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President Bush told us that this war would be unlike any other in our Nation’s history. He was right. 

After our initial expeditionary responses and successful major combat operations in Afghanistan and 

Iraq, those operations have become protracted campaigns where we are providing the conditions of 

security needed to wage a confl ict—a war of ideas. This is not simply a fi ght against terror—terror is 

a tactic. This is not simply a fi ght against Al Qaeda, its affi liates and adherents—they are foot soldiers. 

This is not simply a fi ght to bring democracy to the Middle East—that is a strategic objective. This is 

a fi ght for the very ideas at the foundation of our society, the way of life those ideas enable, and the 

freedoms we enjoy.

The single most signifi cant component of our new strategic reality is that because of the centrality 

of the ideas in confl ict, this war will be a protracted one. Whereas for most of our lives the default 

condition has been peace, now our default expectation must be confl ict. This new strategic context 

is the logic for reshaping the Army to be an Army of campaign quality with joint and expeditionary 

capabilities. The lessons learned in two-and-a-half years of war have already propelled a wide series 

of changes in the Army and across the Joint team. 

This learning process must not stop. Although this paper outlines the strategic context for the series 

of changes underway in our Army, its purpose is not to convince you or even to inform you. Its 

purpose is to cause you to refl ect on and think about this new strategic context and what it portends 

for our future and for the Nation. All great changes in our Army have been accompanied by earnest 

dialogue and active debate at all levels—both within the Army and with those who care about the 

Army. As this paper states, “The best way to anticipate the future is to create it.” Your thoughtful 

participation in this dialogue is key to creating that future.

 

Peter J. Schoomaker R. L. Brownlee

General, United States Army Acting Secretary of the Army

Chief of Staff

FOREWORD
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Strategic Context ..................................................................................................................... 1

 Change in a Time of War ........................................................................................... 3

 An Expeditionary Mindset ......................................................................................... 4

 A Joint Mindset ............................................................................................................ 5

 A Campaign Quality Army ......................................................................................... 7

 “Are You Wearing Your Dog Tags?” ......................................................................... 7

Changing for Confl ict ............................................................................................................. 8

 The Center of Our Formations ................................................................................. 8

Organizing for Confl ict .......................................................................................................... 9

 Adjusting the Total Force Mix ................................................................................... 13

 Training and Education .............................................................................................. 14

Doctrine, Materiel, and Sustainment .................................................................................... 17

Building Interdependence ...................................................................................................... 20

Moving Out .............................................................................................................................. 24

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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STRATEGIC CONTEXT

America is a Nation at war. To win this war, we 

must meld all elements of our national power in 

a determined and relentless campaign to defeat 

enemies who challenge our way of life. This is 

not a “contingency,” nor is it a “crisis.” It is a new 

reality that Soldiers understand all too well: since 

9/11, they have witnessed more than a battalion’s 

worth of their comrades killed in action, more 

than a brigade’s worth severely wounded. Their 

sacrifi ce has liberated more than 46 million 

people. As these words are written, the Army is 

completing the largest rotation of forces in its 

history, and all 18 of its divisions have seen action 

in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq. We 

have activated more than 244,000 Soldiers of the 

Army National Guard and Army Reserve in the 

last two years, and more than a division’s worth 

of Soldiers support homeland security missions. 

Over 300,000 Soldiers are forward-deployed. 

Like our Nation, we are an Army at war.

For any war, as Clausewitz pointed out, it is essential 

to understand “the kind of war on which [we] are 

embarking.” Although the fundamental nature 

of war is constant, its methods and techniques 

constantly change to refl ect the strategic context 

and operational capabilities at hand. The United 

States is driving a rapid evolution in the methods 

and techniques of war. Our overwhelming 

success in this endeavor, however, has driven many 

adversaries to seek their own adaptive advantages 

through asymmetric means and methods. 

“The fi rst, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of 

judgment that the statesman and commander have 

to make is to establish...the kind of war on which 

they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor 

trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its 

nature. This is the fi rst of all strategic questions 

and the most comprehensive.”

Clausewitz, On War
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Some enemies, indeed, are almost perfectly 

asymmetric. Non-state actors, in particular, 

project no mirror image of the nation-state 

model that has dominated global relationships 

for the last few centuries. They are asymmetric in 

means. They are asymmetric in motivation: they 

don’t value what we value; they don’t fear what 

we fear. Whereas our government is necessarily 

hierarchical, these enemies are a network. 

Whereas we develop rules of engagement to 

limit tactical collateral damage, they feel morally 

unconstrained in their efforts to deliver strategic 

effects. Highly adaptive, they are self-organizing 

on the basis of ideas alone, exposing very little 

of targetable value in terms of infrastructure or 

institutions. To better understand such a war, we 

must examine the broader context of confl ict, the 

competition of ideas. 

A cursory examination of the ideas in 

competition may forecast the depth and duration 

of this confl ict. The United States, its economy 

dependent on overseas markets and trade, has 

contributed to a wave of globalization both in 

markets and in ideas. Throughout much of the 

world, political pluralism, economic competition, 

unfettered trade, and tolerance of diversity have 

produced the greatest individual freedom and 

material abundance in human history. Other 

parts of the world remain mired in economic 

deprivation, political failure, and social resentment. 

Many remain irreconcilably opposed to religious 

freedom, secular pluralism, and modernization. 

Although not all have taken up arms in this war 

of ideas, such irreconcilables comprise millions 

of potential combatants. 

Meanwhile, not all former strategic threats 

have vanished. In the 

Far East, North Korea’s 

nuclearization risks intensifying more than 

50 years of unremitting hostility, and many 

others pursue weapons 

of mass destruction. 

We confront the growing danger that such 

weapons will fi nd their 

way into the hands of 

non-state groups or individuals. Armed with 

such weapons and with 

no infrastructure of their own at risk, such “super-empowered individuals” could be anxious to 

apply them to our homeland. 

On the international landscape the signifi cance 

of American dominance in world affairs has 

not been lost on other states. Many are envious, 

some are fearful, and others believe that the “sole 

superpower” must be curbed. This presents 

fertile soil for competitive coalitions and alliances 

between states and non-state actors aimed at 

curtailing U.S. strengths and infl uence. Such 

strategic challenges have the potential to become 

strategic threats at some point in the future.
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At the same time, in a globalizing world, militarycapable technology is increasingly fungible, and 

thus potential adversaries may have the means 

to achieve parity or even superiority in niche 

technologies tailored to their military ambitions. 

For us and for them, those technologies facilitate 

increasingly rapid, simultaneous, and noncontiguous military operations. Such operations 

increasingly characterize today’s confl icts, and 

portend daunting future operational challenges. 

