The Armored Strike Brigade: How to Think, Fight, and Organize for Modern Warfare
by Nathan Jennings, by Ethan Diven
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06.22.2026 at 06:00am
The Armored Strike Brigade: How to Think, Fight, and Organize for Modern Warfare Image
Introduction
When the U.S. Army transitioned to Brigade Combat Team modularity during the Global War on Terror, it divested more than Cold War lineages and nostalgic memories. It reorganized previously echeloned capabilities designed to fight for information, disrupt enemy systems, and enable higher tactical headquarters to maneuver with confidence across operational depth. In the decades that followed, technological advances in battlefield transparency, precision fires at range, and unmanned systems have outpaced the evolution of force design and operational capabilities. The result is a widening gap in the landpower institution’s ability to empower combined-arms and joint-force success amid the volatility of a rapidly changing strategic environment.
The purpose of this article is to drive the dialogue and further develop how leaders think, fight, and organize for all arms maneuver against rapidly modernizing adversaries. Maneuver is not dead. The need for Armor and armored formations is not dead. When our Nation commits to the concerted execution of violence to take phase lines away from the enemy and hold them, mobile protected firepower is the required capability. Combined arms maneuver must evolve to be executed across all domains, and armor must evolve to be more deployable, more capable, and more connected to conduct armored strike as part of the joint force’s all-domain envelopment.
Armored Strike Brigade Concept
Today’s battlefields are defined by ubiquitous sensing, long‑range fires, and fortified defenses in ways that can inflict heavy attrition on tactical formations. Across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, adversary advances with unmanned systems, electronic warfare, and stand-off fires have increasingly collapsed the distinction between reconnaissance and strike. In this environment, success does not belong to the force that merely mass effects, but to the formation that best applies nuanced systems thinking and employs human-machine teaming to integrate data-informed targeting, artificial intelligence-driven decision-making, and all-domain attack at speed. To meet this challenge, the Army requires a purpose‑built formation for a new era of warfare: the Armored Strike Brigade.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/06/22/armored-strike-brigade/
