Casey: As Iraq ops slow, conventional training will increase

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Casey: As Iraq ops slow, conventional training will increase
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 4, 2007 20:49:37 EST

For six years the Army has trained for and fought a counterinsurgency fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Army’s top officer predicts that as soon as the operational tempo allows for brigades to be at home for at least 18 months, some training for conventional warfare will resume.

“I don’t think there’s any question that future conflicts are going to be exponentially different than what we’re seeing now in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Tuesday in remarks at the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan think tank.

Casey, who was been in the position since April 10, said the Army needs to be prepared for conventional warfare because the possibility of a return to such a conflict persists in other areas of the world.

He does not, however, believe a Cold War-style war is imminent.

“My personal view,” he said, “is that in the near term the prospect of a major state-on-state conflict is low.”

Still, he reiterated his well-worn message that the Army cannot afford to be as unbalanced in capabilities as it is in an era of globalization, the emergence of terrorist organizations that rely on high technology to recruit new members and increasing evidence of disenfranchised populations in lesser developed countries.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/army_caseybrookings_071204w/