TP525-3-1

TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1
Joint Staff, and combatant commands to identify capability gaps and prioritize efforts to close
those gaps. The Army must also prioritize efforts to improve the expeditionary quality of the
force through reduced logistics demand and the overall weight and size of the force. Investments
in joint vertical lift capabilities with sufficient range, speed, and payload have the potential to
allow the Army to conduct mounted vertical maneuver. Low cost opportunities to mitigate risk,
such as joint logistics over-the-shore, seabasing, prepositioned equipment and supplies, and other
capabilities offer potential solution approaches to ensure the Army remains globally responsive.
(3) Industrial base. The U.S. military relies heavily on private industry to develop, build,
and maintain its equipment, weapons systems, and platforms. 63 Decreased demand for military
equipment as force structure is reduced and equipment ages leads to a decline in skills and
tooling within the industrial base. This loss of skill and tooling could lead to increased cost for
advanced capabilities and a decrease in Army buying power in constrained capability portfolios.
Because industry anticipates a continued reduction in DOD and Army funding for research,
development, testing, and evaluation of potential materiel solutions, traditional industrial
partners may shift internal research budgets into other sectors. To mitigate these issues, the
Army must work with joint, interorganizational, and multinational partners to provide incentives
to industry to maintain production capabilities. Potential methods to maintain the industrial base
include ongoing analysis to identify key and fragile industrial base capabilities; sustaining low
rate production or making some direct and targeted investment where necessary; encouraging
foreign military sales; and ensuring a consistent and credible research, development, testing, and
evaluation strategy. In addition, the Army will continue to collaborate with industry and
academia to promote science, technology, engineering, and math education as well as identify
commercial technologies with military applications.
b. Technological or strategic surprise.
(1) Disruptive technologies. Enemy organizations may attack systems critical for joint and
Army operations. The most damaging attacks would disrupt the force’s ability to integrate joint
combined arms capabilities. To mitigate this risk, the Army develops resilient and hardened
systems that degrade gracefully under attack rather than fail catastrophically. The Army and
Joint Force develop redundant means for communication and coordination and conduct realistic
joint training under degraded communications conditions. Joint and Army forces anticipate
countermeasures and pursue a mix of technological and non-technological solutions to build
sufficient redundancy and adequate reliability of systems and nodes.
(2) Strategic surprise. Strategic surprise is an “unpredicted development that has a
decisive, transformative, and sometimes revolutionary outcome. The nature of strategic surprise
is such that it confounds and negates strategy and purpose, not just objectives, but ultimately
policy, thereby making irrelevant and futile any follow-on effort.” 64 To mitigate strategic
surprise, the Army must continue to emphasize adaptability in leaders, units, and institutions that
can learn and innovate while fighting. Innovative and adaptive leaders, educated and trained in
the Profession of Arms, employ regionally aligned forces to gain and maintain situational
understanding and increase their awareness of the changing character of warfare. The Army also
mitigates risk through intelligence collection and collaboration, forward positioning of forces in
areas vital to U.S. security interests, and prepositioning of equipment and supplies on land and
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