ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Registration is now open for the Association of the U.S. Army’s Warfighter Summit and Exposition in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Scheduled for July 26–27 at the Crown Complex near Fort Bragg, the two-day, in-person summit is a leader and professional development event focused on the warfighter. This is the second year AUSA is hosting the Warfighter Summit.

This year’s theme is “America’s Army: Ready for Today, Modernizing for 2030 and Beyond.”

The Association of the U.S. Army is urging key lawmakers to approve additional funding in the fiscal 2024 budget to support the Army’s transformation programs.

“We believe it is essential for the Army and the Department of Defense (DoD) to have the resources it needs to counter growing threats and to ensure the continued excellence of the all-volunteer force,” retired Gen. Bob Brown, AUSA president and CEO, writes in a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

The Army is pushing ahead on its modernization and transformation for 2030 and 2040, a panel of senior leaders said.

“I believe that Army modernization is on track,” said Gen. James Rainey, commanding general of Army Futures Command. “As we deliver Army 2030 and design Army 2040, Army Futures Command is … transforming the Army to ensure war-winning future readiness, and modernization is an essential part of that.” 

The Army is facing “significant challenges” with recruiting, but the service is working to “reform and modernize … for today’s landscape,” a senior leader said. 

In their first appearance on Capitol Hill to discuss the Army’s fiscal 2024 budget request, the Army’s top leaders said they are proud of the service’s accomplishments and are ready for the work ahead.  

“We’ve accomplished a lot this year, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. “The FY ‘24 budget enables us to support the National Defense Strategy, to provide ready forces to the combatant commanders and to take care of our people.” 

As the Army transforms to meet mounting global challenges and increased threats to the homeland, its work to modernize the force will never really end, the author of a new paper writes.

“To be clear, the Army will never be ‘done’ modernizing,” writes Maj. Roye Locklear, an Active Guard Reserve officer with the Florida Army National Guard’s 927th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion.
“As we deliver Army 2030, Army 2040 and beyond, we are laying the foundation to persistently modernize in response to emerging technologies, evolving challenges and our adversaries’ actions.”

The Army’s new approach to acquiring the systems it needs to modernize is “pretty quick” compared to the cumbersome, yearslong process of the past, said Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville.

With 34 major modernization systems coming to bear as part of the Army’s transformation through 2040, of which 24 systems are on track to be fielded or in prototype “in the hands of soldiers” this year, the Army has been able to streamline its process by having industry present ideas on paper first, McConville said.

Army leaders have an ambitious initiative to grow the total force to 976,000 soldiers by 2028 through dramatic improvements in Regular Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve recruiting.

This goal would leave the Army slightly short of the 1 million uniformed members it had in 2022.

On-time and adequate funding, as well as programs focused on people, modernization and readiness, remain top advocacy efforts for the Association of the U.S. Army.