4th BDEs and Bns were a result of Bush and Rumsfeld's love and gross misunderstanding of the military. They worked out decently in our "world police" operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but lets be realistic- a company or battalion size element chasing around a handful of criminals (or in the worst case, nation building) is a waste in their battle space, and it degrades from our ability to fight a real war.
Here's my three step plan-
1. Eliminate 4th BDEs and Bns
2. Get back to doing what the military is intended for, fighting WARS
- Infantryman improve their BMQ and ruckmarch times, focus on platoon level fire and maneuver (I worked with infantrymen in Afghanistan that struggled to zero their weapons, and I KNOW a good portion of them couldn't pass a PT test. How often do units operate above squad level in Afghanistan? Not much)
- Tankers improve their gunnery (I had an E4 tanker attachment that hadn't been in a tank since AIT)
- Artillerymen touch their guns and do some CFFs (I tried to let a 13F give a class, he couldn't logically explain hasty bracketing)
- Engineers, do some real combat engineering- route clearance doesn't count
- MPs, go to hell
- CA, stay in Afghanistan, we're going to be home getting ready to fight the real war
- SF, focus on Anything other than FID- get back to UW and SR
You see where I'm going with this? If we trained and truly prepared ourselves for a real combined arms war, N Korea and China wouldn't be a legitimate concern- sure, we would take losses, but they wouldn't really stand a chance. Our focus is disgustingly skewed- the military as a whole practices hostage rescue style room clearing as a result of our 'overseas contingency operations'. We are taking sloths and criminals into our ranks because we think we need to fill homes in over inflated MTOEs. We are telling infantry that they can't carry machine guns into combat because of this new collateral damage craze. Does anyone think that a single infantryman during the Korean War though he was causing too much damage?
We have the tools, and cutting numbers through payroll and other upkeep costs that go along with a force that is too large would ensure that the remainder was properly trained.
As for RSTA, I still don't understand its signficance. Bn scouts can handle tactical level recons- hell, area/zone/route recons are tasks any rifle platoon should be able to accomplish. LRS, SF, and ISR can handle the strategic level reconnaissance. I don't see a deficiency that is being filled by a fancy acronym. If equipment makes the difference, anyone could be trained on the SOTV kit and Vector, Viper, LRSSS, whatever.