The United States Army—the nation’s foundational force—has defended America’s freedom, prosperity and way of life for more than 239 years. Today the Army is the strategic linchpin of national defense and provides a seamless continuum of options for senior civilian and military leadership alike. The Total Army (active, Guard, Reserve), as one part of the joint force, provides a significant amount of enduring capabilities to support combatant commanders’ efforts to prevent conflict, shape the security environment and win in a complex world.Soldiers and their leaders continue to perform in an outstanding manner after more than 13 years of sustained military engagements against determined enemies, but now they face an even greater threat: the unknown and the unknowable. Today’s security environment is defined by its complexity, unpredictability and the increasing momentum of human interaction. Threats from state and nonstate actors, as well as humanitarian crises such as the current Ebola disease outbreak in Africa, demand an Army that possesses a wide variety of adaptive, innovative, robust and resilient capabilities. Moreover, as technology proliferates, enemies will also have greater access to weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and sophisticated technical capabilities that will negate the Army’s overmatch on the battlefield of tomorrow. The recent Deep Futures war game Unified Quest projected that in 30 years the U.S. military will have to be ready to deal with an operational environment consisting of:

• megacities—complex terrain that reduces U.S. advantages;
• resource competition—especially in megacities with reduced essential services; and
• physical and cognitive augmentation—the use of bio- and nanotechnology by adversaries to enhance performance that may go beyond ethical boundaries.

This dynamic set of conditions creates the need for the Army to define a more capable, adaptive future force that thinks, plans and operates differently.The Army of the future—globally responsive and regionally engaged—must be leaner and more expeditionary and must contain greater lethality, agility and adaptability. Its Soldiers and leaders must be innovative, adaptive and critical problem-solvers. Army forces must excel across the entire range of military operations and adapt rapidly for unconventional missions. When conflict occurs, the Army, as part of a joint or multinational force, needs to dominate the environment, sustain multiple operations and win decisively. Developing an Army with these capabilities helps to avert miscalculation by potential adversaries despite the pending reduction in force size.At its core, the Army is people. The key to success will be to continually develop future leaders that can adapt strategy to address the unpredictable challenges of the future operational environment. Success is tied to maintaining technological overmatch capabilities against likely antagonists; however, the Army is at risk of losing its current technological advantage. To mitigate this risk, the Army has created a comprehensive, innovative modernization strategy called Force 2025 and Beyond. This strategy will improve the ability to provide technologies in support of future operations. It will also streamline operational processes to produce a more adaptable, agile and effective Army Total Force. As General Dennis L. Via stated, “The Army must shape a force for the future that maintains a technological edge on the battlefield.”2