Inside the Army’s next evolution: from futures command to continuous transformation

I'm Jen Judson, land warfare reporter for Defense News, and I am here with Army Vice Chief of Staff, General Mingus, and Undersecretary of the Army, Michael Opidal

Am I saying your name correctly, sir? I'm always... That was perfect

Perfect. Great. I appreciate Mike, though. Mike. All right, Mike. Or Obi

Obi. The Army is talking about how it needs to transform and to modernize

That's the conversation that the Army has pretty regularly, and it's good that you're always thinking about transforming and modernizing

But during these times, you make big muscle movements. Seven years ago, Army Futures Command was that kind of big muscle movement

to try to get things right, and in addition to that, you had the rapid capabilities and critical technologies office

and a number of other things to try to help modernize or transform the Army

But you're doing that again, and you're making some really big changes

You've just stood up a new four-star command. It's the biggest command now in the Army, Transformation and Training Command

What's different this time about what you're doing here when it comes to the restructuring of commands, reorganization, rethinking programs

How do you ensure that this is going to get traction and not just be a restructuring

It's a true transformation. Did you hear the Secretary's comments yesterday? I heard they were fiery

I was down here. That was like a drop. That was like a drop mic moment. Okay. So all we need to

do is replay that and we could be done with the interview right now. Just no curse words. No curse

words. But no, I think what's different this time is the inertia, the top cover, the fact that we've

got the energy and the will to see this through. Because you can change deck chairs, you can do

process change, you can do culture. But in this case, I think we're doing all three and we've got

a Secretary of War and a Secretary of Army and a Chief that are ready to really get after this

Okay. All right, Mike. I think there is a difference between the stance that the administration came in with

about making our forces more lethal, more agile, more adaptive to the changing nature of warfare

Our Department of War has underwritten that with policies that we've seen

We're going to see more of those. and we also have to acknowledge the work that was done over the past almost decade of starting Army Futures Command

and making this a priority for the United States Army, which only because of that

now we are positioned to make additional changes that can have long-lasting effects

And when we built Army Futures Command several years ago, there was good reason for it

We needed a change then, too. But what we didn't fully realize or appreciate as you, and we use the term .mil-PF, integration a lot

which is your doctrine, your organizational design, leader development, how do you train, how do we acquire and put material solutions out there, facilities to support all that

But until you bring all that together in a meaningful, integrated way, you haven't delivered capability

You've just delivered kit. And by bringing T2COM, as you mentioned, back together

it's going to help us not just deliver stuff to the field, but an integrated capability on the back end of this

So I think there are three subordinate commands within a transformation and training command

Can you talk a little bit about each one of those and how tying those together really makes sense

when it comes to the dot and will PF set there that you have to make sure that you're matching

that everyone's in the same room and you're matching requirements to training to who you

recruit, things like that? So if we think about transformation, adaptation, evolution

many times we think about it as what's here on the floor. It's technology, it's weapon systems

but in reality, it goes across the entire dot mil PF and it goes to the business practices of the

United States Army. So we have to structure ourselves differently. We have to make decisions

differently and we have to put different technology in the hands of the soldiers

The biggest part of aligning these commands is to take from requirements and ideation

experimentation, development, prototyping, to the acquisition and sustainment under one accountable official

So continuous transformation. You heard that a lot yesterday. That means that every day we get up, the Army's a little better

But inside of that you design a force you develop a force and then you employ a force And so the way T2COM will organize itself is FCC which is the Future Concept Entity

they're the ones that are looking deep. They're the ones that are helping us understand what, not maybe how many divisions and divardies we need

but what general characteristics do we want the Army to look like, say, 10 years from now

Combined Arms Center at Leavenworth, CAC, they're the ones that now do that integration that I was talking about

through all the centers of excellence, all the force-bought opponents, to ensure that our Army, as part of a joint force, can still execute combined arms maneuver

And then U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Johnny Davis, they generate the force force

They bring it in through initial military training to make sure that we are generating a force

that could then put all that stuff together. What else are you considering in terms of restructuring when it comes to how the Army is organized

I know that there's talk about changes to program executive offices, for instance, and I know that a lot of that is still in the works, has not been announced

But how do you continue to approach that trickle down and making sure that as you stand up these new commands

that the rest of the Army structure when it comes to acquisition programs, everything is nested in the right place and organized in the right way as you prioritize certain things for the future fight

Yeah, that's a great question, Jen. I think that it starts with breaking down the cylinders that we have and the barriers between organizations

