The Army is poised to release a new global strategy that will refocus military forces to reflect the changing nature of conflict in the 21st century.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Army plans to reallocate resources, shifting away from the traditional model of preparation for large-scale threats and toward a model that will prepare it to counter, and also prevent, numerous emerging regional conflicts.
"In the past the Army has been focused on: 'Will we be able to win?'" Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told the Journal. "But because of the changing complexity of the environment, we have to understand we will have to do something more."
The strategy will allow the military to simultaneously deal with threats such as the Islamic State (ISIS), instability in North Korea, and Russian territorial expansion, the Journal said.
"It is a recognition that the Army's role is not to sit behind the glass and be ready to go to war in case of emergency, but to perform a proactive function of preventing wars from breaking out in the first place," David Barno, a retired lieutenant general and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told the Journal.
The military has been forced to cope with significant cutbacks, and the new policy will reflect different avenues of investment. Specifically, there will be fewer investments in new heavy weaponry and more on equipment for smaller units, such as transport helicopters that can move more quickly, the Journal reported.
The strategy, titled the Army Operating Concept, will be formally released this week. In it, Russia and China are named as "competing powers,"
the former of which was noted to have significant territorial ambitions that the military will seek to deter using land power.
"Without a viable land force capable of opposing the Russian army and its irregular proxy, such adventurism is likely to continue undeterred," the document says, according to the Journal.
Odierno said that the strategy in some ways reflects what the Army is already doing both militarily, such as in the Middle East, and in humanitarian missions, in Africa, for example.
"Some people say we win battles and lose wars," Odierno said. "We are good at responding to crises. But we have to respond and have sustainable outcomes."
The Army will also shift its focus away from a reliance on technology which has become a strategic vulnerability at times when enemies have learned how to evade it while larger adversaries have been able to replicate it or steal it, the Journal reported.
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