We must prepare for the future, then, even 

as we relentlessly pursue those who seek the 

destruction of our way of life, and while waging 

a prolonged war of ideas to alter the conditions 

that motivate our enemies. Some might equate 

these challenges to the Cold War, but there are 

critical distinctions: 

• Our non-state adversaries are not satisfi ed 

with a “cold” standoff, but instead seek at 

every turn to make it “hot.” 

• Our own forces cannot focus solely on 

future overseas contingencies, but also 

must defend bases and facilities both at 

home and abroad. 

• Because some of our adversaries are not 

easily deterred, our national strategy is not 

“defensive” but “preventive.” 

• Above all, because at least some current 

adversaries consider “peaceful coexistence” 

with the United States unacceptable, we must 

either alter the conditions and convictions 

prompting their hostility—or destroy them 

outright by war.

That is not the strategic context for which we 

designed today’s United States Army. Hence, 

our Army today confronts the supreme test 

of all armies: to adapt rapidly to circumstances 

that it could not foresee. 

CHANGE IN A TIME OF WAR 

The Army always has changed and always will. 

But an army at war must change the way it 

changes. In peacetime, armies change slowly 

and deliberately. Modern warfare is immensely 

complex. The vast array of capabilities, skills, 

techniques, and organizations of war is a recipe 

for chaos without thoughtful planning to assure 

interoperability, synchronization, and synergy. 

Second- and third-order effects of a change 

in any part of this intricate mechanism are 

diffi cult to forecast, and the consequences of 

misjudgment can be immense. 

Peacetime also tends to subordinate effectiveness 

to economy, and joint collaboration to the 

inevitable competition for budgets and programs. 

Institutional energies tend to focus on preserving 

force structure and budgetary programs of record. 

Resource risk is spread across budget years and 

programs, including forces in the fi eld.

“Our Army has passed from a time of contingency 

operations into an undetermined period of 

continuous operations.”

Acting Secretary of the Army

Mr. Les Brownlee
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Today, that measured approach to change will not 

suffi ce. Our current force is engaged, and in ways 

we could not perfectly forecast. Our immediate 

demands are urgent, and fi elding capabilities in 

the near term may outweigh protection of the 

program of record. We will shift resource risk 

away from fi ghting Soldiers.

To be sure, this urgency does not excuse us from 

the obligation to prepare for the future, for the 

prolongation of this confl ict as well as the possible 

outbreak of others we cannot predict. But it does 

signifi cantly blur the usual dichotomy between 

the Current and Future Force. We must ensure 

that we apply lessons learned from today’s fi ght to 

those Future Force programs, even if that means 

adjusting their direction and timing. In short, 

change in a time of war must deal simultaneously 

with both current and future needs. 

It must also pervade our entire institution. The 

Army cannot restrict change solely to its operating 

forces. The same Soldiers and leaders who adapt, 

learn, and innovate on our battlefi elds also drive 

our institutional Army. We must match our success 

on the battlefi eld with successful adaptation of the 

Army at home. Such adaptation already is under 

way in the expansion and retailoring of our combat 

training centers, the establishment of a Futures 

Center in Training and Doctrine Command, 

reformulation of the Army Campaign Plan, and 

a wide range of consolidation and reorganization 

initiatives in Army major commands.

Fundamental to this adaptation will be our rapid 

evolution to a campaign quality Army with joint 

and expeditionary capabilities. 

AN EXPEDITIONARY MINDSET 

The Army is no stranger to expeditionary 

operations. World War I saw deployment of the 

American Expeditionary Forces, and World War 

II the Allied Expeditionary Force. Throughout 

its history the Army has executed a wide array of 

deployments. But many today no longer perceive 

the United States Army to be expeditionary. 

Some might argue that the primary distinction of 

an expeditionary operation is its short duration. 

Neither history nor strategic guidance—which 

calls for expeditionary forces capable of sustained 
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operations—confi rms such a defi nition. Others 

view expeditionary as speed of responsiveness, 

but this perception, too, is not complete. In the 

Cold War, the United States was committed to 

reinforce Europe with ten divisions within ten 

days, but no one perceived that responsiveness 

as expeditionary. The reason for this is 

signifi cant: in the Cold War we knew where we 

would fi ght and we met this requirement through 

prepositioning of units or unit sets in a very 

developed theater. The uncertainty as to where 

we must deploy, the probability of a very austere 

operational environment, and the requirement to 

fi ght on arrival throughout the battlespace pose an 

entirely different challenge—and the fundamental 

distinction of expeditionary operations. 

This challenge is above all one of mindset, because 

decades of planning and preparation against setpiece enemies predisposed American Soldiers 

to seek certainty and synchronization in the 

application of force. We have engaged repeatedly 

in conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity, to be 

sure, but always viewing such operations as the 

exception rather than the rule. That can no longer 

be the case. In this globalized world, our enemies 

shift resources and activities to those areas least 

accessible to us. As elusive and adaptive enemies 

seek refuge in the far corners of the earth, the 

norm will be short-notice operations, extremely 

austere theaters of operation, and incomplete 

information—indeed, the requirement to fi ght for

information, rather than fi ght with information. 

Soldiers with a joint and expeditionary mindset 

will be confi dent that they are organized, trained, 

and equipped to go anywhere in the world, at any 

time, in any environment, against any adversary, 

to accomplish the assigned mission. 

A JOINT MINDSET 

The touchstone of America’s way of war is 

combined arms warfare. Each of our armed 

services excels in combining a wide array of 

technologies and tools in each dimension—land, 

air, sea, and space—to generate a synergy of 

effects that creates overwhelming dilemmas for 

our opponents. Today, that same emphasis on 

combinations extends beyond each service to 

joint operations. No longer satisfi ed merely to 

deconfl ict the activities of the several services, we 

now seek joint interdependence. 

Interdependence is more than just interoperability, 

the assurance that service capabilities can work 

together smoothly. It is even more than integration 

to improve their collective effi ciency and 

effectiveness. Joint interdependence purposefully 

combines service capabilities to maximize their 

total complementary and reinforcing effects, while 

minimizing their relative vulnerabilities. There 

are several compelling reasons for doing so: 

• First, modern technology has extended 

the reach of weapons far beyond their 

“dimensions of origin.” For example, landbased cruise missiles threaten ships at sea, 

and land-based air defenses pose challenges 

to air-, sea-, and even space-based capabilities. 

Merely defeating the mirror-image threat 

within a service’s primary dimension of 

interest can no longer suffi ce.

• Second, in addition to achieving daunting 

supremacy within the air, maritime, and 
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and control are fragile, the risk of surprise is 

omnipresent, and our mobility advantage is 

relatively limited vis-à-vis our adversaries. Once 

committed, we must prevail. The decisive nature 

of land combat underscores a preference for 

organizational autonomy and redundancy, and 

tends to prejudice Soldiers against relying on 

others for essential ingredients of tactical survival 

and success. In the past, moreover, that prejudice 

too often has prompted interservice rivalries 

refl ecting concerns far removed from the practical 

imperatives of the battlefi eld.

