditionary Army.”2 What, however, do these terms mean? What would it take for the Army to realize the generals’ vision, and what, if any, are the associated risks?
A recently published RAND study of French army operations in Mali in 2013 noted that in many ways, France’s army epitomizes the characteristics General Odierno and General Milley have highlighted. It is a living example of a technologically sophisticated force that checks all of the generals’ boxes; it does well precisely the things the generals call on the U.S. Army to do. Studying how the French army has organized itself and operates provides insight into what their ideals might mean in concrete terms for the U.S. Army and the associated benefits—but also the implied compromises and risks U.S. planners need to consider.
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