So going from 12 program executive offices down to just a handful that have those responsibilities

that are able to cross-level in real time and in short time resources between emerging capabilities and requirements that come out

Yeah, and there is going to be a bigger announcement coming out by Secretary of War here in a couple of weeks, and so we don't want to get ahead of him

Yes, we are. But to the under's point, how do we, you know, going back to why we stood up Army Futures Command, why we're bringing it back together, the bespoke silos that were out there, how do you break through that

So as you look at concepts, requirements, testing and evaluation, acquisition, and lifecycle sustainment

how do you bring that together in a much more cogent fashion? And I think that will be the big, big change in all this

Okay. The Army Secretary's memo that came out announcing transformation initiative was in May

So as you continue to yze and have conversations about the changes, have you changed your mind or pivoted in any way in terms of some of the, there's so many decisions that were made from, you know, deciding not to buy any more joint-like tactical vehicles to no more bookers to no more gray eagles

That's just actually sitting across from general topics here. So have you rethought any of those decisions

Is there anything that's still on the table that you're working toward in terms of some

of these big program decisions? So what we saw in ATI was not just an immediate decision on those things

It was years of building, looking at what are the legacy systems that have done great

work for the United States Army, the Joint Force, AH-64 Delta. But as we went through it, we never really reset that fleet after years of deployment

And so it became a $10,000 a flight hour aircraft that was less capable than the AH-64 Echo, and it was twice the cost

And so the JLTV and the Humvee is a great one. We have over 100,000 Humvees

I think that's about one per four active-duty soldiers. and it has done great work for us, but we need to be lighter, more transportable

and we're moving that forward with some of the systems that we have

So to answer your question, these things have been built over the years to the point where they were documented in ATI

And reinforced through our transformation in contact, which is a subset of continuous transformation or TIC

what we were hearing back from the fielder, these are the things that we know will not work in the next fight

we need to divest, cease procurement, so that we can reinvest in things that we know will be effective in the next fight

And to the Humvee example, I came in the Army in 1981. The Humvee is almost as old as I am

The only thing that's a little bit older might be the tank, the Bradley, and the Paladin, and a couple other of our legacy systems

But 100 we need to move on to a different system Okay Let talk about transformation and contacts I think that there a lot of really interesting things that soldiers are getting in their hands and trying out

You've likely both visited these TIC units. Talk about some of your takeaways from getting out there and seeing what they're doing

And in addition to that, we're also getting to see soldiers really be able to innovate

and invent their own capabilities out in the field. Have you seen some particular examples that are intriguing just coming from soldiers out there being able to do their own inventions, if you will

Lots of 3D printing, lots of other things happening, too. I've got two thoughts on that

So number one is putting the requirements generators, the program offices, industry, all together with the soldiers forward

And that's where innovation is going to happen very rapidly. we can make changes to programs based on direct soldier feedback

And when it comes to industry that is providing some of these, I ask them, are you out there

Are you in the field with the soldiers? And most of these companies are saying, yes, we have teams that are currently deployed with them

The second part is I think one of the most compelling things you can see is right upstairs

Two soldiers from the 101st Airborne with a small quadcopter drone that they produced right there at Fort Campbell

They can make about 30 a day. They cost $750. All but two of the parts are made in the United States

And they are using them at the combat training centers and in training every day in the 101st Airborne

And not just that, but they are tied in electronically with what's happening in the same vein in Germany and in the 173rd Airborne

They share files. They use common open software for these tactical products

That's really compelling to see because the soldiers in the age that they are, not like us

they inherently get this technology and they can put it to use very quickly

The other example I would provide, we knew, given where we think the land forces need to be in the Pacific

that our light formations, our infantry brigade combat teams were no longer light

They needed to be more agile, more lethal, lighter, greater mobility, greater firepower

And so that's why we started with the three TIC brigades and how we'd convert them

So as we sat in the Pentagon, the big question is, everybody knows we're going with drone warfare

How many drones does a brigade combat team need? Is that 100, 200, 300

I don't know. I don't think anybody knew. So we inundated these brigades with more than that they asked for

because we knew that those soldiers would come back and tell us the number is 382 or whatever it ends up being

And that's probably okay this year, but next year it might be different. Same thing with mobility

We thought that a mobile brigade combat team would need about 80 to 90 infantry squad vehicles

That was not correct, but that feedback that we got directly from those soldiers from the 25th, 101st, and 10th Mountain

helped inform data-driven, soldier-informed decisions so that in less than one year

we were able to modify and approve that design for the Mobile Brigade Combat Team

which normally takes three to five years. I wanted to ask about acquisition reform