A nation at war cannot afford that indulgence. War 

relentlessly exposes theories built upon prejudice 

rather than proof, and Iraq and Afghanistan have 

been no different. The air-, sea-, or land-power 

debates are over. Our collective future is irrefutably 

joint. To meet the challenges of expeditionary 

operations, the Army can and must embrace the 

capabilities of its sister services right down to 

the tactical level. In turn, that will require us to 

space dimensions, our sister services are 

developing increasingly powerful capabilities 

that can infl uence land combat directly.

• Finally, the nature of expeditionary 

operations argues for leveraging every 

potential tool of speed, operational reach, 

and precision. By projecting coordinated 

combinations of force unhindered by 

distance and generally independent of 

terrain, we can achieve maximum effect for 

the Joint Force Commander without regard 

to the service of origin. 

At the strategic level, interdependence has long 

pervaded the Army’s thinking. Lacking organic 

strategic lift, we can neither deploy nor sustain 

ourselves without the support of the other services. 

But our commitment to interdependence has not 

always extended to the tactical level. Constrained 

by the tyranny of terrain, ground forces operate 

in a world of friction and position. Command 
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develop operational concepts, capabilities, and 

training programs that are joint from the outset, 

not merely as an afterthought. 

The prerequisites of a commitment to 

interdependence are broad understanding 

of the differing strengths and limitations 

of each service’s capabilities, clear 

agreement about how those capabilities 

will be integrated in any given operational 

setting, and absolute mutual trust that, 

once committed, they will be employed 

as agreed. At the same time, the Army 

requires a similar commitment from 

its sister services. The ultimate test of 

interdependence is at the very tip of 

the spear, where the rifl eman carries the 

greatest burden of risk with the least intrinsic 

technological advantage. No concept of 

interdependence will suffi ce that does not enable 

the frontline Soldier and Marine.

The same logic and spirit that informs joint 

interdependence also underscores the role 

of interagency and multinational operations. 

In a sustained conflict that is a war of ideas, 

all interagency elements of our national 

power must work in concert with allies and 

coalition partners to alter the conditions 

that motivate our adversaries.

A CAMPAIGN QUALITY ARMY 

While our recent combat employments in 

Afghanistan and Iraq were models of rapid 

and effective offensive operations, they also 

demonstrate that neither the duration nor the 

character of even the most successful military 

campaign is readily predictable. Especially in 

wars intended to liberate rather than subjugate, 

victory entails winning a competition of ideas, and 

thereby fundamentally changing the conditions 

that prompted the confl ict. Long after the defeat 

of Taliban and Iraqi military forces, we continue to 

wage just such campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

The campaign quality of an Army thus is not 

only its ability to win decisive combat operations, 

but also its ability to sustain those operations for 

as long as necessary, adapting them as required 

to unpredictable and often profound changes in 

the context and character of the confl ict. The 

Army’s preeminent challenge is to reconcile 

expeditionary agility and responsiveness with 

the staying power, durability, and adaptability 

to carry a confl ict to a victorious conclusion no 

matter what form it eventually takes.

“ARE YOU WEARING YOUR 

DOG TAGS?” 

Does that question surprise you? It might if you 

view peace as our default condition, and war the 

exception. But our new reality is very different: 

• A confl ict of irreconcilable ideas.

• A disparate pool of potential combatants.

• Adaptive adversaries seeking our destruction 

by any means possible.
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• Evolving asymmetric threats that 

will relentlessly seek shelter in those 

environments and methods for which we 

are least prepared.

• A foreseeable future of extended confl ict in 

which we can expect to fi ght every day, and 

in which real peace will be the anomaly. 

This new reality drives the transformation under 

way in the Army. It is the lens that shapes our 

perception and interpretation of the future, 

and governs our responses to its challenges. It 

is the logic for a campaign quality Army with 

joint and expeditionary capabilities. Are you 

wearing your dog tags? 

CHANGING FOR CONFLICT

THE CENTER OF OUR 

FORMATIONS

Our core competencies remain: to train and 

equip Soldiers and grow leaders; and to provide 

relevant and ready landpower to the Combatant 

Commander and the joint team. Therefore even 

in a time of profound change, the American 

Soldier will remain the center of our formations. 

In a confl ict of daunting complexity and 

diversity, the Soldier is the ultimate platform. 

“Delinkable” from everything other than his 

values, the Soldier remains the irreplaceable 

base of the dynamic array of combinations that 

America can generate to defeat our enemies 

in any expeditionary environment. As the 

ultimate combination of sensor and shooter, 

the American Soldier is irrefutable proof that 

people are more important than hardware and 

quality more important than quantity.

Making that Soldier more effective and survivable 

is the fi rst requirement of adaptation to a joint 

and expeditionary environment. However much 

the tools of war may improve, only Soldiers 

willing and able to endure war’s hardships can 

exploit them. Their skills will change as the 

specialization characteristic of industrial-age 

“On September 11th, 2001, terrorists left their 

mark of murder on my country ... With the 

passing of months and years, it is the natural 

human desire to resume a quiet life and to put that 

day behind us, as if waking from a dark dream. 

The hope that danger has passed is comforting, is 

understanding, and it is false ... These terrorists 

target the innocent and they kill by the thousands. 

And they would, if they gain the weapons they seek, 

kill by the millions and not be fi nished. ... The evil 

is in plain sight ... We will face these threats with 

open eyes, and we will defeat them.”

President Bush in London, Nov 19, 2003

“In all that the Army has accomplished, and all 

that it will be called upon to do, the American 

Soldier remains the single most important factor 

in our success.”

Acting Secretary of the Army

Mr. Les Brownlee
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SERVING A NATION AT WAR

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warfare gives way to the information-age need 

for greater fl exibility and versatility. What will 

not change is their warrior ethos.

That ethos refl ects the spirit of the pioneers who 

built America, of whom it rightly was said, “The 

cowards never started. The brave arrived. Only 

the tough survived.” It is a subtle, offensive 

spirit based on quiet competence. It is an ethos 

that recognizes that closing with an enemy is not 

just a matter of killing, but rather is the ultimate 

responsibility reserved for the most responsible 

and the most disciplined. Only the true warrior 

ethos can moderate war’s inevitable brutality. 

Just as the post-9/11 operational environment 

has fundamentally changed, so too should the 

expectations of the Americans entering Army 

service. We will seek individuals ready and 

willing for warrior service. Bound to each other 

by integrity and trust, the young Americans we 

welcome to our ranks will learn that in the Army, 

every Soldier is a leader, responsible for what 

happens in his or her presence regardless of rank. 

They will value learning and adaptability at every 

level, particularly as it contributes to initiative: 

creating situations for an adversary, rather than 

reacting to them. They will learn that the Army’s 

culture is one of selfl ess service, a warrior culture 

rather than a corporate one. As such, it is not 

important who gets the credit, either within the 

Army or within the joint team; what’s important 

is that the Nation is served.

