In a recent meeting I had with a senior military leader, the discussion turned to an assessment of where the Armed Forces are today. His view was that while we are ending a long period of combat that has engaged all the Services to varying degrees, we are not likely to return to any kind of peacetime period as in the past. We are more likely to see a far smaller force that is surging while in Phase Zero, or preconflict operations. Many see the Services, running on a wartime footing for longer than any period in U.S. history, as worn out both materially and psychologically to varying degrees—with the Army being in the poorest shape. Yet the remaining force remains highly active in terms of operations to maintain the Nation’s defense. Now with continuing budgetary pressures and declining resources from Congress, the Services are making hard choices about what they must do to preserve and evolve the military instrument of power.

General Mark A. Welsh III is Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. As Chief, he serves as the senior uniformed Air Force officer responsible for the organization, training, and equipping of 690,000 Active-duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilian forces serving in the United States and overseas. As members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Welsh and the other Service chiefs function as military advisors to the Secretary of Defense, National Security Council, and the President.

The Chairman has emphasized that our forces must be versatile, responsive, and decisive and at the same time affordable. Five proposed contexts of future conflict will help achieve both what is desired and what can be paid for, a planning process that must occur since the force will inevitably change.

U.S. deterrence is neutered by not clearly defining national security threats and aligning resources accordingly, as in favoring offensive Air-Sea Battle against China against defensive A2/AD capabilities with partners, or preparing sufficiently against regional players such as North Korea and Syria. Plans must accord with actual defense policies and dangers.

Washington must not yield to fiscal pressures that erode its legitimacy as a global leader. Its forces must remain capable across the spectrum from the smallest to the largest security challenges and control procurement accordingly, using existing resources and allies in a flexible approach the Army will continue to pursue.

Centralized control and decentralized execution has been a fundamental principle of Air Force power projection. It will remain seminal as the Service combines a single commander who weighs strategy and tactics for optimal force employment with Airmen empowered to use imagination and initiative.

Global effectiveness requires the joint force to partner, which in turn requires it to adopt a Mission Partner Environment (MPE) in place of exclusionary SIPRNET security measures. MPE will aid in attaining the Chairman's goal of seamless allied, coalition, interagency, volunteer, private sector, and intergovernmental initiatives based on solid commonalities.

Adopting the Army Chief of Staff's vision of officers intellectually capable of solving the most cryptic problems at the strategic level, and reflecting the belief that enhanced human capital is the answer to slashed budgets, the U.S. Army War College is undergoing a renaissance in faculty, curriculum, students, and integration.

Broadening the security dialogue depends on pulling in disparate views including those of women and minorities, yet the culture is sameness at military schools. Resistance to diversity can be eliminated by oversight bodies, determined leadership, penalties for missing targets, and assurance that female and minority faculty will not be marginalized.

Junior officers have been increasingly responsible for joint duties without the joint professional military education that has helped commanders and joint planners through over a decade of combat. Low impact solutions will help bridge this educational gap so an understanding of joint force employment will exist at the tactical level.

DOD aids such as amalgamating strategic guidance, Secretarial reviews of campaign and contingency plans, and steady-state activities within theaters will help seal enduring gaps and help planners watch for unintended damage to our security cooperation partners as well as engendering further dialogue in DOD, the combatant commands, and the embassies.

Strategic planning is both short on manuals and complex. It draws on an array of participants and stakeholders, who must know their views and needs are considered if their approval and expertise are to be present throughout planning. Free communication will indicate transparency and a desire for completeness and excellence.

Various assessment and self-help programs can help departing Servicemembers prepare Individual Transition Plans, yet though lifelong education is vital it is also volitional. Leaders must encourage troops to think ahead and work toward degrees before retirement so their military experience combined with additional education will produce a satisfying career path.

The military is just different enough from society at large that it should use its public trust, relative isolation, massive resources, autonomy, centralized control, and ability to act quickly to resolve the issue of sexual assault in its own ranks and help solve the problem for the rest of society.

Targeted killing has detractors, yet it has assisted the Nation in combatting terrorism with minimal U.S. casualties and collateral damage. It thus need not be cast off, but it must continue to be used legally and wisely, and strategists must assess all possible ramifications to retain domestic and international support.

Used militarily, cyberspace superiority should ensure the capability to conduct cyber interdiction, thus assisting in kinetic operations, especially air. It could also defeat enemy cyber attacks and neutralize enemy surveillance and finally suppress enemy cyber defense measures and data fusion centers, forcing adversary miscalculation and obtaining a decisionmaking advantage.

The weaponization of space can be partially controlled by a trustworthy and empowered standing committee, perhaps under the United Nations, aided by the economic deterrence and enforcement capacity found in the World Trade Organization. With these bodies in place, compliance with international norms is not exclusively a matter of diplomacy.

An independent academic center, bolstered by a NATO- or academically developed cultural property protection center, would help preserve cultural icons in war zones. The military should see the goodwill generated as a force multiplier and consider the risk to host and occupied nations' cultural heritage in planning its actions.

U.S. efforts to engage in a dangerous world can be assisted by an affordable forward medical diplomacy policy that includes health attachés in critical overseas missions and dovetails with other soft power capabilities such as education, commerce, and culture, with an eye on broader peace and stability and enhanced relationships.

Like most junior officers, I prefer my professional military education (PME) action packed and relevant to my immediate Military Occupational Specialty. With that predilection, I assumed that War Front to Store Front would be a slog. I thought I should be spending my time reading stories of lieutenants leading understrength platoons on hills surrounded by ruthless enemies, lone aviators on important missions, or the memoirs of a salty and sage veteran of Vietnam or Okinawa.

Consider succinctly articulates the need for senior leaders to create “think time” and to reflect in their personal schedules and organizational processes. Forrester firmly believes that “embracing think time and reflection as habits and organizational capabilities will determine success or rapid failure in the twenty-first century.” He supports this perspective through interviews with 55 successful people with varied experiences and identifies these individuals in the acknowledgments section. They include business and military leaders, musicians and designers, academics and economists, and advisors and diplomats.

Leadership in the New Normal is a short course in leadership in which the author traces good to great leadership attributes in such forefathers as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and by doing so he really describes the nature of leadership itself. Lieutenant General Honoré, USA (Ret.), postulates that we won our freedom because of leadership during the critical times in our history, such as Valley Forge and the Civil War, and leadership will continue to help us as we transition to the next “new normal” period.

The United States faces a stark decision on how to prosecute and conduct future warfare. Accordingly, every national policymaker and decisionmaker should read Killing Without Heart to be better informed on the morality of unmanned and autonomous weapons systems. With advancements in technology, the Nation has the capability to continue down the path toward a military of unmanned and autonomous robots on the battlefield. Continuing on this path will isolate the men and women in uniform from the dangers of the modern battlefield, calling into question the morality of how we fight and whether we can achieve national endstates without sending actual people into combat.

A growing array of ground, surface, and air platforms with Tactical Data Link (TDL) capabilities account for ever-greater demand for TDL interoperability training for joint, allied, and coalition forces. The TDLs forming the Multi-TDL Network (MTN) have improved situational awareness concurrently with reducing targeting and decisionmaking timelines for maritime and aviation component commanders and aircrews and, more recently, tactical air control players. Examining the concepts and technologies and their applications leading to today's TDL and MTN capabilities will help planners and practitioners get a handle on interoperability issues and training needs, invaluable as technological advances enhance weapons range and mobility, decrease the time to detect and decide, and lead toward real-time command and control from beyond the line of sight.