What do you think is one of the issues that is facing the Army as we shape the force for the future?

Hmm good question.

Some of the biggest issues we will have in the next few years is....what's next. We are currently at 12 years of constant deployments. Ether going, coming back or training for the next one. There is a whole generation of leader that will feel lost because there is nothing around the corner. Things will go back to how they were in the 90s. Rotations through field exercises, but it will be all scenario based, not in preparation of future deployments. A lot of leaders will get out because they don't want to "play army" when there is no deployments in sight.

These warriors will also exfill due to having to deal with "garrison" duties and standards. I've always seen that the army never seems to find a happy medium, it always swings hard ether way. The shift to "garrison army" will be more extreme then it was in the 90s. And that will push many leaders out because they don't want to deal with longer times between promotions etc and miss the old glory days of the easy uncomplicated life of deployments.

Another issue is the budget, we will get a thinner force (in more ways then one). But with a shrinking budget we will soon go back to yelling "bang bang" at each other during a field cycle cause we don't have enough blanks. Or half our vehicles will be dead lined due to backorder of parts.

Pay will suffer, due to budget cuts, and the pay gap will get larger again.

A lot can be learned from looking at our past history. In 1973 we exited another long unpopular war. And we faced similar though not as extreme issues. Shrinking army, shrinking budget, lower standards, older equipment. The term used was "hollow army" I fear that we might be headed in the same direction.

to sum it all up - standards & discipline.

getting rid of some of the Soldiers we should keep and keeping some we should rid ourselves of based on standards & discipline.

I think for all the services going through this force shaping, the biggest issue we will face is morale. People not knowing whats next or how they fall under certain constraints and categories. People are going to feel pressure building and not know how to expel it, and bring down the people around them. Making the morale of the work center/unit decrease and bringing down productivity.