ORGANIZING FOR CONFLICT

Confronting an adaptive adversary, no single 

solution will succeed, no matter how elegant, 

synchronized, or advanced. Its very “perfection” 

will ensure its irrelevance, for an adaptive enemy 

will relentlessly eliminate the vulnerabilities that 

solution seeks to exploit and avoid the conditions 

necessary for its success. Instead, the foundations 

of Army Transformation must be diversity and 

adaptability. The Army must retain a wide range 

of capabilities while signifi cantly improving 

their agility and versatility. Building a joint and 

expeditionary Army with campaign qualities will 

require versatile forces that can mount smaller, 

shorter duration operations routinely—without 

penalty to the Army’s capability for larger, more 

protracted campaigns.

Modular Units. A key prerequisite to achieving 

that capability is developing more modular 

tactical organizations. The Army’s force design 

has incorporated tailoring and task organization 

for decades, but primarily in the context of a 

large conventional war in which all echelons 

from platoon to Army Service Component 

Command were deployed. This presumption of 

“Every Soldier is a Soldier fi rst, regardless of whether 

they’re a truck driver or a typist, a maintainer or 

infantryman. While technology has helped the Army 

become more lethal and effective, individual Soldiers 

still do the fi ghting...technology has to enhance the 

human dimension...Warfare fundamentally is a 

human endeavor. It’s a test of wills. It’s a test of 

things deep within us.”

Army Chief of Staff 

 General Peter J. Schoomaker
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infrequent large-scale deployment encouraged 

the Army to centralize certain functions at higher 

echelons of command, and implicitly assumed 

that deployment would largely be complete 

before signifi cant employment began. Moreover, 

presuming peace to be the default condition, the 

Army garrisoned the bulk of its tactical units to 

optimize economic effi ciency and management 

convenience rather than combined-arms training 

and rapid deployability. Above all, the Army 

designed its capabilities to satisfy every tactical 

requirement autonomously, viewing sister service 

capabilities as supplementary.

These presumptions no longer apply. Nearsimultaneous employment and deployment 

increasingly characterize Army operations, and 

those operations are increasingly diverse in 

both purpose and scope. Tailoring and taskorganizing our current force structure for such 

operations renders an ad hoc deployed force and 

a nondeployed residue of partially disassembled 

units, diminishing the effectiveness of both. The 

premium now is on employed combined-arms 

effectiveness at lower levels vice effi ciency at 

macro levels. Peace will be the exception, and both 

tactical organizations and garrison confi gurations 

must support expeditionary deployment, not 

simply improvise it. Force design must catch up 

with strategic reality.

That strategic reality is the immediate need for 

versatile, cohesive units—and more of them. 

Increasingly, ownership of capabilities by 

echelons and even by services matters less than 

how those capabilities are allocated to missions. 

Although divisions have long been the nominal 

measure of the Army’s fi ghting strength, the 

Army also has a long history of deployment and 

employment of multifunctional brigade combat 
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teams. In addition, the Army has a broad array 

of reinforcing capabilities—both units and 

headquarters—but we can signifi cantly improve 

their modularity. In the future, by shifting to such 

brigade combat teams as our basic units of action, 

enabling them routinely with adequate combat, 

combat support, and sustainment capabilities, 

and assuring them connectivity to headquarters 

and joint assets, we can signifi cantly improve the 

tailorability, scalability, and “fi ghtability” of the 

Army’s contribution to the overall joint fi ght. At 

the same time, the inherent robustness and selfsuffi ciency of brigade combat teams will enhance 

their ability to deploy rapidly and fi ght on arrival.

Being expeditionary is far less about deployability 

than about operational and tactical agility, 

including the ability to reach routinely 

beyond organic capabilities for required 

effects. If in the process the Army can 

leverage our sister services’ mobility, reach, 

and lethality to satisfy some of those 

mission requirements, all the better. To 

achieve that, we must expand our view of 

Army force design to encompass the entire 

range of available joint capabilities. At the 

end of the day, squads and platoons will 

continue to win our engagements, but no 

one can reliably predict—particularly in the 

emerging operational environment—which 

squads or platoons will carry the decisive 

burden of the fi ght. In an expeditionary army, 

small units must be so well networked that 

whichever makes contact can leverage all joint 

capabilities to fi ght and win.

Such joint interdependence is not unidirectional. 

The more modular the Army’s capabilities, the 

better we will be able to support our sister 

services, whether by the air defense protection 

of an advanced sea base, compelling an enemy 

ground force to mass and thereby furnish targets 

for air attack, or exploiting the transitory effects 

of precision fi res with the more permanent 

effects of ground maneuver. 

Modular Headquarters. The transformation 

of our headquarters will be even more dramatic 

than that of our units, for we will sever the 

routine association between headquarters and 

the units they control. At division level and 

higher, headquarters will surrender organic 

subordinate formations, becoming themselves 

streamlined modular organizations capable of 

commanding and controlling any combination 

of capabilities—Army, joint, or coalition. For 

that purpose, the headquarters themselves 

will be more robust, staffed to minimize the 

requirement for augmentation. They will 

employ separable, deployable command posts 

for rapid response and entry; link to Home 

Station Operation Centers to minimize forward 

footprints; and be network-enabled organizations 

capable of commanding or supporting joint and 

multinational as well as Army forces. 

Trained, cohesive staffs are key to combat 

effectiveness. Today, because our tactical 

headquarters elements lack the necessary joint 

interfaces, we have to improvise these when 

operations begin. That must change. Major tactical 
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headquarters must be capable of conducting Joint 

Force Land Component Command (JFLCC) 

operations. Major operational headquarters 

must have enough permanent sister-service staff 

positions to receive and employ a Standing Joint 

Force Headquarters (SJFHQ) plug, enabling 

them with equal effectiveness to serve as an Army 

Service Component Command, Joint Task Force, 

or JFLCC headquarters.

Stabilizing the Force. Paradoxically, an Army 

that seeks maximum fl exibility through modularity 

must simultaneously maximize unit cohesion 

where it counts, within our companies, battalions, 

and brigades. Again, our altered strategic context 

is the driver. In the past, our approach to unit 

manning refl ected the industrial age in which 

our forces were developed. Processes treated 

people as interchangeable parts, and valued their 

administrative availability more highly than their 

individual and team profi ciency. At the unit 

level, manning and equipping refl ected a “fi rstto-last” strategic deployment system. Peace was 

the default condition, allowing late-deploying 

units to fi ll out over time, typically by individual 

replacements, during the expected prolonged 

transition from peace to war.

