Looking to the 2030-2040 time frame, the U.S. Army will play an important role in helping U.S. policy and military strategy strike a balance between cooperating with China and deterring potential Chinese expansionism.

This RAND report examines the U.S. Army role in Southeast Asia. Under current benign conditions, efforts should focus on supporting defense reform, addressing transnational threats, and balancing China. If the outlook deteriorates, the United States should increase security cooperation, conclude new regional basing agreements, expand disaster assistance, and create policies to encourage risk-averse Chinese behavior.

Looking to the 2030–2040 time frame, U.S. policy and military strategy will need to strike a balance among maintaining a cooperative relationship with China, deterring Chinese aggression in regional disputes, and preparing for the possibility that China could become more assertive. The U.S. Army will have an important role to play in preparing for these developments and for protecting and furthering U.S. interests in the region.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

To explore what extended competition between the United States and China might entail out to 2050, the authors of this report identified and characterized China’s grand strategy, analyzed its component national strategies (diplomacy, economics, science and technology, and military affairs), and assessed how successful China might be at implementing these over the next three decades.

War and landpower's role in the twenty-first century is not just about military organizations, tactics, operations, and technology; it is also about strategy, policy, and social and political contexts. After fourteen years of war in the Middle East with dubious results, a diminished national reputation, and a continuing drawdown of troops with perhaps a future force increase proposed by the Trump administration, the role of landpower in US grand strategy will continue to evolve with changing geopolitical situations. Landpower in the Long War: Projecting Force After 9/11, edited by Jason W. Warren, is the first holistic academic analysis of American strategic landpower. Divided into thematic sections, this study presents a comprehensive approach to a critical aspect of US foreign policy as the threat or ability to use force underpins diplomacy. The text begins with more traditional issues, such as strategy and civilian-military relations, and works its way to more contemporary topics, such as how socio-cultural considerations effect the landpower force. It also includes a synopsis of the suppressed Iraq report from one of the now retired leaders of that effort. The contributors—made up of an interdisciplinary team of political scientists, historians, and military practitioners—demonstrate that the conceptualization of landpower must move beyond the limited operational definition offered by Army doctrine in order to encompass social changes, trauma, the rule of law, acquisition of needed equipment, civil-military relationships, and bureaucratic decision-making, and argue that landpower should be a useful concept for warfighters and government agencies.