Annually, CSIS senior adviser Mark Cancian publishes a series of papers on U.S. military forces—their composition, new initiatives, long-term trends, and challenges.

The overall theme of this year’s report is the struggle to align forces and strategy because of budget tradeoffs that even defense buildups must make, unrelenting operational demands that stress forces and prevent force structure reductions, and legacy programs whose smooth operations and strong constituencies inhibit rapid change.

This report takes a deeper look at the strategic and budget context, the military services, special operations forces, DOD civilians and contractors, and non-DOD national security organizations in the FY 2020 budget.