At a time when protracted confl ict has become 

the norm, during which we will repeatedly 

deploy and employ major portions of our 

Army, such an approach to manning will not 

work. Instead, units will need to achieve and 

sustain a level of readiness far exceeding the 

ability of any individual manning system. The 

effects we seek are broad: continuity in training, 

stability of leadership, unit cohesion, enhanced 

unit effectiveness, and greater deployment 

predictability for Soldiers and their families. 

To achieve these effects we are undertaking the 

most signifi cant revision in manning policy in our 

Army’s history. It entails four key changes:

• First, we will shift the logic of our force 

structure from a scenario basis to a capability 

basis. We will need an adequate level of 

capability not only for employment, but also 

rotation for training, refi tting, and rest. This 

does not preclude the requirement or the 

capability to surge for crisis response, but 

sustained commitment and rotation will be 

the expected requirement.

Why Force Stabilization: An Individual 

Replacement on the Road to Baghdad

“... I graduated from Ranger School March 14th 

and reported to Fort Bragg a week later. By April 

2nd I was on a plane headed to Kuwait. I fi gured I’d 

get to recover and spend time learning my battalion 

with some time as a staff assistant. My Battalion 

Commander says I lived every infantry offi cer’s dream 

because I was given a platoon immediately. My platoon 

and company were engaged in combat the night I met 

them. The next morning I led my platoon as the 

company main effort in a raid across the bridge in the 

battle of As Samewah. In the morning light I did not 

recognize my PSG or RTO, as I had not seen their 

faces in light. They looked very different from how I 

had pictured them in my mind.” 

(United States Military Academy Graduate, 

Class of 2002)
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• Second, we must abandon tiering unit 

readiness by “early” and “late” deployers. 

There will be no “late deployers,” merely 

“future deployers” who are at different stages 

of their rotation cycle.

• Third, we must synchronize our 

Soldiers’ tours with their unit’s rotation 

cycles. While accidents and casualties 

will preclude eliminating all individual 

replacements, we must minimize routine 

attrition of deployed units.

• Finally, we must stabilize the assignment of 

Soldiers and their families at home stations 

and communities across recurring rotations.

As any personnel manager would tell you, “This 

changes everything.” And so it should. Today’s 

individual Soldier and leader development 

programs, for example, do not accommodate 

force stabilization. They will change. Current 

command tour policies do not accommodate 

force stabilization. They will change. There have 

been many previous attempts to experiment with 

force stabilization, but those attempts always 

focused narrowly on only a few portions of the 

Army and invariably failed as a result. The Army 

will undertake a comprehensive policy redesign to 

stabilize the force.

ADJUSTING THE TOTAL 

FORCE MIX

Changes in our Reserve Component organizations 

will match those in the Active component. Reserve 

Component forces are a vital part of the Army’s 

deployable combat power. The National Guard 

will continue to provide strategic and operational 

depth and fl exibility; the Army Reserve will still 

reinforce the Army with skill-rich capabilities 

across the spectrum of operations. But with 

Reserve Component forces constituting an 

indispensable portion of our deployed landpower 

in this protracted confl ict, an industrial-age 

approach to mobilization no longer will suffi ce. 

The model will shift from “alert-mobilizetrain-deploy” to “train-alert-deploy.” Reserve 

Component mobilization must take less time and 

allow maximum mission time and more fl exibility 

in managing individual and unit readiness, 

mobilization and demobilization, deployment and 

redeployment, and post-deployment recovery.

We will adjust the Active/Reserve mix so that 

Active Component forces can execute the fi rst 

30 days of any deployment. For that purpose, 

some high-demand, low-density capabilities 

currently found only in the Reserve Components 

must be reincorporated in the active force. At 

the same time, while we will not expect Reserve 

Component units to deploy in the fi rst 30 days, 

they will employ forces within hours for security 

operations within our homeland. As with the 

active forces, the need to build predictability into 

Reserve Component deployments will require 

increasing the proportion of high-demand, 

low-density units in the Reserve Components. 

Finally, the shift to rotation-based unit manning 

rather than individual replacement will apply to 

the Reserve Components also. As with the active 

forces, therefore, we must fi nd a way to account 

for unit mobilization, training, and deployment 

with a realistic personnel overhead account. 
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TRAINING AND EDUCATION

To change the mindset of an Army, few tools 

are as important as its programs of training and 

education. The U.S. Army has long set the standard 

across the world in its commitment to Soldier 

and leader development. This strong legacy is 

our fulcrum on which to leverage change. We 

train for certainty while educating for uncertainty. 

Today’s confl ict presents both. 

Individual Training. The certainty 

confronting today’s Soldiers is overseas 

deployment and probable combat. Some will 

enter combat within weeks or months of their 

basic and advanced individual training. Thrust 

into a confl ict in which adversaries far outnumber 

their comrades, our Soldiers must believe and 

demonstrate that quality is more important than 

quantity, and that people are more important 

than hardware. On the battlefi elds we face, 

there are no front lines and no rear areas; there 

are no secure garrisons or convoys. Soldiers are 

warriors fi rst, specialists second.

Therefore Soldier training will be stressful, 

beyond the comfort zone. We will adapt our 

training programs to generate the stress necessary 

to change behavior and increase learning. 

Training will accurately represent the rigors and 

risks of combat. It will last longer than in the 

past and will put teams and Soldiers through the 

exhausting, challenging, and dangerous tasks of 

fi ghting. Soldiers will fi ght in body armor and will 

wear it in training. The safe handling of loaded 

fi rearms must be second nature, live-fi re training 

routine. For a confl ict of daunting ambiguity and 

complexity, training must imbue Soldiers with 

a fundamental joint and expeditionary mindset; 

an attitude of multifunctionality rather than 

specialization, curiosity rather than complacency, 

and initiative rather than 

compliance. Above 

all, training must build 

the confi dence that our 

Soldiers will prevail 

against any foe. 

Collective Training.

Our Combat Training 

Centers (CTCs) drive 

the tactical culture of 

the Army. They are 

the linchpins of our 

extraordinary battlefi eld 

success over the past 

two decades. Given that

“We don’t have the luxury of time right now. We 

graduate Soldiers, and a short time later they are 

deploying...When Soldiers arrive in Baghdad 

and get off the planes and into Humvees, they are 

immediately thrust into combat operations...They 

have to go in with a mind set that they will engage 

and kill the enemy on their fi rst day in country.” 

SFC Gallagher, IET Trainer
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every Army employment presumes a joint context, 

we will reinforce this key condition throughout 

our collective training. 

Therefore we have begun introducing joint, 

interagency, and multinational components into 

our key training experiences at both the CTCs 

and our Battle Command Training Program for 

division and corps headquarters. We also support 

establishment of the Joint National Training 

Capability and have begun routinely incorporating 

joint effects in our home-station training. All these 

efforts will make Soldiers expert in the application 

of joint capabilities at every organizational level. 

