Striking the Balance: US Army Force Posture in Europe, 2028 by J.P. Clark

This study takes on one of the most difficult strategic decisions the Army faces how to plan for an uncertain and volatile future. In the context of Army force posture in Europe, these decisions are complicated by limited resources and by an evolving adversary that can employ asymmetric means to neutralize the impact of investments the Army makes today. In an effort to ensure Army capabilities endure over the long term and prevail in the event of conflict, the Army is implementing multidomain operations (MDO), which describes how the Army can compete with or, if necessary, defeat, an adversary across all domains, as part of the Joint Force. Conceived this way, MDO is more than simply Joint operations. MDO describes how the Army will fight alongside the other services in the air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains. To this end, the study avoids specifying a particular force posture. Much work has already been done regarding the best course of action for defeating an adversary under worst-case conditions. This study does not seek to recreate that analysis but to draw on it to examine the kinds of strategic decisions that need to be made to account for the various trade-offs any particular force posture would entail. Moreover, this study tries to avoid the bottom-up approach described in other studies. For example, rather than reviewing whether the Army should consider the Polish offer to station US forces, the study seeks to determine top-down frameworks that would illustrate the various tradeoffs making such a decision would entail. In this way, the study’s authors seek to provide a map to navigate these decisions to provide an effective deterrent and, failing that, a response to potential Russian aggression, while preserving global flexibility to respond to what might be greater threats to the security of the United States, its Allies, and its partners in other regions.