Transformation of the United States Army

The reorganization plan of the United States Army is a current modernization and reorganization plan of the United States Army that is being implemented under the direction of Brigade Modernization Command.

This effort formally began in 2006 when General Peter Schoomaker (the Army Chief of Staff at the time), was given the support to move the Army from its Cold War divisional orientation to a full-spectrum capability with fully manned, equipped and trained brigades. This was the most comprehensive reorganization since World War II and included modular combat brigades, support brigades, and command headquarters, as well as rebalancing the active and reserve components. (The plan was first proposed by Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki, in 1999, but was bitterly opposed internally by the Army.) In 2006 a new deployment scheme known as Grow the Army was adopted that enabled the Army to carry out continuous operations. The plan was modified several times including an expansion of troop numbers in 2007 and changes to the number of modular brigades.

On 25 June 2013, plans were announced to disband 13 modular brigade combat teams (BCTs) and expand the remaining brigades with an extra maneuver battalion, extra fires batteries, and an engineer battalion.

In 2016 the Army force generation process ARFORGEN is being sidelined because it relied mostly on the Active Army, in favor of the total force policy, which includes the Reserve and National Guard; in the new model, the total force could still shrink to 980,000, or nearly one million Soldiers by 2018, subject to DoD's Defense Strategic Guidance to the Joint Staff. By 2 February 2017, the Department of the Army approved an increase in the Active Army's end-strength from 475,000 to 476,000; to encourage retention, Soldiers with an expiration of term of service (ETS) date which occurs before 1 October 2017 can now extend their term of service for 12 months and receive a bonus of up to $10,000.

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