THE AIR CAVALRY BRIGADE MOVED AH-64 APACHES AND UH-60 BLACK HAWKS FROM GREECE TO POLAND IN SUPPORT OF NATO ALLIES AND PARTNERS ON FEB. 25, 2022. Army Sgt. Agustín Montañez, Army National Guard
State of Defense 2022
Our annual service-by-service look at where the U.S. military is, and where it's going.
How much will Russia’s war change the Pentagon’s immediate plans? When Defense One reporters began conducting interviews for this year’s State of Defense special report, Russia’s Vladimir Putin was still amassing forces outside of Ukraine. At the time, White House and Pentagon officials still had not released their expected new strategies for national security and the military, documents which are meant to guide decisions on the defense budget, weapons, personnel and where to position them around the world. U.S. military planners were laser-focused on the Pacific, rethinking the roles their service branches would play in a new threat matrix that for the first time since September 2001 did not include Afghanistan as an existential concern but more than ever included space and cyber threats.
One month later, the world has been rattled by Putin’s war in Europe.
So where does that leave the military services? We answer that, and more, in Defense One's annual State of Defense 2022.