Benjamin Jensen
Next Army is a collaborative series by CSIS Futures Lab and the Modern War Institute launched in honor of the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday and the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI). The commentaries explore how emerging technologies, organizational reforms, and major shifts in the strategic environment will shape the force of 2040 and beyond.
In the future, the U.S. Army will dominate the air littorals through manned-unmanned teaming, algorithmic targeting, and distributed reconnaissance networks designed to win the fight for information and regain tempo in a contested battlespace.
The U.S. Army Transformation Initiative (ATI) should be anchored in a simple yet powerful idea: Whoever wins the fight for information wins the fight overall. Future combat won’t be about massing formations to penetrate defense lines—it will be about dislocating adversaries through sensor dominance, deception, and speed of decision. As the Army considers major cuts to air cavalry squadrons and legacy aviation elements, it must resist the urge to restructure without first reimagining how air-ground, manned-unmanned teams win the future fight for information. Along these lines, the Army should pair upgraded attack helicopters like AH-64s with enhanced capabilities like AESA radar, runway-independent armed drones like the Gray Eagle STOL, and AI-enabled systems like TITAN (Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node) to achieve decision advantage in the most contested part of the battlespace: the air littorals. To counter unmanned aerial systems (UAS), this modern day skirmisher force will need novel solutions, such as cannon-based air defenses, built for speed, flexibility, and fungibility.
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