Gen. James Rainey, commander of U.S. Army Futures Command, speaks June 3 as part of the Strategic Landpower Dialogue co-hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Strategic Landpower Dialogue is a quarterly on-the-record speaker series on land power security issues. It serves as a unique source of insight into the current thinking of and future challenges facing the U.S. Army and land-based forces. Launched in September with a discussion featuring Army Secretary Christine Wormuth and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, the event with Rainey is the fourth in the series.

It will take place from 2–3:15 p.m. Eastern June 3 at CSIS headquarters, 1616 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. It also will be livestreamed on the CSIS YouTube channel.

To attend in-person or online, you must register here.

During the discussion, Rainey will discuss the Army’s transformation and modernization efforts, future investment priorities and the development of the service’s next warfighting concept.

Rainey, who has led Army Futures Command since October 2022, previously was the deputy Army chief of staff for operations, G-3/5/7. An infantry officer and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Rainey also commanded the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and the 3rd Infantry Division.

Army Futures Command is the Army’s newest major command, responsible for transforming the Army to ensure war-winning future readiness. The command has 30,000 soldiers and civilians at 128 locations around the world.

As the Army undertakes one of its biggest transformations in decades, Army Futures Command is working to ensure the force is ready for the demands of today’s fight while preparing for the challenges of tomorrow.

“We have to look at what’s happening in the world and adapt faster,” Rainey said earlier this year.

The Army’s systems can’t be just a little bit better than its adversaries’ systems, Rainey said. “It has to be 10 [times] better,” he said. “We can’t be a little bit faster; we’ve got to be way faster.”

In the future, the fight will be long, Rainey said. “I do not believe in the short, sharp war idea,” he said. “Nuclear-equipped superpowers, if they got into an existential fight, I believe it’ll be a long, tough, nasty fight. We … need to be clear-eyed about that, and we need to make sure we have the endurance.”

This includes endurance within the defense industrial base, magazine depth and making sure “we recruit and train humans who will be able to withstand the horrors of what will be the next war we fight,” he said.

The Army also must look at how it can improve the lethality and survivability of its light infantry formations and its casualty evacuation and medical treatment capabilities on the battlefield, Rainey said. “We have to never forget that this is about close-combat dominance,” and the men and women who are on the front lines, he said.