The US Army at 250 is still the linchpin of the Joint Force

Paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division walk to a C-17 Globemaster III before an airborne operation at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, March 13, 2025. The 82nd Airborne Division regularly conducts airborne operations as part of their Immediate Response Force training. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Nicole Miller)

The US military is challenged today by a lethal array of threats unprecedented in its complexity.

Foremost among them is the emerging axis of aggressors: Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. While each has consistently demonstrated hostility toward the current world order through overt aggression and indirect and asymmetric activities, their increasingly opportunistic alignment is of pressing concern.

Deterring these threats must be America’s strategic goal, yet the military must be prepared to fight and win should deterrence fail. And while this volatile situation compels the US to make difficult strategic choices regarding how best to secure its national security interests and its allies in an era of limited resources, disproportionately cutting capability in one warfighting domain only increases risk.

The US Army is the largest component of the US military not by accident or inertia, but because time and again strategists and planners have come to the conclusion that without a strong Army, the rest of the military cannot achieve its goals. And that is particularly true in the Indo-Pacific, where uninformed critics have decided that because the Army does not predmoinatly lead on the water or the skies, it is no longer relevant.

Following that idea, some have suggested significant cuts in Army force structure, including Stryker and infantry brigade combat teams, aviation brigades and modernized ground vehicles. Such cuts would embolden potential enemies and put U.S. interests at high risk worldwide. While DoD and the Army must be good stewards of taxpayer money, it cannot come at the expense of American security.

Misunderstanding the Army’s contributions to the nation’s defense in the Indo-Pacific could lead to uninformed decisions as the joint force adapts to counter growing threats. Should the US and China ever fight, it will be global in nature, not simply about Taiwan, and it is unlikely that a conflict between the world’s two strongest powers would be quick and decisive.

Tactically, China’s anti-access area denial system is designed to keep US forces out. It was built to destroy ships and planes and to disrupt space and cyber capabilities. It was not designed to track distributed groups of mobile land forces inside its protective bubble.

Land forces — Army, Marines and special operations forces — are more survivable, allowing them to secure key terrain that strategically positions the joint force to bring its capabilities to bear, akin to land forces’ role in the Pacific in World War II.

But put aside the question of whether land forces will play a role in a China conflict. Remember, the US military fights and campaigns as a joint team, not separate services, to deliver effects at scale. Campaigning is the sustained conduct of operations, activities and investments that align military actions with other instruments of national power in pursuit of strategic objectives.

The Army is tasked with setting the theater with critical capabilities — medical, fuel, engineering, signal, logistics and more — for the joint force. It also has a critical role in seizing land to emplace sustainment, deliver Army or joint cross-domain fires and other missions. The joint force cannot campaign without the Army setting the theater.

The US Army in the Pacific also builds joint readiness by training west of the international date line to enhance ally and partner capacity and defend and contribute to regional security. This campaigning denies key terrain — human and geographic — to any potential adversary.

A key element of this effort is Operation Pathways, which has soldiers training across the theater and building interoperability with partners in exercises such as Talisman Sabre (Australia), Super Garuda Shield (Indonesia) and Balikatan (Philippines).

Each service contributes to campaigns, yet one service provides most of the connective tissue between them. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine Gen. Joe Dunford described the Army as “the linchpin” of the joint force. “The Army literally has been the force that has held together the joint force with critical command-and-control capabilities, critical logistics capabilities and other enablers,” he said.

Technologically, the Army has also worked in recent years to become more relevant for a Pacific fight. Due in part to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the service initiated a long-overdue modernization to prepare for potential conflict with a near-peer competitor. Thanks to consistent prioritization across several administrations, the Army has made significant progress in its key portfolios, particularly long-range precision fires and air and missile defense — systems with obvious utility in the Indo-Pacific.

Significantly, the Army’s annual capstone modernization experiment, Project Convergence, is being executed across the Indo-Pacific this year.

More than a year before the United States entered World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur warned that “the history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: Too late. Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy. Too late in realizing the mortal danger. Too late in preparedness. Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance.”

The time is now to reinvigorate deterrence to ensure it is credible. The U.S. military and allies and partners must be postured to win their toughest fight, not simply close gaps in an unbalanced force structure. Deterrence comes from demonstrated capability — and potential adversaries need to know it.

Congress and the secretary of defense must ensure that the joint force is empowered with a sufficiently robust Army — the linchpin — to deter or defeat any potential threats. Significant cuts to Army force structure would run counter to this imperative.

Retired Gen. Bob Brown is the president and CEO of the Association of the US Army.