“I believe we need the Space Force, in fact, in my opinion, a domain-specific service to organize, train, and equip space forces is overdue,” Air Force Secretary nominee Barbara Barrett said.

Under Gen. Milley the Army went from two ready brigades to 25 and it finally — after at least three false starts — began to shed the heavy weight of the Cold War weapons known as the Big Five.

The Army can cope with regional dangers like Iran even as it refocuses on Russia and China, the secretary said. In fact, he said, the Army’s controversial modernization program will help with both sets of threats.

“We need to have any sensor connect to any shooter at very rapid machine-to-machine speed,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said, “if we’re going to multi-domain operations.” But aye, there’s the rub: Are we?

“Long-range precision fires… would provide us the capability (to) either, for example, support the Air Force by suppressing enemy air defenses at hundreds upon hundreds of miles or support the Navy by engaging enemy surface ships at great distances as well,” said Army Secretary Mark Esper. But those examples are two distinctly different missions, each most relevant to a different theater of war.

The defense budget may be caught between doves on the left and budget hawks on the right, but so far Army Secretary Mark Esper isn’t ceding any ground.

The Army plans to move at least $25 billion over the next five years from low-priority programs to preparing for major war. That includes developing a wide variety of new weapons, from high-speed aircraft, to partially-robotic armored vehicles, to a long-ranged 6.8 millimeter rifle to replace the venerable M16/M4 family and its controversial 5.56 mm round.

“CFTs (Cross Functional Teams) and Army Futures Command will always have a place on my schedule and the chief’s schedule,” Esper said. Over time, he said, “it becomes a routine… the expectation not just for AFC and the CFTs, but for future service secretaries and future chiefs of staff.”

The Army is ready for unmanned vehicles but not yet for a completely unmanned convoy. The 2020 iteration is called Expedient Leader-Follower because the Army still wants a human soldier driving the lead vehicle, with up to nine autonomous trucks following in its trail. But Oshkosh and Robotic Research told me they could take the humans out altogether, if the Army wanted.

The Army Chief of Staff wants revolutionary new weapons. The Army Secretary wants affordable technology fast. How can they reconcile these opposites?