The Value of U.S. Land Power

The emergence of drone warfare, AI-infused targeting cycles, and the “transparent battlefield” in Ukraine and Iran today have intensified debates over the role of U.S. ground forces within the nation’s joint force. In response, CSIS has launched a yearlong Future of Land Power study to explore the enduring importance of U.S. land forces, their contribution to deterrence and stability across key regions, and how they must adapt to remain effective in an era defined by great power rivalry, technological change, and all-domain warfare.

The project’s first working paper, “The Value of U.S. Land Power,” argues that land power, or “the ability—by threat, force, or occupation—to gain, sustain, and exploit control over land, resources, and people,” is essential for the United States to determine political outcomes and achieve strategic objectives. Through integrating historical, institutional, and policy perspectives, the report finds that the roles and responsibilities of land power are rooted in certain inherent characteristics that transcend changing technologies and threats:

1. Through its persistent, human presence, land power offers the ability to secure, hold, and control territory and the power to deter and decisively defeat foreign aggression.
2. Land forces, or the personnel and capabilities in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, are the binding agents of the joint force, enabling power projection far from U.S. shores by protecting ports, airfields, and command and control infrastructure; holding enemy air and naval assets at risk; and transporting U.S. personnel and supplies across terrain.
3. Land forces’ wide-ranging capabilities and modular force structures equip policymakers with a flexible and cost-effective range of military options across the spectrum of conflict.
4. U.S. land power is expeditionary and dependent upon allies and partners for access, basing, and overflight, enabling U.S. force projection to distant regions.
5. The use of land power has greater potential for casualties and therefore carries a higher political risk.

Since World War II, the introduction of new military technologies, domains, and doctrines has repeatedly called into question the utility of land power. The advent of nuclear weapons, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “massive retaliation” doctrine in the 1950s, and the display of precision airpower in the Persian Gulf War of 1991 fueled strategic thinking that relied less on ground forces in favor of technology-driven, seemingly less risky options in the air and sea domains. In recent years, advanced technologies such as AI, cyber, and unmanned autonomous systems; domestic political aversion to large-scale ground campaigns after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the perceived capabilities needed for the Asia-Pacific theater have led to questions about the function that land power can and should play within U.S. military strategy.

Yet current trends in modern warfare and recent conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have reinforced the central role that land forces play in achieving battlefield outcomes. In Europe, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has showcased the growing importance of standoff, long-range strikes to devastate an adversary’s supply depots, rear units, and energy infrastructure. Relative power in conflict still depends on the physical control of territory, and drone and missile strikes have proven indecisive as Russia and Ukraine continue campaigns of attritional, positional warfare along static frontlines on land. The incorporation of autonomous systems within Ukraine’s military, moreover, has arguably increased both the number of ground soldiers and the range of skills required within the force. While AI can “optimize the kill chain,” it has yet to supplant basic human intuition and situational awareness.

In Operation Epic Fury, the United States has struck more than 13,000 Iranian military and industrial targets, but it has not brought a conclusive end to the conflict. Iranian attacks against U.S. bases and Gulf partner infrastructure across the region have also demonstrated the centrality of air and missile defense to modern warfare, capabilities that land power provides. As U.S. strategists plan for contingencies in the Asia-Pacific, where supply lines are stretched across vast distances and separated by large bodies of water, the U.S. Army’s leading logistics function and the U.S. Marine Corps’ littoral combat power make U.S. ground forces essential to the fight.

In short, this working paper showed that U.S. land power retains immense value as part of the joint force. The Future of Land Power study team will next explore how land power institutions—including acquisition, personnel, and force structure—can be built and transformed to advance U.S. interests in a changing global security environment. Together, these working papers provide the foundation upon which the study’s final report will make recommendations for how U.S. land forces can continue to deter adversaries, enable the joint force, and decisively deliver strategic results for the nation when called upon. While the character of war is evolving, the nature of war fundamentally remains the pursuit of political aims through force. So long as governments exercise political authority over physical territory, land power will be a decisive domain to protect the United States and defend its interests abroad.

Jerry McGinn is director of the Center for the Industrial Base and senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. A.J. Dilts is a research assistant in the Center for the Industrial Base at CSIS.