The five lines of effort the Army will execute by 2035
The Army’s new biodefense strategy, signed by former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, lays out five discrete lines of effort the service intends to implement by 2035. They are:
- Building knowledge — recruit, develop, and retain scientific, medical, and operational biodefense subject-matter experts at all echelons, and expand biodefense curriculum in training and education courses.
- Gaining situational awareness — integrate biological sensors and analytical tools into existing platforms to “enable decision advantage” and monitor indications of adversaries using biological weapons.
- Managing information and communication — standardize biological information-sharing systems across the joint force and with other agencies and allies, and counter misinformation and disinformation through monitoring information spaces using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools.
- Building biodefense readiness — provide decontamination and protective equipment, and shift from viewing biothreats as purely medical problems to treating them as operational constraints that affect warfighting functions.
- Modernizing biodefense — employ faster acquisition processes by leveraging AI, synthetic biology, and additive manufacturing, and update doctrine by identifying “remaining gaps.”
Priorities and timelines through 2035
The strategy sets a phased timetable. Lines three (managing information and communication) and five (modernizing biodefense) will be prioritized through 2028 to “create the necessary architecture for success across the other lines of effort.” Lines one (building knowledge) and two (gaining situational awareness) are slated for emphasis from 2028–2031. The Army plans to focus attention on building biodefense readiness — the fourth line — from 2031–2035.
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End the scrambleTechnology: sensors, AI, and faster testing in the field
The strategy explicitly ties new capabilities to hardware and software advances. Under situational awareness, the Army will integrate biological sensors and analytical tools into existing platforms to accelerate detection and decision-making. Col. Dennis Rufolo, deputy director for Force Health Protection at the Office of the Surgeon General and Army Medical Command, told reporters that mobile genetic sequencing devices now allow soldiers in operational environments to test “suspicious” samples in as little as 24 hours — a process that previously could take weeks when samples had to be sent back to the continental United States.
Artificial intelligence also appears in multiple parts of the plan. The Army will use AI and machine learning both to monitor information environments and to speed acquisition processes. Rufolo described an AI-driven approach to establishing a “baseline” for diseases — a benchmark that indicates how common and transferable a disease is across different data sets — and said open-source data from other nations can be collected and translated to help identify concerning increases more quickly.
Information sharing, misinformation, and a change in doctrine
The strategy names standardizing biological information-sharing systems across the joint force and with partner agencies and allies as a foundational task. Managing the information environment also includes explicit plans to counter misinformation and disinformation, which the Army intends to do by monitoring information spaces with AI and machine learning tools.
Doctrinal change is another pillar. The Army plans to update doctrine by identifying “remaining gaps” and to recast biothreats as operational constraints that affect warfighting functions — not solely as medical issues. As the strategy document puts it, improved decontamination and protective equipment are part of the readiness shift, but so is a broader operational framing of biological risk.
Expanding responsibility: what this means for intel professionals, medical personnel, and acquisition leaders
- Intel professionals: The strategy extends biodefense responsibilities beyond medical shops to include intelligence personnel in detection and analysis roles, reflecting Kingery’s and Rufolo’s statements that exercises and threat monitoring informed the plan.
- Medical personnel and field operators: Tamasi and Rufolo emphasized that biodefense will no longer be siloed within biology or surgeon teams. Tamasi said, “It’s no longer where if you see a group of dead wildlife, you just leave it to the surgeon team. Everyone has to have a part.”
- Acquisition and technology leaders: The modernizing line directs faster acquisition processes that leverage AI, synthetic biology, and additive manufacturing — signaling a push for rapid procurement and fielding of sensors, sequencing tools, and protective equipment.
The Army frames the strategy as a response not to a single trigger but to a set of lessons and trends. Allison Tamasi, chief of USANCA’s survivability and effects analysis division, said the plan follows lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, “the overall threat picture,” and “advancements in precision medicine” that “could be potentially also used against us.” Kingery added that exercises in the Pacific and on the US homeland informed the strategy, while providing no further specifics.
Signed by a former service secretary and mapped with a 2035 horizon, the plan shifts biodefense from specialized shops to the whole force, pairs new sensors and field diagnostics with AI-driven baselines, and elevates information management as an operational task. The Army’s next steps will be determined by the prioritized timeline already in the strategy — and by whether the service can translate those lines of effort into the tools, training, and doctrine it describes.
Source: Army sets new biodefense plan to counter pandemic, adversary threats — Breaking Defense
