Reflexions on the Current Situation of the Army

The Chief of the Army Staff yesterday, 28th November, delivered a lecture at the Centre for Advanced Studies on National Defence in Madrid with the title The Current Situation of the Army. The audience was made up, principally, by the Army and Navy colonels who are in the 13th Update Course for Undertaking the Missions of General. Army General Fulgencio Coll divided his lecture into three sections: ‘Starting Point’, ‘Process of Change’ and ‘To the Future Generals/Admirals’. In this manner, he carried out a review of Army organisation, its material and human assets, preparation and operations. The Chief of the Army Staff also dealt with Army transformation since the eighties and outlined the main ideas contained in the ‘View on 2025’ document. The Army is in a constant process of adaptation –as the Chief of the Army Staff explained-, by means of the modernisation of its structures, procedures, materiels and preparation principles. All this thanks to the experience attained in international missions. In this sense, he affirmed that it is the Army that upholds the main effort in operations, by contributing a flexible response, the presence of troops on the ground, interaction with the local population and sustainment in time. In his speech, the army general offered a special memory for the servicepersons who were killed or injured in combat during 2010 and 2011.

 

The army general during the lecture (Photo:Luis Rico/Army Communication Department)

Following the lecture the attendees could ask a great number of questions, which referred above all to aspects such as the new system of military officer training, the problems related with promotion to the employments of colonel and lieutenant colonel, as well as a hypothetical future strategic revision in order to foresee a realistic budgetary effort.