 The period of U.S. military overmatch that followed the end of the Cold War has faded. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy indicates, strategic competition between nation states now surpasses violent extremism as the central challenge to American prosperity and security. It now prioritizes China and Russia as the respective primary long-term and near-term threats for the U.S. military. Russia is threatened by NATO's presence on their border, a border that is hundreds of miles east of where it was in 1989 and are determined to weaken NATO. We see China engaging in a number of practices that do not support our shared vision of an Indo-Pacific region. This includes deploying advanced weapons systems to disputed areas using economic and trade relationships coercively and sponsoring the theft of technology. While the U.S. has spent more than 18 years focused on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, adversaries have developed sophisticated area denial systems, cyber, electronic warfare and space-based capabilities to generate layers of standoff. This can disrupt the deployment of military forces, denying the buildup of combat power and so fissures within the joint and allied force in time, space and purpose. What becomes of America's role if this standoff strategy isn't confronted? As we look ahead, we must ensure that we have in place the right concepts, capabilities and organizations to deter Russia, China and any other rising powers. Army Futures Command was established to address this challenge by modernizing the army and we all have a role to play. The multi-domain operations concept is the foundation of our modernization effort. The concept details how the army, as part of the joint force, converges capabilities across multiple domains, land, air, maritime space and cyberspace in order to defeat an adversary's efforts to create standoff. Army forces, as an element of the joint force, conduct multi-domain operations to prevail in competition below the level of armed conflict and, if necessary, win in armed conflict. Specifically during conflict, army forces penetrate and disintegrate enemy anti-access and area denial systems, creating freedom of maneuver. They then exploit that freedom of maneuver to achieve strategic objectives and force the adversary to return to competition on favorable terms for us and our allies. This concept's effectiveness will help deter conflict, which is the ultimate goal. Army Futures Command was designed to see this concept come to fruition. The army established Army Futures Command to provide unity of effort and to make sure that the army becomes a continually modernizing institution. The key is a unified and integrated approach to developing and then delivering operational concepts, future force designs and material solutions in that order. The command is posturing the army for the future by setting strategic direction, integrating the future force modernization enterprise, aligning resources to army priorities and maintaining accountability. One powerful modernization tool that Army Futures Command has are its eight cross-functional teams. The teams align with the army's modernization priorities and bring together the relevant expertise from the earliest stages of the process. The army must undertake persistent modernization, evolving at a pace of new technologies and ways of thinking. The army will make sure that American soldiers are ready to defend the nation with greater speed, safety and effectiveness. This new approach allows us to capitalize on cutting-edge technologies to develop the best equipment for our force. These priorities and the army's focus remain constant. One of the essential aspects of our efforts is how we have soldier touchpoints incorporated throughout the modernization process. These soldiers are the warfighters who will maintain, operate and fight with this equipment. With those touchpoints, our soldiers now have the opportunity to provide input to industry, testers, researchers and acquisition experts on the capabilities they will only to fight and win. Our goal is to move at the speed of relevance and if we fail, fail early and learn faster. This requires innovation and partnerships from our entire nation. Our nation's academic institutions are already coming on board with new partnerships and investments in infrastructure that enable hard research. Our small businesses are playing a bigger part than ever before, bringing new ideas that are making a difference. Our defense industry has been our long-term companion that saw us through many iterations of changes like this and will continue to do so throughout this period of transformation. Our soldiers and their leaders form the final and critical part of these partnerships because they provide us the feedback that ensures the concepts, capabilities and organizations we develop are the right ones to allow them to succeed on a future battlefield. History has proven there are moments of tremendous change and transformation that require both recognition and the courage to make difficult decisions. This is one of those times. Your nation's army has recognized the growing threat and responded with a strategy to not only counter it, but to build what is required and deliver it to our soldiers when it is needed. The margin for error is small and the responsibility rests on all of our shoulders. What do you want the future to look like? At Army Futures Command we believe that America's future is worth defending beginning today.