US Army's New Warfighting Guide Sets Four Pillars as Guard Generals Warn Readiness Is Stretched Threefold

The U.S. Army has released a new 'How the Army Fights' guide that describes four pillars — disrupt, strike, assault and endure — as it charts a route from counterinsurgency back to large-scale maneuver warfare. At the same time, senior National Guard leaders said at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting that the combined weight of state and federal demands now exceeds what their forces can actually bear. Changes to retiree benefits and arrangements to protect overseas military voting are also moving forward, marking simultaneous adjustments across warfighting concepts, readiness resources and personnel support.

Farewell to Counterinsurgency: A 46-Page Guide Resets the Army Operational Concept

The U.S. Army has issued a 46-page guide titled 'How the Army Fights' (HTAF), signed by Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve. The guide explicitly breaks with the small-unit counterinsurgency warfare that shaped the service’s organization, equipment and structure for nearly two decades, noting that those years 'created a generation of units that rarely had to maneuver under a contested sky, mask their electromagnetic signatures, or sustain high-tempo operations without contractor support.' The Army’s current operational concept is Multidomain Operations (MDO), characterized by large-formation maneuver warfare waged by divisions and brigades rather than platoons and squads. The guide also acknowledges that drones and long-range guided munitions have so dominated the battlefield in Ukraine that maneuver has become the exception rather than the norm — a stalemate neither the Army nor the American public wants. ^[1][5]

The Four Pillars: Disrupt, Strike, Assault and Endure

HTAF sums up the Army’s ground warfighting capability in four pillars: disrupt, strike, assault and endure. In the 'disrupt' phase, U.S. forces work to break apart enemy command, communications and sensor systems. The guide’s example: a commander conducts a kinetic strike on an enemy command post while electronic warfare forces jam its backup communications; long-range artillery hits enemy radar that exposes itself while illuminating friendly aircraft; and friendly space and cyber capabilities degrade the broader integrated air defense network. The goal in this phase is to stun and blind the adversary. ^[1][5]

'Strike' is framed as a shaping tool for deep operations, using medium- and long-range precision fires and unmanned systems to disrupt, weaken and dislocate enemy forces and their logistics before they can affect the close fight. Available means include artillery, rockets, missiles, one-way attack drones and loitering munitions. If the first two phases succeed, close combat follows. The guide acknowledges that on a modern battlefield where drones 'seem to see everything,' completing an assault to destruction with advancing troops is harder than ever, but stresses that 'only ground maneuver can seize what the enemy controls and make it subject to our will rather than the enemy’s.' The fourth pillar, 'endure,' requires forces to keep operating while absorbing enemy counterblows — a capability that was less tested during the counterinsurgency era. ^[1][5]

National Guard: Demand Overload and a Readiness Crash

During a Tuesday panel at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting, Maj. Gen. Robert Carruthers, assistant adjutant general of the Florida National Guard, disclosed that about 3,000 of the state’s Guard members — nearly 30% of the force — are currently deployed overseas. Another 800 are on federal orders supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and 'quite a few' are deployed to Washington, D.C., to support local law enforcement. Together, those demands exceed the state Guard’s true capacity by more than three times, and that is after the recent activation of the Florida State Guard, a volunteer civilian military force, to share state missions such as hurricane response. ^[2][3]

The strain is already visible in equipment. The Florida Guard ordered a 'maintenance stand-down' to assess infantry brigade combat team gear that had been sitting in motor pools for long periods, and within six weeks equipment readiness fell from 90% to 27%. Carruthers described that level as 'five notches below combat ineffective' and said that because funding has not followed deployed units and their equipment, there will be a 'cascading effect of breaking units downstream,' forcing choices between transportation companies and aviation elements that are critically important in hurricane relief. He put it bluntly: 'The governor’s become quite addicted to the Guard.' ^[2][3]

On how to prioritize demand, Maj. Gen. Jack James, commander of the New York Army National Guard’s 42nd Infantry Division, proposed creating a 'middleman' and 'traffic cop' function to filter and rank activation and use requests. He said there is 'inherent friction' between governors and combatant commands such as Central Command and Pacific Command, along with their Army service components, and that an arbiter is needed to decide resource allocation quickly and in a timely manner. Carruthers also acknowledged that managing expectations and demand against actual capacity will bring 'political pressure' and downstream consequences. ^[2][3]

2027 Retiree Benefits Rise 3.6% With Social Security COLA

According to the Social Security Administration’s announcement, Social Security beneficiaries, military retirees and people receiving veterans benefits will see a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in 2027. The increase takes effect in January, is 0.8 percentage points higher than the 2.8% COLA in 2026, and is the largest in four years. Official estimates put the average monthly Social Security benefit increase at about $75. For a military retiree receiving $2,500 a month in retired pay, the increase would be about $90 a month; for a veteran receiving $1,500 a month in benefits, the 2027 increase would be about $54. In 2024, Congress passed legislation tying increases in veterans’ benefits to the rate of Social Security increases, covering disability compensation, clothing allowances, dependency and indemnity benefits, and some other Department of Veterans Affairs assistance programs. COLA is calculated based on the Consumer Price Index and is designed to keep benefits apace with inflation; the 2026 COLA was 2.8%, and the 2025 COLA was 2.5%. Those with personal 'my Social Security' accounts can view their notice online starting in late November, weeks before paper notices arrive by mail. ^[4]

Overseas Military Absentee Voting: Federal Tools and State Deadlines

For service members, military family members and overseas U.S. citizens who plan to vote absentee in the Nov. 3 election, the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) website and the U.S. Vote Foundation website collect state requirements and deadlines for voter registration, ballot requests and ballot return. FVAP is the Defense Department program responsible for implementing the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. It recommends using the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), which can handle both registration and ballot request at once, and some states allow submission by email or fax. Those who have requested a ballot from state election officials but have not received it can fill out and send the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB), which states must accept when requirements are met. ^[6]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed all Defense Department commanders and supervisors to schedule a one-day stand-down no later than Oct. 15 to give service members who choose absentee voting time to learn about, complete and submit the FPCA. The military and the U.S. Postal Service are again providing free Priority Mail Express service this year for military ballots sent from overseas APO and FPO addresses to U.S. election offices. Military postal personnel will affix USPS EMS Label 11-DOD to ballots and give voters a receipt with a tracking number. State deadlines vary: California requires mailed registration applications to be postmarked by Oct. 19, and online or faxed registration to be received by Oct. 19; Maine requires registration and ballot requests to arrive by noon on Nov. 2; Michigan has no registration deadline, and ballot requests must be received by 2 p.m. on Oct. 31. ^[6]

Common Threads and What to Watch

These developments point to the same backdrop: while maintaining global deployments, the U.S. military is recalibrating the pace at which it uses forces and the support it can provide. On the concept side, HTAF breaks Multidomain Operations into four executable pillars; the next question is how it will translate into tactical unit organization, training and equipment procurement. On resources, the deployment ratio and equipment readiness gaps exposed by the National Guard make a cross-state and federal resource arbitration mechanism a possible direction. On personnel, the 3.6% COLA and overseas voting protections affect how service members and retirees experience their benefits in practice. The intersection of these three lines is how long the balance between growing demand and carrying capacity can hold. ^[1][2][4][6]