At the same time, at both CTCs and home stations, 

we have transformed training environments to 

refl ect the more complex and ambiguous threats 

confronting our deployed forces. The ability to 

develop and disseminate actionable intelligence 

must be a key training focus.

Integrated with force stabilization cycles, CTC 

rotations will be the capstone experience for forces 

preparing to deploy. But the heart of the Army’s 

training remains the training conducted at home 

stations by junior offi cers and noncommissioned 

offi cers (NCOs). To empower them, we must 

shake a legacy of planning-centric rather than 

execution-centric training. We need battle 

drills rather than “rock drills,” free play rather 

than scripted exercises, and Soldiers and units 

conditioned to seek out actionable intelligence 

rather than waiting passively to receive it. 

Professional Education. Just as training must 

refl ect the hard certainties of the confl ict before 

us, individual Soldier and leader education must 

address its uncertainties. George C. Marshall 

once said that an Army at peace must go to 

school. Our challenge is to go to school while at 

war. The need to teach Soldiers and leaders how 

to think rather than what to think has never been 

clearer. To defeat adaptive enemies, we must outthink them in order to out-fi ght them.

“Dispersed fi ghting, whether the dispersal is caused 

by the terrain, the lack of supplies, or by the weapons 

of the enemy, will have two main requirements–

skilled and determined junior leaders and self-reliant, 

physically hard, well-disciplined troops. Success in 

future land operations will depend on the immediate 

availability of such leaders and such Soldiers, ready 

to operate in small, independent formations.”

Field Marshal William Slim, World War II
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Technology can enhance human capabilities, but 

at the end of the day, war remains more art than 

science, and its successful prosecution will require 

battle command more than battle management. 

We can have “perfect” knowledge with very 

“imperfect” understanding. Appreciation of 

context transforms knowledge to understanding, 

and only education can make that context 

accessible to us. Only education informed by 

experience will encourage Soldiers and leaders 

to meet the irreducible uncertainties of war 

with confi dence, and to act decisively even when 

events fail to conform to planning assumptions 

and expectations. 

As we improve leaders’ skill and knowledge, we 

can rely more heavily on their artful application 

of leader knowledge and intuition. Planning 

will be iterative and collaborative rather than 

sequential and linear, more a framework for 

learning and action than a rigid template. 

Adapting our military decision making process 

will allow us to capitalize on the American 

Soldier’s inherent versatility, our growing 

ability to acquire and process information, 

and the increased rapidity with which we 

can disseminate, coordinate, and transform 

planning adjustments into effective action.

To that end, the Army will continue to refocus 

institutional learning, shifting Center for Army 

Lessons Learned collection assets from the CTCs 

to deployed units. Similarly, recognizing that a 

learning organization cannot afford a culture of 

information ownership, we must streamline the 

fl ow of combat information to assure broader and 

faster dissemination of actionable intelligence.

At the individual level, fi nally, there is no 

substitute for experiential learning, and today’s 

Army is the most operationally experienced 

Army in our history. There are tremendous 

opportunities to leverage experience through our 

well-developed culture of After Action Reviews, 

Lessons Learned, the great experience of the 

serving offi cers and NCOs, and the links from 

joint and Army operational analyses to formal 

learning—distributed and in the classroom. 

At the same time, some of the best battlefi eld 

lessons result from tragic but honest mistakes. 

We cannot allow a zero-defects mentality to write 

off those who make such mistakes, and we will 

review our leader evaluation systems to ensure 

they are leader development tools and not mere 

management sorting tools.

Leader Development. The Army has always 

prized leader development, and in peacetime 

has been willing to accept some personnel 

turbulence to broaden career experience. That 

is not acceptable for an army at war. Effective 

collective training requires the participation of 

the entire team, and units are not merely training 

aids for commanders. If we are serious about 

developing more versatile junior leaders, we 

must avoid too rapid a turnover of those leaders 

in the name of career development. 

The problem is somewhat less acute for middleand senior-grade offi cers, whose fewer numbers 

in any case make greater assignment mobility 

unavoidable. Even in their case, however, the 

growing complexity and political sensitivity 

of joint and expeditionary operations urges 

leaders to seek assignments that inherently 

involve interpreting complex requirements and 
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implementing sophisticated solutions. Our legacy 

system of leader development will certainly 

evolve, with the alteration of some current career 

roadmaps or the accreditation of a greater variety 

of substitute experiences. 

Just as we subordinate individual leader 

development to mission requirements, so 

too must we subordinate institutional leader 

development to joint requirements. Army training 

and education should produce imaginative staffs 

and commanders who understand how to interact 

with other service leaders and how to get the 

most out of the full set of joint capabilities. To 

produce leaders who reach instinctively beyond 

their own service for solutions to tactical and 

operational problems, Army leader development 

must routinely incorporate joint education and 

experience. In the end, we seek a bench of leaders 

able to think creatively at every level of war, and 

able to operate with equal comfort in Army, joint, 

interagency, and multinational environments. 

And if achieving that requires submitting our 

internal educational institutions to joint oversight, 

we should not shrink from it.

DOCTRINE, MATERIEL, 

AND SUSTAINMENT

Doctrine. The Army rightfully views itself 

as “doctrine-based.” In the 1970s and 1980s, 

doctrine was the engine that transformed the 

post-Vietnam Army into the victor of our postCold War engagements. That doctrine, however, 

refl ected the strategic environment dominated 

by a singular adversary, and an opposing army 

in symmetric contrast to our own. Although 

the challenge of developing doctrine for a joint 

and expeditionary environment is different, it 

is no less essential.

In any era, doctrine links theory, history, 

experimentation, and practice. It encapsulates a 

much larger body of knowledge and experience, 

providing an authoritative statement about 

how military forces do business and a common 

lexicon with which to describe it. As it has 

evolved since the Cold War, Army doctrine 

portrays military operations as a seamless and 

dynamic combination of offense, defense, 

stability, and support. Now we must extend 

it to address enemies who deliberately eschew 

predictable operating patterns.

To deal with such asymmetric opponents, 

doctrine must reflect the associated 

uncertainties. Uncertainty is in some measure 

inseparable from the nature of warfare. 

Asymmetry merely increases it. Doctrine 

cannot predict the precise nature and form of 

asymmetric engagements, but it can forecast 

the kinds of knowledge and organizational 

qualities necessary to cope with them.

“I’d just like to tell you right up front and declare I 

am a joint offi cer, who happens to be in the Army, 

who happens to be the Chief of Staff of the Army 

right now.” 

Army Chief of Staff 

 General Peter J. Schoomaker
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Such a doctrine, however, cannot simply prescribe 

solutions. Rather, it must furnish the intellectual 

tools with which to diagnose unexpected 

requirements, and a menu of practical options 

founded in experience from which leaders can 

create their own solutions quickly and effectively. 

