The Army Modernization Strategy (AMS) describes how the Total Army – Regular Army, National Guard, Army Reserve, and Army Civilians – will transform into a multi-domain force by 2035, meet its enduring responsibility as part of the Joint Force to provide for the defense of the United States, and retain its position as the globally dominant land power.

The 2018 U.S. Army Modernization Strategy Report to Congress introduced the Army’s six materiel modernization priorities to make Soldiers and units more lethal to deploy, fight, and win our Nation’s wars. This 2019 AMS expands the Army’s approach beyond those six priorities, outlining a more holistic approach to modernization while maintaining continuity of priorities. Modernization is a continuous process requiring collaboration across the entire Army. Therefore, while this AMS outlines an end state for the future Army in 2035, Army modernization will remain ongoing as we must continue to test and refine operating concepts, draw on emerging technologies, and anticipate changes in the operating environment.

The Army’s six modernization priorities will drive materiel development for the MDO capable force. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts – it is the combination of these capabilities that will allow the Army to fight MDO.

  1. Long range precision fires enable multi-domain forces to penetrate and neutralize enemy A2/AD capabilities while ensuring military overmatch at every echelon.
  2. Next generation combat vehicles increase the firepower, speed, and survivability of land forces, allowing them to maneuver into superior positions on the battlefield and pair with robotic vehicles.
  3. Future vertical lift platforms and technologies increase the maneuverability, endurance, lethality, and survivability of Army aircraft – increasing their operational reach and effectiveness against near-peer competitors.
  4. The modernization of Army network technologies is necessary to command and control forces distributed across vast terrain, converge effects from multiple domains, and maintain a common situational understanding in MDO.
  5. Our competitors have invested heavily in their indirect fire and missile capabilities necessitating the modernization of our air and missile defense capabilities. New technologies will defend ground forces against adversary air threats, and will also defend ours and our allies and partners’ infrastructure against a host of air and missile threats.
  6. Finally, efforts modernizing Soldier lethality will increase the capability of individual Soldier weapons, provide Soldiers with enhanced night vision, and increase their ability to quickly understand and react to emerging situations – increasing their lethality, precision, and survivability. These efforts will be complementary to ongoing Soldier performance initiatives to improve fitness, nutrition, and resiliency, to ensure we are modernizing the Soldier, not just the equipment for our Soldiers.

The Army established Army Futures Command (AFC) to realign elements of the modernization enterprise and bring unity of effort to the future force development process. For example, Cross-Functional Teams (CFT), subordinate elements of AFC, align requirements developers with acquisition experts and representatyives from the testing, logistics, science and technology, and other communities, dramatically reducing the time span from identification of a capability gap to prototype testing and operational experimentation. The Army has also demonstrated its commitment to fully resourcing priority modernization