The purpose of TRADOC Pamphlet (TP) 525-3-0 Opens a new tab or window, The Army Capstone Concept (ACC), is to describe the anticipated future operational environment, what the future Army must do based on that environment, and the broad capabilities the Army will require to accomplish its enduring missions successfully in the near to mid-term future. As such, the ACC describes the characteristics of the future Army and its initiative to transition the Army from one focused on winning two wars, to an expeditionary Army that does many things well. The ACC establishes the foundation for subordinate concepts that will describe how the future Army must fight and identify the required warfighting capabilities essential to ensuring combat effectiveness against the full spectrum of threats the Nation is likely to confront in the future. The ACC is fully nested in the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations: Joint Force 2020 (CCJO).
How does the Army view the future operational environment?
Given the future operational environment, what must the Army do as part of the joint force to win the Nation's wars and execute successfully the primary missions outlined in defense strategic guidance?
What capabilities must the Army possess to accomplish these missions?
The future Army will continue to operate in a complex and uncertain environment. Competition for wealth, resources, political authority, sovereignty, and legitimacy will produce a variety of conflicts between rapidly evolving and adaptive threats in an increasingly competitive but interconnected world. Furthermore, the distinctions between threats will blur in the future due to the complexity of adversaries, the multiplicity of actors involved, and the ability of threats to adapt rapidly. Summarized below are some of the major challenges the future operational environment will present:
Rebalancing the focus on the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions
A wide variety of threats (state and non-state actors, paramilitary forces, proxies, insurgents, criminal organizations, terrorists, and technologically-empowered individuals)
Hybrid strategies and tactics
Anti-access and area denial strategies
Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
Economic challenges impacting the U.S., allies, and partners
What must the Army do as part of the joint force to retain its ability to win, protect U.S. national interests, and successfully execute the primary missions outlined in defense strategic guidance in an emerging, complex operational environment in an era of fiscal austerity?
The future Army provides decisive landpower through a credible, robust capacity to win and the depth and resilience to support combatant commanders across the range of military operations in the homeland and abroad. The fundamental characteristic of the Army necessary to provide decisive landpower is operational adaptability -- the ability of Army leaders, Soldiers, and civilians to shape conditions and respond effectively to a broad range of missions and changing threats and situations with appropriate, flexible, and responsive capabilities.
The Army will remain America's principal land force, organized, trained, and equipped for prompt and sustained combat operations to defeat enemy land forces and to seize, hold, and defend land areas. Army forces provide decisive landpower -- by threat, force, or occupation -- through gaining, sustaining, and exploiting control over land, resources, and people. Components of the solution are:
Prevent conflict. The Army prevents conflict by providing a credible land force that can fight and win to deter adversaries and avert miscalculations; a force that is prepared and modernized with the capability and capacity to execute the full range of military operations.
Shape the operational environment. The Army shapes the operational environment by providing a sustained and stabilizing presence to gain access and understand the situation. Additionally, Army forces build partners and capacity to develop mutual trust and set conditions for future operations. Army forces also support combatant command security cooperation activities by conducting a wide variety of steady-state activities in support of the joint force.
Win the Nation's wars. The Army wins the Nation's wars as part of the joint force and contributes to the defense of the homeland by providing a credible, robust capacity that is responsive to combatant commanders and has the depth and resilience needed to deliver decisions in any operation.
These supporting ideas are rules of action that apply to all future joint land operations.
Operate decisively in the land domain while fully accounting for the human aspects of conflict and war
Align forces regionally to deliver conventional and special operations forces capabilities in support of combatant command requirements
Enhance advisory capabilities to support combatant commander theater campaign plans and to build the capacity of partners to secure populations, protect infrastructure, and strengthen institution
Project military power despite anti-access and area denial challenges
Conduct cyberspace operations
Conduct space operations
Achieve war termination objectives that achieve the President and Secretary of Defense national strategic objectives and provide outcomes that will endure
Adapt force generation and maintain an operational reserve
Preserve and enhance the all-volunteer force