US Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth. (Nicholas J. De La Pena/U.S. Army Reserve).
AUSA: Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said today that the service has started a broad analysis on several “key aspects” of the Army — including its massive modernization effort — as Army leadership prepares for constrained budgets in the future.
Wormuth said the analysis is exploring “fundamental questions,” such as how it will fight in the future and in which theaters to focus on, and what capabilities the service needs. While she said the analysis is “pre-decisional,” she also opened the door to potential changes in the Army’s future technology strategy.
“We’re also going to be looking at things like the performance of the new programs that we have in development,” Wormuth said a press conference at the annual Association of the US Army conference. “Are they staying on schedule? Are they coming in at a cost that we expect them to be at?”
At the same time, while “it’s fair to say we are looking at everything, but it is essential that we transform for the future, and the modernization program that we’ve embarked on is a critical piece of that transformation,” she said. “That set of modernization priorities is incredibly important, so we will certainly be looking to protect that, because it’s so core to what we’re doing.”
Adjusting the schedules of some of its modernization priorities is one way the service could give itself some budgetary flexibility.
“We would be looking at, you know, the possibility of the schedule of different programs as a way that that might be something that gives us flexibility,” she said. “I also want to emphasize that, you know, we’re looking at everything and we have to look at everything, so not just the modernization.”
In a speech earlier in the day, Wormuth said the Army is at a “strategic crossroads” as the service is in the midst of a massive modernization effort and pivots to face the Chinese military threat in the Indo-Pacific.
“We are at an inflection point, a key moment in an incredibly consequential argument between autocrats, and those who understand that democracy is the right way to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” Wormuth said in the speech. “More than any other time in my professional life, we are at a strategic crossroads.”
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The addition of new capabilities is crucial to the Army as it prepares for future potential battles against both China and Russia. At the center of future battles is the Army’s concept of multi-domain operations, in which battle is fought across the land, maritime, space, cyber and air domains, with interconnected capabilities passing unprecedented amounts of data to the force. Achieving that is a big challenge after two decades of counter-insurgency operations in the Middle East.
“We can no longer count on having months to reject combat power overseas from an uncontested homeland, nor can we count on quickly establishing air superiority, so that our forces can precisely strike targets with relative impunity,” she said in the speech. “We could even face attacks here on the United States itself.”
Wormuth highlighted several Army efforts to geared toward the service’s shift to the Indo-Pacific, including the service’s Multi-Domain Task Forces, which will allow the service to function as a multi-domain force in the future and deliver both kinetic and non-kinetic strikes over long ranges. The service’s first MDTF has taken part in the Army’s Defender Pacific exercise.
“These task forces can operate from multiple geographically separate locations, making them harder to find and target, and they will have organic protection and sustainment capabilities,” Wormuth said in her speech.
Wormuth’s speech also came on the same day that the service kicks off Project Convergence at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., the Army’s annual experiment with connecting future capabilities that will be crucial to the multi-domain fight.
The department must “ruthlessly prioritize” its modernization effort, though Wormuth argued that the service was already seeing progress. In fiscal year 2022, the service will deliver prototypes of its Directed Energy-Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense. FY22 will also see the service fielding its next generation squad weapon and its new integrated Air and Missile Defense platform, she said.
FY23 will be “the year of long-range precision fire,” she said, with the service delivering the first battery of its Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, Precision Strike Missile, and a prototype of its extended range cannon artillery. Long-range precision fire is the Army’s top modernization priority.
“I am not convinced that we have fully thought our way through all of the challenges we may face on the future high end battlefield if deterrence fails,” she said in her speech.