Its objective must be to foster initiative and creative 

thinking. Such a doctrine is more playbook than 

textbook, and like any playbook, it is merely a 

gateway to decision, not a roadmap. 

The U.S. military enjoys an immense array of 

capabilities that are useless if we overlook their 

prerequisites and limitations. Doctrine can help 

frame those capabilities in context, while not 

prescribing their rigid application in any given 

case. A doctrine intended for our emerging 

strategic context must underwrite fl exible thought 

and action, and thereby assure the most creative 

exploitation of our own asymmetric advantages. 

It must also account for the inherently joint 

character of all Army operations.

Most important in today’s environment, 

doctrine must acknowledge the adaptive nature 

of a thinking, willful opponent and avoid both 

prediction and prescription. It is not the role of 

doctrine to predict how an adversary will behave. 

Rather, its function is to enable us to recognize 

that behavior, understand its vulnerabilities and 

our own, and suggest ways of exploiting the 

former and diminishing the latter. It will be useful 

only to the extent that experience confi rms it, 

and its continuous review and timely amendment 

therefore is essential. 

Materiel. Materiel development is a special 

challenge for an army at war, because we must 

not only anticipate and address future needs, we 

must meet pressing current demands. There 

is, however, a constant fi rst priority: equipping 

the individual Soldier. In the past, the Army 

reserved the best individual equipment for units 

most likely to fi ght; in an expeditionary army, 

one cannot forecast such units. Every deployed 

Soldier needs the best individual equipment 

available. In an expeditionary environment, 

moreover, we can no longer continue to treat 

equipment as permanently owned by the units to 

which it is assigned. In a rotation-based force, 

Asymmetry and Adaptation

Strategic: 

“This is a game of wits and will. You’ve got to be 

learning and adapting constantly to survive.”

Army Chief of Staff 

 General Peter J. Schoomaker

Operational: 

“The enemy is evolving. He’s getting a bit more lethal, 

a little more complex...”

Joint Task Force 7, Iraq 

 LTG Ricardo Sanchez

Tactical:

“This is the way you take down Samarra–at night. 

You can either lockstep and not change with the enemy, 

or you can evolve to keep him off balance.”

 Commander, 5-20 IN, after night raid 

LTC Karl Reed
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equipment ownership will be the exception. We 

will increasingly separate Soldiers from their 

carriers and equipment, tailoring the materiel mix 

for the mission at hand. 

Being most amenable to adaptability, speed, 

and fl exibility, aviation assets will be key to an 

expeditionary force. The lessons learned after twoand-a-half years of war have provided our Army 

the opportunity to reassess near-term aviation 

requirements. We will fundamentally restructure 

our aviation program to ensure the entire Army 

aviation fl eet remains a key tool of maneuver, 

with better command-and-control connectivity, 

manned-unmanned teaming, extended operational 

reach, and all-weather capability. 

Equally vital is the continued development of 

more rapidly deployable fighting platforms. 

The Future Combat System (FCS) remains 

the materiel centerpiece of the Army’s 

commitment to become more expeditionary, 

and will go far to reconciling deployability with 

sustainable combat power. We will remain a 

hybrid force for the foreseeable future, and we 

will seek ways to improve the deployability of 

the platforms we already own. 

Meanwhile, neither current platforms nor the 

FCS will satisfy expeditionary requirements 

without signifi cant improvement in the ability 

to develop actionable intelligence and increase 

communications bandwidth at corps level 

and below. The Army, together with the 

joint community, must relentlessly address 

the architectures, protocols, and systems of a 

redundant, nonterrestrial network capable of 

providing the focused bandwidth necessary to 

support mobile Battle Command and joint Blue 

Force tracking. Lessons learned from Operation 

Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom 

continue to highlight the successes and potential 

of network-enabled operations. The operational 

advantages of shared situational awareness, 

enhanced speed of command, and the ability of 

forces to self-synchronize are powerful. In this 

light, we must change the paradigm in which 

we talk and think about the network; we must 

fight rather than manage the network, and 

operators must see themselves as engaged at 

all times, ensuring the health and operation of 

this critical weapons system. 

Logistics. The Cold War Army designed its 

logistical structure for operations in developed 
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theaters with access to an extensive host-nation 

infrastructure. Expeditionary operations promise 

neither. Simultaneity and complexity compound 

the eternal constraints of decreased time, vast 

distances, and limited resources, creating a 

pressing demand for a logistics system that 

capitalizes on service interdependencies. We must 

operationally link logistics support to maneuver in 

order to produce desired operational outcomes. 

We will only realize such “effects-based logistics 

capability” when all services fully embrace joint 

logistics, eliminate gaps in logistics functions, 

and reduce overlapping support. We require 

a distribution-based sustainment system that 

provides end-to-end visibility of and control over 

force-support operations; one that incorporates 

by design the versatility to shift logistical support 

smoothly among multiple lines of operation and 

rapidly changing support requirements.

At the tactical level, that means eliminating 

today’s layered support structure, instead bridging 

the distance from theater or regional support 

commands to brigade combat teams with 

modular, distribution-based capabilities packages. 

We intend to use the resources from currentday corps and division support commands 

(COSCOMs and DISCOMs) to create jointcapable Army Deployment and Sustainment 

Commands (ADSCs). These ADSCs will 

be capable of serving as the foundation for a 

joint logistics command and control element 

at the Joint Task Force (JTF), and capable also 

of simultaneously executing the full range of 

complex operations—from theater port opening 

to employment and sustainment—required in the 

emerging operational environment.

Finally, it is clear that the physical security 

traditionally associated with the rearward 

location of logistical facilities no longer 

can be assumed. On today’s battlefi elds and 

tomorrow’s, we must make explicit provision

for the protection of logistical installations 

and the lines of communication joining them 

to combat formations. And the Soldiers 

conducting sustainment operations must be 

armed, trained, and psychologically prepared 

to fi ght as well as support. 

Installations. Installations are an integral 

part of the deployed force from home station 

to the foxhole. Operational deployments and 

rotational assignments across the globe mean 

installation capabilities will transcend more 

traditional expeditionary support requirements 

associated with mobilizing, deploying, and 

sustaining the force. More than a jump point 

for projecting forces, installations serve a 

fundamental role in minimizing their footprint 

through robust connectivity and capacity to 

fully support reach-back operations. 

Installation facilities must readily adapt to 

changing mission support needs, spiraling 

technology, and rapid equipment fi elding. 

Installation connectivity must also support en 

route mission planning and situational awareness. 

Education and family support will use the same 

installation mission support connectivity to 

sustain the morale and emotional needs of our 

Soldiers and their families. 

