The Armed Forces of the Future

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On Monday, I convened CFR’s version of a “tank” meeting in Washington D.C. No, not a reference to Shark Tank, but to the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s secure conference room located deep in the Pentagon. Present were chiefs of all the U.S. services: General Randy George, chief of staff of the Army; General Eric Smith, commandant of the Marine Corps; Admiral James Kilby, acting chief of naval operations of the U.S. Navy; General David W. Allvin, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force; General B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force; and Admiral Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.

It’s rare to have the service chiefs together in one room—above ground in an unclassified, on-the-record setting no less—to discuss the future of U.S. military strategy and leadership.

Across all of the services, a clear constant was a desire for radical change in the ways the United States fights, structures its forces, and manages its procurement. Projects to reform or transform the military are nothing new. But a confluence of events—chiefly among them, the rise of China as the “pacing threat,” the role of the private sector in driving innovative technologies with military implications, and an emerging consensus across the executive branch, Congress, and the defense sector that the United States can’t financially or strategically afford to keep doing things the way they have always been done—creates a sense that this time might be different.

When it comes to reform and transformation, several cross-cutting themes emerged:

First, there is a need to restructure forces for new challenges they are likely to face. Take the Marine Corps. Having been focused for decades on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations, they are halfway through a ten-year process of redesigning their forces to emphasize amphibious capabilities well-suited for operations against near-peer adversaries in littoral waters. That’s code for China.

Second, there is the deployment of forces to priority theaters. This raises the perennial issue of whether the United States can or should focus less on Europe or the Middle East and rebalance more to the Indo-Pacific. Two-thirds of the Marine Corps’ active-duty combat forces are now operating in the Indo-Pacific. But long-term force posture priorities don’t always align neatly with current crises. For example, a Navy carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson was redeployed from a mission in the Indo-Pacific to support Central Command’s campaign against the Houthis and defense of Israel. 

Third, there is a fundamentally new dynamic between the military and the private sector, with startups, defense technology companies and emerging defense contractors driving the development of new capabilities. Traditionally, the Pentagon would issue detailed requirements, and defense contractors would then build to those specifications. A major platform, like a new fighter or an aircraft carrier, could take six to ten years to build from initial design to deployment, by which time the actual needs of the mission might well have evolved. Now, the pace of technological change is accelerating, much of the cutting edge is being developed by the private sector—think drones and AI—and the services are trying to figure out how best to integrate it quickly into their warfighting capabilities. There is a lot of exuberance about the potential for drones, operating underwater, on the surface and in the air, but the key might well be how to combine autonomous platforms and more traditional weapons, just as the Air Force plans to do with the B-21 bomber, the F-47 fighter, and the uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft. It’s also why major new systems, such as President Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense shield, which the Space Force will play a major role in fielding, will rely on open, interoperable architectures.

The Army has been working to free up and deploy resources to procure emerging technologies quickly into the field, where they can be tested, refined and integrated into operations. General George pointed to a drone-equipped mobile brigade combat team in Europe that proved to be 300 percent more lethal than other units thanks to their new kit and tactics. These pilot projects, however, are just that. To move the needle, these technologies need to be scaled—not to one brigade or another but across the services in entirety.

That leads to a fourth theme: a fundamental need for change in the budget and funding process. There is great demand for the flexibility to move funding from one system to another, multi-year budgeting rather than repeated, short-term continuing resolutions, and the capacity to actually cancel programs that are obsolete and less relevant to the mission at hand. A striking feature of the Army’s current push is a willingness to drop dated programs. Some of the service’s iconic legacy systems, such as the Humvee and AH-64D Apache attack helicopter, are on the chopping block. But the broader issue of flexibility in procurement for the services and reliable funding is not an issue that any one service or even the executive branch can solve on its own. It very much implicates Congress, its role in providing oversight, and the political dynamics around members’ support for products that are built and employ people in their districts.

A fifth major theme is the status of the U.S. defense industrial base, which has shrunk significantly since the end of the Cold War. The capacity shortfall is impacting all of the services, especially in the maritime domain. For example, the Coast Guard fields only one heavy icebreaker at the moment, the fifty-year-old Polar Star. Arctic security issues are getting increased attention (e.g., Trump’s expressed interest in Greenland, China declaring itself a “near-Arctic state”), requiring increased capacity. Today, China’s total shipbuilding capacity is 200 times larger than the shipbuilding capacity available to the U.S. military. President Biden highlighted this shipbuilding gap, and President Trump recently issued an executive order to address a raft of bureaucratic reforms and emergency funding to streamline shipbuilding procurement and design processes. The U.S. could also benefit from partnering and securing foreign investment from our allies, such as Japan and South Korea, who possess substantial latent shipbuilding capacity and world-class capabilities. Yet, these changes could take years to bear fruit given the structural constraints of the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base, including the lack of production infrastructure and skilled labor.

Finally, one thing all of the chiefs agreed on was the importance of doing everything possible to recruit, retain, promote, motivate and empower the very best men and women in the armed forces. They are ultimately our most important asset. That goes to everything, including their training, quality of life, and the pathways they see for advancement. There is some good news on this front. After years of chronic recruiting shortfalls, intake numbers across all of the core services have surged over the past several quarters—and Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill includes a one-time $8.5 billion funding increase for barracks maintenance, military health care, and other service member quality-of-life initiatives.

One question on my mind is the longer-term challenge that could emerge from the administration’s decision to fire senior military leaders earlier this year. Abrupt personnel firings—including of the only two female service chiefs and only the second African American to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—risk damaging the interest and morale of the next generation of men and women the United States needs for its 21st century military.

We welcome your feedback on this column. Let me know what foreign policy issues you’d like me to address next by replying to [email protected].