The Army is preparing to make some tough choices as it looks to modernize the force while dealing with budget uncertainties and expanding missions at home and abroad, the service’s top general said.

“Our job is to provide the best Army we can provide with the resources we have,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said Feb. 10 during a virtual event hosted by the Heritage Foundation.

Soldiers are supporting COVID-19 missions at home and providing security around the world, he said. Last fall, thousands were called up on short notice for the evacuation mission in Afghanistan, and more recently, the Pentagon announced it was deploying 3,000 soldiers to Poland, Romania and Germany to bolster U.S. allies amid growing tensions with Russia.

At the same time, the Army continues to operate under a temporary funding measure that prohibits it from starting new programs and holds funding to last year’s levels, which McConville said leads to a delicate balancing act as the Army also is pursuing its most ambitious modernization effort in decades.

McConville pledged that he and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth remain “committed to modernizing the Army” and are “taking a hard look at everything.”

“We’d like to have a big stick, but if we can’t have a big stick, we’d better have a sharp stick, and that’s what we’re looking at,” he said.

Key to the Army’s modernization effort is its 31 plus four priority programs. Of those 35 systems being developed, 24 are expected to be delivered to soldiers by fiscal 2023, McConville said.

Success is getting new systems into the hands of soldiers, he said. “We need to rapidly develop them as we do it,” he said.

McConville said it’s important for the Army to stay committed to its six modernization priorities, but leaders are taking a hard look at the 31 plus four programs. “We need these systems, we’re continuing to take a look at them,” he said, but the Army may need to adjust those that aren’t performing or are not on schedule or on budget.

When asked if some of these programs could be cut, McConville said, “Anything is possible.”

“It’s about people, it’s about readiness, it’s about modernization,” he said. “We have to take those resources, that are going to be constrained no matter how much we get, and we have our priorities.”