This paper is intended to analyze the driving force behind and main strategies for innovation and development of individual protective equipment in extreme environments by the U.S.Armed Forces,and outline the current develop-ments and representative achievements of individual protective equipment by the U.S.Armed Forces for environments of high altitude,extreme cold and extreme heat.It is recommended that the top-level design be adopted,physiological modeling and analysis technologies for big data be given more attention,key technologies be innovated,and intelligent,information-based and lightweight new individual medical protective equipment be developed with more effort.