Let a hundred hypersonic flowers bloom, Pentagon officials say, instead of a single cumbersome mega-program.

Good news: That’s more money than the Army thought it could get for its top priorities. Bad news: We won’t see most of it this year.

Alarming headlines to the contrary, the US Army isn’t building robotic “killing machines.” What they really want artificial intelligence to do in combat is much more interesting.

That’s $6 billion more than previously announced — but it all comes at the cost of almost 200 cut, cancelled, or slowed-down programs, each with backers in Congress.

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.

“It’s establishing buy-in over the next three, four, five years from the institution (of the Army),” Gen. Murray said. “It’s about establishing buy-in on Capitol Hill, because if I don’t have buy-in there, this won’t survive.”

“None of this would be happening without someone who’s not here today, and that’s Senator John McCain, an American hero,” General Milley said to some of the loudest applause of the day.

Gen. Milley lays out what the Army needs, embodied in its Big Six modernization priorities. Sec. Esper then works on how to fund and deliver those needs.

The Marines are plenty happy about getting more money in 2018 and 2019, but are nervously eyeing the potential return of sequestration in 2020. And it’s influencing how the Corps is spending that money today.

“It’s very encouraging,” McCarthy said. “It gives you high confidence in some of these investments we’re going to make….We’ve got these decisions coming up here by the middle of the summer for the POM 20” — the five-year budget plan (Program Objective Memorandum) for 2020-25.