I think we're expecting some announcements on where the department is headed

where the Army is headed when it comes to acquisition reform. What are some of the broad brush strokes, though, that you know you need to have when it comes to reforming acquisition

Well, I think we talked a little bit about the Department of War is going to put out their acquisition reform guidance

and we're going to be nested under that. And I think that we've indicated some of the large brush strokes that will consolidate some

will put requirements to sustainment under the same umbrella. One thing that's very difficult to tackle is culture

And you and I chatted a little bit about this before. And our workforce has adapted to the system that we have

And it's easy to go out and talk to our folks about you need to culturally change

You need to accept more risk. The fact is that doesn't change the process

Risk is a zero-sum game. If we drive all of our risk out of our acquisition process

we're simply transferring it to the operational force or we're transferring it to the budget

So we have to balance that with calculated risk and the only way to do that is we change the incentive structure for those in the acquisition process Humans will inherently behave the way that they are incentivized and so that means they are evaluated on the calculated risks that they take

The other thing I would add on that one is because you mentioned Gray Eagle and some of the other UAVs

Those requirements were written in the 90s. They were fielded in the early 2000s, and here we are in 2025, and we know where drone technology has come

When we buy the next tank, we're probably going to have that for a while. The internal organic IT systems inside of it, we should be able to rapidly change

but we're going to have that frame for a very long time. But when it comes to things that move inside the tech cycle every 12 to 18 months

where you're churning out much better and greater capabilities that are out there

As tech improves, we don't want to be stuck with programs for decades

We want to be able to buy tranches. Whatever the best thousand of pick a system that's out there this year

something better will be out the next year, and we'll buy a thousand of those because of the integration and the way our soldiers will be able to adopt it

On things like building mass amounts of drones, how are you preparing industry or even the organic industrial base

to build the amount of drones you may need and not knowing particularly how many you do need

how are you preparing the industrial base for that? Yeah, so our organic industrial base, 23 plants, arsenals, and depots, strategic depth

The problem is we have a 57% direct hour decrease in labor over the past decade

And so we own these. We're not going to get rid of them. They go back to World War II, and we have to modernize how they do things

That goes to Army Materiel Command and the Army senior leadership. One of the initiatives that a lot of folks have heard about is Sky Foundry

So producing most of the components of cheap, attritable drones can be done at some of these organic industrial sites, right

So brushless motors, the bodies, the propellers, and other things like that. then we can bring in industry for some of the more unique things like payloads and software

modular components to the vices point earlier. And ironically, Chris Mohan is standing right behind us

Hi, Chris Mohan. Good to see you. He's leading. Oh, he's up next. Good. You'll get to ask him some detailed questions

So I won't steal your thunder, Chris. But next year, $10,000 a month

Or $10,000 a month. When we build our second Sky Foundry, $20,000 a month

The only thing that he can't build today is the controller, the viewer, and the brushless motors

Next year he'll be able to build those brushless motors. We eventually can get to the whole thing

And so that's how we go to the scope and scale is what can we do internally? And you heard the secretary talk about this fuse and how we work better with like a venture capitalist-like organization

Because we can get it going, and then we can help industry scale. And you are actually conducting a shark tank here at AUSA to do just that on the FUSE program

So I know we have like maybe 30 seconds left, but if you want to just highlight how you're going about this program, the FUSE program, where you behave more like a venture capitalist in the Army

Thanks. So as the secretary talked about yesterday, we have $750 million. That's increasing next year to invest in compelling, needed technologies from companies that may not have the current private capital investment that they need

The second part is exposing other companies to private investors that are here in different forums

And then the third is we had a roundtable yesterday, probably about a trillion dollars of portfolio value from private capital to talk about some of the things that we have to press forward with our installations bases and organic industrial base

And all of it ties together. And I think Chris can talk a little bit more about the OIB

And I'll finish with Jen, just kind of weave the themes together

Last year you heard the chief said we need to step on the accelerator. This year, we heard the Secretary yesterday

Today, I think you're going to hear the Chiefs talk about turbo charge because the threat

the technology changes, financial situation that the Army's in, we cannot afford not to

go as fast as we are right now. MS. All right. And with that, thank you, gentlemen, for joining me here at AOSA

I know you have busy schedules. I'll let you get off and go see some more really interesting tech and really interesting companies. Thanks

Thanks, Jen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you