and DEFEAT DETER


Fif teen years of irregular warfare took a toll on the capabilities needed to defeat a peer competitor. So, when a recent RAND Corp. study prompted stunning headlines, it was nothing that the Army didn’t already know. Through war games and studies, the Army has sought to identify how best to align resources to address the current threat landscape.


by Lt. Gen. Michael E. Williamson, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson and Lt. Gen. John M. Murray


G


en. Mark A. Milley, the Army chief of staff, is famously blunt about his pri- orities—and the tension between them. Today readiness is indisputably his No.


1, but in a constrained fiscal environment it crowds out resourcing for end strength, infrastructure and modernization. In Milley’s words, “We are mortgag- ing future readiness for current readiness,” even as numerous studies and war games show that potential future conflicts with nation-states pose the gravest threats to our forces.


Strategic acquisition is especially challenging in this landscape. After 15 years of irregular warfare and a prolonged period of budget uncertainty, Army modernization accounts are down and resources are spread thin across equipment portfolios. Over this period, increasingly tenuous assumptions about the likelihood of certain contingencies, and an assumed reliance on air,


sea, space and cyber


for the readiness required to meet current demand for Army forces from our combatant commanders.


Yet new challenges from rapidly modernizing peer competitors have emerged that threaten our current forces and capabilities, even as demand for Army forces for combat operations, deterrence and global engagement continues unabated. Tese operational conditions pose concrete modernization questions: Which programs to increase or sustain? Which to reduce or cancel? What are the consequences to Sol- diers, the industrial base, the other services? Should we stick to safe precedent or take a chance on sweep- ing technological change? How do we sustain and improve interoperability with allies and key partners?


superiority,


guided choices to accept risk in investment accounts. Risk was also taken in future force development to pay


To frame and address these decisions, the Army has acknowledged the need to better prioritize current and emerging threats, define the capabilities required to confront these threats, and direct its limited mod- ernization resources accordingly. Luckily, much of the necessary work in all three areas is ongoing.


ASC.ARMY.MIL 19


ACQUISITION


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