The U.S. military outlined its plans to prepare for a prolonged fight in the Pacific along the First Island Chain in new warfighting guidelines released this month.
For decades, the land branch has guided troops against insurgent threats and high-intensity combat operations from the Middle East, Europe and the Korean Peninsula. In recent years, tensions in the Western Pacific with China have pushed the military to formulate plans for a new type of area of operations, encompassing large swathes of archipelagos and maritime environments.
A key fact listed in the “How the Army Fights” document released October 7 recognizes the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to provide significant “counter-intervention (anti-access/area denial) frameworks” that can disrupt U.S. forces attempting to approach the Western Pacific from the continental United States.
The Land Service is now focused on developing infrastructure to support forces within the First Island Chain with enhanced command and control, in-theater logistics, and adequate munitions reserves, as directed by warfighting guidelines.
The force must be “ready to act immediately on the first day of conflict” in the Western Pacific with prepositioned stocks capable of supporting high-intensity combat operations, the document reads. The Total Army’s new concept of power projection equipment, formerly referred to as the Army Prepositioned Stock, aims to create prepared stocks designed to keep deployed units rotating and forward from the start of a conflict.
“In the Pacific, the Army will counter the threat by improving its warfighting infrastructure throughout the region. Rapid threat deployment capabilities require land power options that do not rely on traditional, lengthy deployment timelines,” reads the warfighting operational guidance document.
From these forward-deployed forces and stocks, the Army plans to deploy multi-domain task forces equipped with long-range missiles, organic air defenses, and cyber-electronic warfare capabilities to disrupt China’s anti-access and area-denial networks. The service also views Army boats, unmanned surface ships and unmanned aerial vehicles as a critical resupply capability for the joint force across the vast distances of the Pacific.
In the Second Island Chain, the land branch wishes to establish reinforced fuel and munitions nodes to support the First Island Chain formations. Forward-deployed engineering, medical and air defense units were highlighted in the guidance as means of maintaining these distribution networks.
Elements of these plans have been demonstrated since the start of the second iteration of the Army’s Pathways series of exercises in 2018 in the Western Pacific and recent infrastructure developments in the region. The service’s newest long-range cruise and hypersonic missiles are assigned to the Indo-Pacific Command, including the medium-range capable SM-6 and Tomahawk-equipped Mark 41 Vertical Ground Launch System. A presentation this week at the AUSA 2026 Annual Meeting and Exposition showcased U.S. Army Pacific logistics and warehousing facilities in Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Guam.
In these guidelines, the Army also recognized the need to address an operational challenge related to the capacity and volume of long-range strike munitions required for land and sea targets in the Western Pacific.
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