Army Digitization: Making it Ready for Prime Time

Today's emerging strategic environment and operational challenges demand that the Army develop a more responsive and mobile force while maintaining the lethality. The Army's commitment to creating a digitized force elicits some key questions about how the Army will make the transition from an analog force in the face of rapidly changing technology while maintaining the capability to meet key strategic and operational challenges. The current state of Army digitization is immature and not uniformly delivering the promised capability to justify the current changes in the force structure. Despite great expenditures and effort, the current state of the digital "system-of-systems" and employment concepts makes clear the price of transformation, "to accept risk in the near and mid-term, causing turbulence and unexpected change . . . [while] freeing up sufficient resources for the Army to invest in new technologies that will enhance its warfighting effectiveness in the future." The Army is accepting this risk, but there is uncertainty whether digitization is fully ready for prime time. This article investigates critical challenges in the Army's current digitization efforts, including force structure implications, and provides recommendations to ensure the increasingly digitized Army maintains its capability and readiness as it moves from an analog to a primarily digitally enabled force.