The Army's acting chief of staff says power projection will be contested in a war with a near-peer adversary, and the service is rewriting how it deploys, communicates and sustains forces when bases at home come under attack.
America's military spent a generation fighting the enemy overseas before any fight could reach home. The Army's senior uniformed officer now says that assumption may not survive the next war.
Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army's acting chief of staff, warned Wednesday that a conflict with a near-peer adversary would put American power projection itself under attack, including the bases, rail lines and communications networks that push forces into the fight.
"If we're going against a pacing threat, power projection will be contested," LaNeve said during the Association of the United States Army's annual conference in Washington.
LaNeve said the Army is shedding habits it picked up over two decades of counterinsurgency, when secure rear bases and open supply lines could largely be taken for granted.
"During the Global War on Terror, we took a lot of things for granted, because we could," he said, describing a shift in how the service approaches the opening phase of a major conflict.
The Army's planning now assumes an adversary would try to blind and stall U.S. forces before they ever deploy, striking the logistics and command networks that make rapid reinforcement possible.
That means hardening the ports, airfields and rail nodes that would carry troops and equipment to a contested theater, the same links that keep stateside bases supplied in a crisis.
The Pentagon's latest report on China's military capabilities warns that Beijing has positioned cyber capabilities inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks, ready to disrupt American mobilization during a conflict.
In a war with China, attacks on bases, transportation networks and communications could delay U.S. forces from reaching the battlefield long enough to change the outcome of an opening campaign.
The concern is not theoretical. American installations have already logged drone incursions, including episodes over Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia and Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, though those incidents have not been publicly attributed to China. U.S. forces have been busier closer to home as well, with the military downing roughly 100 suspected cartel drones at the southern border in a single month.
The FBI has separately cautioned that battlefield-style drone attacks could eventually reach the United States, a warning that has sharpened the debate over how fast the military and domestic agencies can field counter-drone defenses.
The warning came alongside the rollout of "How the Army Fights," a new operational framework that places heavier emphasis on deploying, communicating and sustaining forces even when bases, supply lines and networks are under attack.
"It was important to get this document out to provide a direction for our Army, a stake in the ground in where we're moving," LaNeve said.
The framework is meant to give commanders clearer priorities for training and for absorbing new technology, particularly counter-drone and air-defense systems that have proven decisive on battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Army leaders cast the document less as a rewrite of strategy than as an admission that two decades of training built a force for a fight that may not resemble the next one.
The changes are being driven by an Army leadership team serving in acting roles after the departures of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George. LaNeve remains the Senate-confirmed vice chief of staff.
LaNeve's message lands as the Pentagon shifts new emphasis onto homeland defense and the protection of military installations, a reversal from the post-Cold War instinct to treat the continental United States as a sanctuary.
Expect the Army to press Congress for money aimed at base air defense, harder-to-jam communications and the ability to move forces under fire, priorities that compete with the service's other modernization programs.
The bigger question is whether Washington will treat the threat as urgent. Drone swarms, cyber intrusions and long-range strike weapons have erased the geographic cushion that once separated America from its adversaries.
For a service built to project power abroad, the shift is a cultural change as much as a budget line. If the next war arrives at the gates of an American base, the Army wants its formations ready to fight from the first hour rather than the first deployment.
The Army's acting chief of staff says power projection will be contested in a war with a near-peer adversary, and the service is rewriting how it deploys, communicates and sustains forces when bases at home come under attack.
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