7 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre, C4ISR
DEFENSE NEWS CONFERENCE: The Army's new Futures Command won't tear down the most failure–prone procurement system in the entire US military. Instead, both its commander and the Army's No. 2 civilian emphasize they want to be just “a little bit disruptive” and “work with the institution.” That will disappoint critics of the service's chronically troubled acquisition programs who saw the Army's much-touted “biggest reorganization in 40 years” as an opportunity to tear the whole thing down and start again.
The necessary change to Army culture “is going to take time,” brand-new four-star Gen. John “Mike” Murray said here yesterday, “and I think you do that by being a little bit disruptive, but not being so disruptive you upset the apple cart.”
“It's hard, Sydney, because you know, you have to work with the institution,” Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy told me after he and Murray addressed the conference. “You don't want to go in there and just break things.”
Work Through The Pain
Reform's still plenty painful, acknowledged McCarthy, who's played a leading role in round after round of budget reviews, cutting some programs to free up funding for the Army's Big Six priorities. The choices were especially hard for 2024 and beyond, when top priorities like robotic armored vehicles and high-speed aircraft move from the laboratory to full-up prototypes.
“You've got a lot of people out investing, and they're all doing good things, but they weren't the priorities of the leadership,” McCarthy told me yesterday. “You have to explain to folks why you're doing what you're doing. You need them focused on the priorities of the institution” – that is, of the Army as a whole, as set by leadership, rather than of bureaucratic fiefdoms with a long history of going their own way.
But what about the pushback from constituencies who see their priorities being cut, particularly upgrades to keep current platforms combat-ready until their replacements finally arrive?
“If you don't accept the risk that you talked about, (if you don't) slow down or stop the upgrade of legacy systems, you never get to next generation equipment,” brand-new four-star Gen. John “Mike” Murray said here yesterday, “and I think you do that by being a little bit disruptive, but not being so disruptive you upset the apple cart.” In other words, funding for incremental upgrades will crowd out funding for potential breakthroughs. That's largely because the incremental approach looks lower-risk – right up to the point where the enemy fields something revolutionary that your evolutionary approach can't counter.
Full article: https://breakingdefense.com/2018/09/a-little-bit-disruptive-murray-mccarthy-on-army-futures-command
17 juillet 2024 | International, Terrestre, Sécurité
A GAO report has found that the US Army's rapid modernisation process has seen material delivered to troops without adequate planning.
6 avril 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau The Marine Corps' main cyber war-fighting organization will soon be growing. Maj. Gen. Lori Reynolds, commander of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, said her force doesn't have the depth to do what the Army is doing in experimenting with integrated offensive and defensive cyber effects at the tactical edge with full brigades. This is one of the reasons the commandant approved expansion at MARFORCYBER, Reynolds told Fifth Domain following her appearance on an AFCEA-hosted panel in early April. “We've got to do that,” she said, referring to what the Army is doing. “We've got to get the rest of the service, Training and Education Command, we've got to give them the skills and the talent, if you will, to think about how do we prepare the rest of the Marine Corps to integrate cyber effectively. Moreover, the Marine Corps created a cyber career field earlier this year and requested 1,000 billets related to cyber/electronic warfare/information operations in the most recent budget to be better postured to fight and win in an increasingly modern battlefield. MARFORCYBER will get around 40 percent of new career field designees to work on the defensive side with just a couple going to the offensive teams, Reynolds said. The Marines have recognized that cyber is going to be a foundational capability in the future with some ingrained organizational structure behind it. “We just really have to get more return on investment ... and what we want to be able to do is continue to increase our proficiency and skills,” Reynolds said. “When you're constantly moving people out of the cyber workforce, you're starting over again all the time. That doesn't work.” Currently, the Marines deployed on the cyber mission force — a joint force that makes up U.S. Cyber Command's cyber warrior cadre — are lateral moves, Reynolds said, or they're working as signals intelligence Marines and they're just in and out of cyber. While the total number of forces on the CMF will stay the same, the types of Marines filling those roles will change, a MARFORCYBER spokeswoman told Fifth Domain. When a communication officer currently working on a team rotates, that billet will be coded as a cyberspace officer and will be filled only by someone in the new cyber career field, they added. The model going forward should be building a “foundation from the ground up of defensive cyber and then maybe start building some of our offensive capability from the defense while we're still flowing SIGINT through the offensive teams,” Reynolds said. This move comes as the Marines, as well as the other services, are going through a bit of a culture shock when it comes to introducing these nontraditional skill sets into the ranks. “I think the commandant is willing to challenge every assumption we've ever made about how we treat these MOS,” Reynolds said. In fact, during recent congressional testimony, Reynolds noted that the commandant often points out “we may end up with a platoon of warrant officers, and that's got to be okay with us.” https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/marine-corps/2018/04/05/marines-cyber-forces-to-grow/
21 octobre 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
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