The Army must take risks to modernize, the Futures Command chief said, and the modernization effort will survive the inevitable failures along the way.

All told, the Army’s investing $57 billion in modernization over five years — but it wants to take time to test new technologies before it commits to them.

The actual Robotic Combat Vehicle that gets mass-produced and fielded by 2028 will be an all-new design, not a converted M113. But why wait for someone to design and build the perfect hardware, when you can start testing the software and the tactics on something cheaply available today?

“There are ways to be innovative in the Army,” retired Lt. Gen. Tom Spoehr said. But you have to protect the innovators from the institutional culture of the Pentagon: “You can send them someplace else, like Austin.”

Army Futures Command will not become a comfortable resting place for platoons of old generals. Rather, I think the secretary and the chief expect Futures Command to be the engine of innovation for the Army.

“I know that I have good numbers in ’18. I think if the budget agreement holds, we’ll have good numbers in ’19. I cannot predict the future,” Sec. Esper said. “What’s in my control to lay out the clearest possible vision of what the Army of 2028 should look like.”

The last time the US Army tried to modernize it spent $20 billion buying the Future Combat System, which was cancelled as it foundered. Is the Army repeating the same mistakes with its Big Six?

It’s important to explore a wide range of options and not lock down requirements too early, Lt. Gen. Walsh said. (By contrast, FCS set precise objectives and only then looked to see if they were possible). “We’re trying to solve the problem of what is reconnaissance (and) counter-reconnaissance in the future,” he said, not simply replace an old vehicle with a new one.

Army Futures Command is just a means to an end: modernizing the Army for high-intensity war against Russia or China. That includes replacing the iconic but aging M1 Abrams main battle tank, as well as other war machines, with an all-new Next Generation Combat Vehicle optimized for urban warfare, Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The new combat vehicles must be “optimized for fighting in dense urban terrain.” Fighting in narrow streets, in turn, requires smaller vehicles than the massive M1 — and one way to reduce weight is to take the humans out.