BUILDING 

INTERDEPENDENCE

Earlier we noted that our future is irrevocably 

joint. Interdependence is central to both the 

expeditionary mindset and campaign quality we 

seek. Achieving it is fi rst a conceptual challenge, 

for all capabilities—not only materiel capabilities 

—spring from operational concepts. Joint 

operational concepts are emerging, and the Army 

has participated actively with its sister services 

in their creation, articulation, wargaming, and 

experimentation. This effort identifi es fi ve key 

joint and expeditionary interdependencies:
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Joint Battle Command. Making the fl exible 

supported-to-supporting relationships fi rst 

attempted in Operation Iraqi Freedom routine 

will demand interoperable command-and-control 

mechanisms supported by comprehensive and 

redundant information networks. Effective 

joint intelligence, joint fi res, blue force tracking, 

and logistical support all require agreement on 

the data defi nition, protocols and standards 

informing the design of those networks. Army 

contributions to Joint Forces Command’s Joint 

Battle Management Command and Control 

(JBMC2) Transformation Roadmap will be 

essential to assure the Army’s LandWarNet, the 

Air Force’s C2 Constellation, and the Navy’s 

ForceNet refl ect those common standards. 

Joint Fires and Effects. Interdependence 

of joint fi res will be vital to mitigating risk and 

reducing reliance on organic fi res in a joint 

expeditionary environment. Linked through an 

effective joint command and control system, 

the American Soldier will have the entire target 

acquisition and engagement resources of the 

theater at his fi ngertips. All of our modular 

solutions depend on enabling even our smallest
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combat formations to leverage joint fires 

through mechanisms such as “universal 

observers” or “joint effects control teams.” To 

facilitate more effective employment of close 

air support in a non-contiguous battlespace, 

we need universal standards for observation, 

designation and target acquisition. The 

Air Force has demonstrated increasing 

responsiveness in recent operations and has 

committed to a general officer–led Joint 

Force Air Component Command element at 

every Army corps exercise. Both the Army 

and the Air Force still have concerns, the 

Army for responsiveness and reliability, the 

Air Force for control and training demands. 

Their resolution will require cooperative 

adjustments by both services. 

Joint Force Projection. The Army’s 

dependence on its sister services is nowhere more 

obvious than in the area of mobility, both strategic 

and operational. We cannot wish away the laws of 

physics, but neither must we surrender to them. 

The solution of the Army’s mobility challenges 

will require action by both the Army and its 

partners. For its part, the Army must continue to 

improve its inherent deployability. This remains 

the focus of major development programs such 

as Stryker, the Future Combat System, and 

numerous complementary systems, all of which 

are being designed to satisfy the space and weight 

limitations of our major tactical intra-theater lift 

capabilities. It also is a major objective of our 

tactical unit redesign.

For their part, the Navy and Air Force must 

resource strategic and operational lift as critical 

service competencies. Intra-theater lift will be 

especially crucial in a future confl ict in which 

enemies may be able to obstruct or deny altogether 

the use of fi xed entry points such as airfi elds and 

seaports. To overcome that challenge, we will 

need the ability through vertical envelopment 

to bypass those entry points with forces of 

operational signifi cance, forces with the mobility, 

Air Force Sorties Redirected After 

Launch

Operation Desert Storm: 20% 

Operation Enduring Freedom: 43% 

Operation Iraqi Freedom: 80%
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lethality, and survivability that can maneuver to 

and defeat these integrated point defenses. 

Current intra-theater lift assets do not have 

the range, payload, or operational profi les to 

support that requirement. Future lift assets 

will need all of them. We also share the Marine 

Corps’ interest in the feasibility of deploying 

from a Sea Base. The Army supports the 

development of a joint Sea Base capability and 

looks forward to a cooperative effort to address 

the intra-theater lift challenge.

Joint Air and Missile Defense. The increasing 

range and speed of air and missile threats, and 

their potential ability to deliver weapons of 

mass destruction, place a high premium on the 

integration of service air and missile defenses. 

The ultimate objective is a joint system of 

complementary air defense kill mechanisms able 

to defeat mixed threats of varying complexity—

the right amount and combination of effects at 

the right time and place without regard for their 

domain of origin. 

This arena already enjoys considerable integration 

of service programs, most recently the merger 

of Army and Marine Corps programs to defend 

against cruise missiles. Other collaborations 

already underway include Joint Airspace Control 

Procedures, Joint Identifi cation Procedures, Joint 

Engagement Authority Procedures, and others. 

Common operational architectures will be key. 

Joint Sustainment. All the services have 

key interdependencies in the logistics arena and 

will experience even more in an expeditionary 

environment. There is a pressing demand 

for a joint end-to-end logistics structure 

that permits reliable support of distributed 

operations in which deployment, employment, 

and sustainment are simultaneous. 

At the theater level, in cases where the Army 

is the predominant service component, we 

are willing to transform our current Theater 

Support Commands into regional joint logistics 

commands subordinate to the regional combatant 

commander. If another service is the predominant 

component, that service’s logistics organization 

could serve as the basis for a regional joint 

support command, with the Army contributing 

in its normal Title X/WEAR (Wartime Executive 

Agency Requirement) role. 
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MOVING OUT

The changes ahead are signifi cant. But they 

are neither reckless nor revolutionary. On 

the contrary, they refl ect years of Army study, 

experimentation, and experience. We have 

delayed this transformation repeatedly, fearing 

that we could not afford such change in a time 

of turbulence and reduced resources. Now we 

realize that what we cannot afford is more delay. 

The 3rd Infantry Division is reorganizing today 

to a prototype redesign that converts its combat 

structure from three brigades to four brigade 

combat teams. Other divisions will soon follow. 

The best way to anticipate the future is to 

create it. The Army is moving out, and this 

is merely the beginning. Our incentive is not 

change for change’s sake. Our incentive is 

effectiveness in this protracted conflict. If 

necessary to defeat our adaptive adversaries, 

the changes described here are a mere down 

payment on changes that will follow. 

But our challenge is to measure ourselves not 

against others, but against our own potential. 

It is not enough that we are changing. The real 

question is, “Are we changing enough?” Our 

brave Soldiers and adaptive leaders constitute the 

best Army in the world, but we can be even better. 

It is inside of us and it is what the Nation expects. 

The future as we know it—our lives, the lives of 

our families, this country, everything we love and 

cherish—all depend on our success in meeting 

this challenge. Are you wearing your dog tags?

“What matters is what’s inside—your integrity, your 

commitment to service, your dedication to excellence, 

your fi ghting spirit.

Acting Secretary of the Army 

 Mr. Les Brownlee

“We’re going to have to [change] some of the things 

that made us the best Army in the world. Our values 

are sacrosanct ... everything else is on the table.” 

Army Chief of Staff 

 General Peter J. Schoomaker

The Army Combat Uniform

On June 14, 2004, the Army announced the 

selection of the new Army Combat Uniform (ACU).

The ACU is the culmination of many months of 

research and development, developed by Soldiers 

for Soldiers, and is the uniform of choice by the 

overwhelming majority of the Army’s leaders and 

Soldiers.
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