ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

The U.S. Army has “accomplished a lot” this year, but Army Secretary Christine Wormuth isn’t celebrating. 

“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” she told the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee at a May 10 hearing about the fiscal 2023 budget.

The fiscal 2023 Army budget submitted to Congress asks for $177.5 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, with a pending request for an additional $5.1 billion for unfunded priorities if lawmakers provide more funds.

More than 2,900 soldiers have been reprimanded for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, but none have been involuntarily separated solely for not getting the shot, the Army said Jan. 11.

Almost a month after the vaccination deadline for active-duty soldiers, the Army said 97% of the active-duty Army had received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 96% were fully vaccinated. 

In the face of growing threats around the world, the U.S. military must remain ready for a range of challenges, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said.

“We’re going to have to deal with a rising China, we have to deal with Russia, we will have North Korea, we have Iran, we have terrorists, we have climate change, we have COVID, we have wildfires, we have a lot of challenges,” Milley said. “As a great power, we have to be able to do all of those simultaneously.”

The Army continues to have trained and ready troops and units despite cultural and fiscal challenges and busy operational requirements, the commander of Army Forces Command said.

Gen. Michael Garrett, who took command of Forces Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, two years ago, said his top responsibility is to provide troops to “fight tonight,” but he and his team also have worked hard to create opportunities for important conversations between leaders and soldiers across the force and provide stable and predictable deployment cycles.

The Army’s modernization efforts remain as critical as ever in 2021 amid a high operations tempo and growing competition from adversaries such as Russia and China, the Army’s top general said.

“The Army must always be ready to fight and win,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said Jan. 19 during The AUSA Noon Report, a webinar hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army. “In this era of great-power competition, the Army must always be ready to compete to aggressively protect our national interests.”

The Army must continue to juggle a high demand for troops around the world with an urgent need to modernize the force, the service’s top general said. 

Soldiers remain busy overseas and at home, from combat operations to COVID-19 response missions, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said. Ideally, the active-duty force would number 540,000 to 550,000 soldiers, he said.  

Military leaders are taking on a “holistic review” of troops’ footprint around the world as the U.S. remains focused on “great-power competition,” according to the Pentagon’s top general.

“There’s a very strong argument to be made that we may have forces in places that they shouldn’t be, and we may have forces that are needed in places that they’re not right now,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Dec. 2 while speaking with the Brookings Institution. 

The Heritage Foundation’s “2021 Index of U.S. Military Strength” gives the U.S. Army high marks for improved readiness but once again scores the service as “marginal” because those readiness gains continue to be offset by ongoing struggles to modernize and grow the force.

The Army isn’t alone. The report also rates the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and U.S. nuclear capabilities as marginal. The new U.S. Space Force was not assessed in the 2021 report.

The Heritage Foundation’s “2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength” once again scores the U.S. Army as “marginal” because dramatic improvements in brigade combat team readiness are offset by continuing struggles to modernize the force and grow troop levels. 

The Army isn’t alone. The report also rates the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and U.S. nuclear capabilities as marginal. The new U.S. Space Force is not ranked in the 2020 report. 

From a global pandemic to no-notice deployments to the Middle East, the Army continues to prepare for any crisis or mission, the service’s top operations officer said.

“We must be ready for any planned and unplanned crisis,” Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, deputy Army chief of staff for operations, said July 22 during The AUSA Noon Report, a webinar series hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army.