“‘Battle’ is very tactical,” said another participant approvingly. “We’ve got to have a cultural shift.” We need to recognize we’re in conflict right now with great power adversaries, even if we’re not shooting at each other.

This week’s experiment used a small zoo of specialized systems remote-controlled by humans, each with its own modest niche, working closely with each other and human forces.

“If you start a process with an org chart, you’re toast,” Army Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy said. “Focus on what you want to achieve.”

This is the second op-ed we’ve run by serving Army officials about how and why the service should be restructured so it can build its next generation of weapons and do it effectively. The Army, not known for going public with its internal (sometimes religious) debates, appears to understand that after getting so much wrong… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Army will ask Congress to change current law to help it buy weapons better, Maj. Gen. Bill Hix told reporters. Sure, the service can do and is doing a lot with its existing authorities, he said, such as create a Futures and Modernization Command (FMC), but comprehensive reform requires more. In fact, Lt.… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: Merry Christmas, US Army. As you read this, the White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the service’s draft spending plan for 2019-2023, which reshuffles more than a billion dollars in science and technology funds, undersecretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy told me in an exclusive interview. The goal: to better resource… Keep reading →

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The Army’s wheeled vehicle programs like Stryker and JLTV are leading it on the path to open architecture, a modular approach to designing software and electronics that makes them easier to upgrade. That’s particularly critical when, facing Russian GPS jamming, the Army is looking to improve Position, Navigation & Timing (PNT) on tens… Keep reading →

AUSA: How do you coordinate foot soldiers moving four miles per hour with fighter jets moving 1,500 mph?  To address the differences in speed and range, the Army’s Training & Doctrine Command is already revising its new “battlefield framework” – which was first circulated just in July – to open up the Army’s traditional geographic zones… Keep reading →

AUSA: The Army will start buying weapons the way Special Operations does, Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley told reporters here, bringing different specialists together in one streamlined team. The often-insular Army is also studying the other services, Milley said, particularly the rapid development of the nuclear Navy under legendary Adm. Hyman Rickover. A three-star… Keep reading →

What if the next war starts, not with a gunshot, but with a tweet? As tensions rise, US troops discover their families’ names, faces, and home addresses have been posted on social media as they prepare to deploy, along with exhortations to kill the fascists/imperialists/infidels (pick one). Trolls call them late at night with death… Keep reading →