Future Combat Systems “has some serious problems,” said Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the US House air and land forces subcommittee. “Since its inception, costs have gone up dramatically while promised capability has steadily diminished...And now, with the Army’s badly degraded state of readiness from nearly five years of continuous combat in Iraq, I don’t see how the Army can afford to rebuild itself and pay for the FCS program as it stands today.”

The last time the US Army tried anything so far-reaching was more than half a century ago when it introduced mechanised forces, moving soldiers en masse by machine rather than by foot, Army programme officials say. “We are pushing the edge of technology,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, a leader of the Army’s modernisation efforts.

Others say the Army has pushed too far. The Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office have questioned the cost and management of Future Combat Systems.

The US Army is playing catch-up, adopting the advances of the Internet and wireless technology for next-generation warfare. “We’re slightly lagging, but we’re essentially doing the same thing they’re doing on the commercial side,” said Scott Davis, the Future Combat Systems deputy program manager.

It was a fiasco that hastened the US Army’s commitment to modernise. In 1999, the Army was bogged down in muddy logistics as it sought to move Apache helicopters into Albania so they could be used in the Kosovo war. They didn’t make it before the fight ended, an embarrassment that prompted Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki to declare that the service needed to get lighter and faster—quickly.

... contd.