Thursday, October 5, 2017
What is it?
The overmatch that the U.S. Army enjoyed for the last 70 years has eroded and the Army’s current ways of thinking, executing, and organizing limit the ability to keep pace with change. The Army cannot achieve or maintain operational advantage unless it outpaces potential adversaries’ development by building the future force.
Understanding and addressing these issues requires examining today’s operating environment through the lens of the Army’s four strategic modernization aspirations: strategic, innovative, agile, and credible.
What has the Army done?
As investments in readiness continue to return greater dividends, the Army will expand investment in modernization for greater future lethality and build the future force through the entire doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities (DOTMLPF) spectrum.
What continued efforts does the Army have planned for the future?
The Army will adapt its modernization efforts through four deliberate aspirations:
Strategic – Manage modernization initiatives to account for uncertainty of both threats and opportunities through:
Shared Vision - define and implement a unified strategic vision that every stakeholder understands and follows
Prioritization – rank the Army’s full set of innovation initiatives to align with near-, mid-, and long-term strategic advantage
Innovative - Deliver novel and incremental capabilities through:
Top Talent - recruit, train, and deploy the right people to align skills and capabilities
Partnerships - harness the full value of external force-multipliers
Innovation Delivery - instill a culture of experimentation and define processes to manage the full spectrum of innovation
Agile – Develop clear mechanisms while staying nimble:
Speed of Execution - empower leaders to make metrics-based decisions
Scale - address full scope of Army modernization
Surge Capacity – re-allocate resources to support changing priorities
Linkages – enable sharing and coordination
Continuous Improvement – self assess and adjust rapidly and constantly
Credible - Build strong relationships through efficiency and transparency:
Engagement – Provide transparency to Congressional leaders and collaborate with industry and academic partners
Lean – pare down processes to minimize duplication of efforts and make efficient use of resources
Why is this important to the Army?
Army forces must possess the capabilities –and be prepared to fight across multiple domains and through contested areas –to deter potential adversaries. And, should deterrence fail, rapidly defeat them.
Today’s operational environment is complex, uncertain, and dynamic, and requires innovative solutions. Political developments and diverse threats to the national security complicate the world in which the Army operates. Predicting battles is difficult as conflicts spread quickly across borders and involve increasing numbers of actors. Technological advances in the speed of innovation and magnitude of change are transforming every aspect of society, and warfare is no different. The Army is prepared to meet these challenges by proactively building and shaping the future force.
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