In war, the side that masters breakthrough technology first often seizes the advantage. Germany’s blitzkrieg—powered by radio-enabled command and control—shattered superior French defenses in 1940. But it was the U.S. and our allies, through relentless adaptation and innovation at greater speed and scale, that won in both Europe and the Pacific in World War II. Superior radar, the Higgins amphibious landing craft and the decisive atomic bomb are all proof that the side that moves faster and endures longer ultimately prevails.

America and our allies are now in another race—and this time, the decisive edge will go to the military that can harness live data. The ability to integrate sensors, shooters and decision-makers at speed and scale will determine who wins the next war. The U.S. Army is leading that transformation—and U.S. Army Europe and Africa is uniquely positioned to drive it. The lessons of Ukraine have shown us exactly what’s at stake: the future fight will be defined by precision, mass and momentum. Our adversaries—Russia, China and others—are adapting quickly, and they have a three-year head start.

We don’t have the luxury of time. We must act now—using next-generation command and control with artificial intelligence-enabled decision-making and industry-proven technologies ready to scale—to outpace, outthink and outmaneuver them. The window of opportunity is open: NATO is strategically and operationally aligned, defense budgets are growing, and industry is mobilizing. But momentum favors the side that acts first, and the clock is ticking.

Inflection Point

We now have an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild the Army’s ability to deliver global ground deterrence—fast, flexible and able to influence across all domains. At the urging of the current U.S. administration, the combination of strengthening political will within NATO, increased defense spending and a growing defense industrial base, Europe now offers the ideal conditions to build a lethal force equal to the threats posed by China, Russia or any future adversary.

Europe remains our premier battle laboratory, and the results are already visible. The outcomes of the January–February transformation in contact rotation at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Germany prove what’s possible. The 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, the first forward-deployed infantry brigade combat team to test the mobile brigade combat team concept, demonstrated a 300% increase in lethality over previous rotations. But this is just the beginning. Transformation must occur at every echelon across the entire force.

Within the NATO alliance, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, NATO headquarters now has aligned command structures, an approved plan of action and a fast-evolving Mission Command system that uses live data we can train on, experiment with and apply in real-time operations. We also draw strength from a diverse set of allied capabilities and the world’s largest industrial bases between the U.S. and the European Union—and from the hard-earned experience of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are ready to share what they’ve learned.

This is the inflection point. If we can master the technologies already within reach—live data, integrated command and control, and mission systems—we will create a seismic shift in our capabilities and our mindset. And with it, we will be able to deter the mass and momentum our adversaries are preparing to unleash.

Global Deterrence

The U.S. Army and our allies must think differently to deter an adversary who can mass forces faster than we can, at a time and place of their choosing, who possesses long-range fires in superior quantities and does so under the protection of robust anti-access/area denial systems.

The immediate transformation of our command and control system is critical. We have integrated with NATO Allied Land Command, and with the U.S. and NATO headquarters both using a peered Mission Command system, we now are able to integrate allied sensors, effectors and live data, developing simulation and artificial intelligence-machine learning tools to forecast resources dynamically, assign munitions to targets and anticipate battle damage assessments. This is not a projected capability or an operational needs statement to inform future investment. This is what we are doing today. This urgent work enables us to accelerate our targeting process, increasing simultaneity of effect and the lethality of being first to fire.

We also are taking increasing responsibility for the anti-access/area denial fight in conjunction with U.S. Air Forces in Europe adapting to take on a majority of the burden, and in doing so, driving the Air Tasking Order. This will allow us to move from a sequential plan of action to true simultaneous operations in time and space with more effective control of our logistics to ensure we do not culminate. With this successful command and control system established in Europe, it must be rapidly scaled and connected globally, ready to meet any threat.

We are war-gaming and refining our plans to make greater use of all types of available, low-cost and rapidly scalable unmanned systems to block an initial incursion quickly and to support a counterattack. These capabilities have the potential to be significantly more affordable in addressing the cost curve of deterrence and adaptable to the changing threat and environment. Through our enablement, we are witnessing the potential of these systems in Ukraine, and when used in conjunction with a highly effective command and control system, they offer a significant, battle-winning advantage.

U.S. Army Europe and Africa is playing its part in the Army Transformation Initiative, leading the way in experimentation including Next Generation Command and Control, brigade combat team transformation and the development of counter-unmanned aircraft system capability through Project Fly Trap, an experiment to be conducted this summer with the British Army. Along with the innovative efforts of soldiers in U.S. Army Europe and Africa, we are quickly integrating new capabilities into our assigned and rotational formations, but we cannot be satisfied with “good enough”—we must go faster.

Shifting Focus

At the foundation of our transformation is a renewed focus on restoring large-scale combat capability and rebuilding global, interoperable magazine depth, or the amount of munitions available. Headquarters, Department of the Army, is leading change in how we produce and procure, and is working with Congress to build realistic global solutions that can be fielded in the next three to five years. But we can’t do it alone. We must apply hard-earned lessons from Ukraine to rapidly generate the scale of available, inexpensive weapons systems and stockpiles we know future conflicts will demand.

