Get a grip, the Army Futures Command chief said: It’s way too early to start second-guessing the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program.

With 10 major programs ramping up from prototypes to mass production by 2026, the Army can’t just count on “Night Court” cuts to free up sufficient funds, warned the service’s three-star chief of budget planning.

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

While Congress wrestles with CH-47 cuts, Army leaders are already looking ahead to hard decisions on high tech.

Is the Army doing enough to sell Congress on its five-year, $57 billion modernization plan? And does that long-term effort require a long-term leader?

The Army’s not sure it wants 55,000 JLTVs — but manufacturer Oshkosh is doubling down. Why?

For Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins, when the organization he’s led for 31 months changed its name, its mission, and the four-star headquarters it works for, it finally found the answer to a question it – and the entire Army – have been struggling with for at least 16 years.

“Ultimately that is what this is all about, why I get up every morning, that’s why AFC exists: to make sure, not today’s soldier, but our kids and our grandkids have the core concepts, the organizational structures, and the capabilities they need to fight and win on a future battlefield,” Gen. Murray said, “or even better yet not to fight at all, because there is nobody in the world in the future that would ever take on the United States in ground combat, because we have done our job so well.”

With Murray’s own HQ, Army Futures Command, stood up this August in Austin, the notoriously hidebound Army is making a concerted effort to reach out beyond its comfort zone and embed its officers, scientists, and civil servants in a wider world of civilian innovation, where hoodies are more in vogue than uniforms.

The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) must have enough artificial intelligence to fly unmanned at least part of the time, a secure network to control drones, and combination of speed and range that’s impossible for traditional helicopters.