The Army of 2040 An Extension of the 2030 Goals

Abstract：The U.S. Army is currently experiencing a challenging period, highlighted by potential shifts in the global balance of military capabilities, emerging technologies, increased threats to the U.S. homeland and other issues that impose new demands on the nation’s premier land force. China and Russia continue to challenge the rules-based international order. Aimed at supplanting the United States in its role as the world’s dominant military, both have become more assertive as they seek to advance their own global agendas. Defense leaders suggest that, by 2040, both countries will have positioned the instruments of their national power to undermine the global national security interests of the United States. The development and growth of the Army of 2040 must be manned, trained and equipped and must lead with a focus on readiness to conduct large-scale combat operations (LSCO). These types of operations are inherently joint in terms of scope and size of the forces committed, and they entail high tempo, high resource consumption and generally high casualty rates. Additionally, large scale combat introduces levels of complexity, lethality, ambiguity and speed to military activities not common in other operations.1