The Strategy
General Charles A. Flynn, US Army Pacific commanding general, presents opening remarks to the International Fellows during their visit to Fort Shafter, Hawaii (US Army photo by Specialist Taylor Gray).
To support the National Defense Strategy, the US Army must be prepared to posture forces to apply strategic Landpower across the globe to deter and, if necessary, defeat threats to the United States in a changing, complex, and unpredictable world. These efforts are underpinned by the force’s ability to maintain forward basing, conduct global logistics, and work with partners and allies. Changes in the character of war in the past decade and shifting global relationships, however, have eroded many advantages of twenty-first-century Joint operations, putting into question long-standing warfare assumptions that may require the Army to prepare for greater flexibility in its responsiveness to partners, even as America’s strategic competitors provoke destruction, unrest, and tension in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Indo-Pacific.
Emerging technologies, including drones, nonattributable cyber warfare, AI, and scalable disinformation operations, fill the gray zone and thicken the fog of war. Planning assumptions regarding force protection and power projection the Army only recently took for granted increasingly seem unreliable. Current conditions spur renewed consideration of American critical capabilities and critical vulnerabilities. Unrelenting demands on the American defense industrial base will force difficult decisions for the Army’s institutional strategy regarding whether and how to balance investments in US Department of Defense capability and capacity with the readiness and lethality of strategic partners who face existential threats. Complex problems requiring transformations are not new to the Army, though the Army has not had to confront some complex problems for generations. The Army adapted to and won a global war characterized by emerging technologies over a century ago during World War I. Extended and contested logistics characterized global operations during World War II, which the Army also fought and won with allies. A defining difference between the two world wars and today is the Joint Force’s commitment to deterring or responding to war’s outbreak rather than reacting as an undermanned, undertrained, and underequipped force.
Multiple iterations of national strategy reinforce the importance of combined operations; accordingly, the Army conducts and plans nearly all major operations with a view toward allies and partners. Conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, combined with tensions in the Indo-Pacific, now see many of the US allies and partners facing serious threats. Other partnerships are ceding influence, favoring malign actors instead. Conversely, the recent NATO expansion and the level of European support to Ukraine demonstrate unmistakable resolve to protect regional security that may have been unexpected only a few years ago. Assumptions about the role the US Army plays in global and regional security are, again, worth reviewing. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza and tensions in the Indo-Pacific have reinvigorated debate within American politics that suggests the possibility US commitments to, and prioritization of, various partners may be subject to revision. While showing deference to American policymakers, the Army may need to consider how its methods of aiding partners and communicating strategic risk affect national security objectives. The Army may also consider how American domestic politics affects military relations with allies and partners across the globe, as US partners closely monitor and react to American politics.
Army strategy will be characterized in the foreseeable future by difficult trade-offs in transformation decisions, competing requirements for support to allies and partners, and expectations for responsive flexibility from policymakers. In a world where activities along the spectrum of conflict transpire daily, the Army can expect to be called upon to fill the various roles and missions the Army has filled since the nation’s birth.
Photo Credit
Taylor Gray, International Fellows Gain a Greater Understanding of Landpower within the Indo-Pacific [Image 3 of 4], February 21, 2024, DVIDS, link.