U.S. leadership remains critical to coordinating this effort globally, and our allies in Europe are stepping up. They now have the will, the resources and the growing industrial capacity to share the burden of deterrence—through coproduction of munitions, repair parts and key systems. The shift is real: Thirty of our 31 NATO allies are now committing at least 20% of their defense budgets to procurement and modernization. They’re not just signaling intent—they’re building real capability.

To sustain this momentum, industry must do its part. U.S. defense companies must support ongoing efforts by the Department of State and the Department of Defense to simplify and accelerate the Foreign Military Sales process. We need to make it easier, not harder, for allies to take on more responsibility.

That means developing standardized, interoperable platforms and munitions that align with U.S. Army Europe and Africa and NATO capability targets. It means linking Foreign Military Sales cases to those targets. And it means building modular systems with upgrade paths, repair rights and 3D-printing capabilities to adapt as sensors and technology evolve. Coproduction is not just an economic solution—it’s a strategic imperative. It diversifies supply chains, strengthens the trans-Atlantic industrial base and builds the global depth we need to compete with the mass production capacity of Russia and Communist China.

To address this challenge, the Association of the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Europe and Africa will bring NATO and Indo-Pacific 4—Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea—military leaders together with companies from the American and European defense industrial base at the inaugural LANDEURO Symposium and Exposition July 16–17 in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Participants will discuss and plan how to fulfill and sustain the requirements for the first 21 days of conflict with interoperable, standardized platforms, unmanned systems and coproduction to provide magazine depth that can be employed across the globe to counter mass and momentum.

The European Theater is a capable and ready proving ground to shape the future force, and U.S. Army Europe and Africa is an exciting place to serve. It also has some of the best minds in the Army grappling with the challenge of making global deterrence a reality. We are delivering operational effect, building readiness, experimenting to inform the future force and forging leaders ready for the challenges of large-scale combat.

Europe is an ideal location to hone skills that will have value in any theater. In the past year, we have exercised at all echelons, from platoon to field army. At the field army or multicorps land component command level, U.S. Army Europe and Africa in September 2024 led a multinational and multicorps command post exercise, Avenger Triad, to exercise defense plans with the assigned force elements against an expected enemy force.

This arguably was the first time a command post exercise of this size and scale had been conducted using a real-world scenario since the Cold War. This exercise validated the lessons observed in Ukraine, informed our future planning and exercises, and identified capability gaps we now are working to close—faster than we have in over a generation.

Exercises in U.S. Army Europe and Africa draw a decisive advantage from the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, led by 7th Army Training Command. As the largest training center outside of the U.S., the Joint Multinational Readiness Center fuses lessons from the front lines in Ukraine and across NATO with professional, modernizing opposing forces and the rugged terrain of southern Germany to deliver the Army’s most demanding training scenarios.

Proving Ground

The Combined Resolve 25-01 exercise in January and February showcased this advantage. It served as the proving ground for the Army’s transformation in contact 1.0, where the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, validated new concepts under real-world stress. But the Joint Multinational Readiness Center isn’t just keeping pace—it’s pushing ahead.

Beginning in May, the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), began the first iteration of the U.S. Army Europe and Africa Lethality Evaluation Program, ensuring that every rotational unit returns to the U.S. more ready, more lethal and more prepared for future conflict.

Under the program, every company now must achieve a “Trained” standard during nighttime live-fire or core competency during its deployment. And the integration of one-way effectors and counter-unmanned aircraft systems into live-fire exercises is just one example of how the Lethality Evaluation Program is raising the bar.

U.S. Army Europe and Africa is growing capability and experience from our operational tasking. The ceaseless work of the 21st Theater Support Command to move equipment has highlighted the sheer scale of the task of effectively enabling a multicorps fight.

Equally, the Russia-Ukraine war has underlined the importance of the protection function. The 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command has drawn a great deal of value from the feedback from U.S. air defense equipment currently in use by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Despite the changes in the character of conflict, its nature has not changed. Now more than ever, the time-tested intangibles of good NCO leadership, application of Mission Command and physically and mentally strong teams and families remain the highest priority for commanders.

The threat we face fights globally, so we must rise to the challenge of establishing global deterrence, and it has already started on the battlefields of Europe. As we continue to forge a more lethal, resilient and globally interoperable force, it stands poised to project decisive land power and safeguard American interests across a rapidly changing world.

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Gen. Christopher Donahue assumed command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, Germany, and NATO Allied Land Command, Türkiye, in December. Previously, he commanded XVIII Airborne Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. He has led soldiers at all levels, including in airborne, Ranger, special operations, light and mechanized units. He deployed 17 times in support of the global war on terrorism. He graduated in 1992 from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, and has a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College.

Col. Karst Brandsma is director of the Commander’s Initiatives Group, U.S. Army Europe and Africa.

Lt. Col. John Dunn, British Army, is a member of the Commander’s Initiatives Group, U.S. Army Europe and Africa.