Army: Novel Ascendance Won’T Piss Away Billions On Bad Technology

By JEFF SCHOGOL
With the establishment of its novel Futures Command, the Army pinky swears that the problems that doomed its $18 billion Future Combat Systems plan inwards the final decade volition non recur. On Friday, senior Army leaders announced the service was consolidating its modernization efforts inwards a unmarried ascendance that volition live located inwards Austin, Texas. The metropolis was selected based on a release of factors, including the availability of talent from the mortal sector, access to top-tier academic institutions, together with lineament of life. Task & Purpose asked Army officials how the novel ascendance volition foreclose a repeat of the Future Combat Systems debacle — an eight-year Army endeavor to prepare revolutionary novel vehicles, communications networks, drones, together with other applied scientific discipline that bled cash until it was mercifully pose to slumber past times then-defense secretarial assistant Robert Gates inwards 2009. The failure was hence colossal that the Army has however non recovered, nearly a decade later.


By consolidating the Army’s modernization enterprises nether i roof, Futures Command is meant to brand the Army’s acquisition scheme faster together with to a greater extent than efficient, said Army Secretary Mark Esper: “You right away select a unmarried commander inwards accuse of everything from the futurity strength blueprint together with concepts all the means through how nosotros pass our RDT&E [Research, Development, Test, together with Evaluation] dollars to the prototyping together with testing together with soldier interest into acquisition together with ultimately to fielding.”

Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy, who was serving inwards the defense strength secretary’s purpose when Future Combat Systems was cancelled, said the program’s fundamental flaw was that “the operational concept together with the technical concepts were non linked.” Since the concepts for applied scientific discipline kept changing, the plan lasted longer than intended, increasing costs. Futures Command, he said, is meant to select key-decision makers together to “cut the release of layers betwixt the data together with the leadership.”

Another alter is thenew ascendance volition live focused entirely on what the Army needs inwards the future, hence it volition non live distracted past times the needs of the electrical flow fight, said Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville. “You tin post away select people thinking nigh the future, they prepare the concepts, they await at the technology, they operate side-by-side together with they come upwardly up amongst the type of materiel that we’re going to demand to live successful inwards the future,” he said.

The Army needed to centralize its modernization company because none of the commands currently conducting inquiry together with evolution was focused on “the deep future,” said Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. “We’re inwards the midst of a alter inwards the rattling grapheme of country of war together with nosotros didn’t select an organization entirely dedicated to that,” Milley said. “That’s important. Our analysis indicates that it volition avoid a lot of avoid a lot of the pitfalls of previous plan failures.”
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