HUNTSVILLE, Ala. –The Army will release an updated modernization strategy this summer that will focus on how the service plans to integrate future weapon systems into its latest warfighting concepts and organize around its new Multi-Domain Operations plan, a senior official said Tuesday.
Gen. Mike Murray, head of Army Futures Command, told reporters at the AUSA Global Force Symposium here the upcoming 2.0 strategy will shift from a materiel focus toward how new platforms will be fielded across the force and finalizing organizational development to meet its 2028 vision.
Murray said the new strategy will focus on modernization decisions beyond capabilities to account for doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities, or DOTMLPF.
“It will start to drive how we’re organized. It will start to drive the leader development process. It will start to drive the facilities that we’ll need, to either recapitalize or build new structures,” Murray said.
Last December, the Army released its MDO 1.5 concept, which drives how the service will adjust strategic formations to better align with growing threats from Russia and China.
Futures Command oversees both development of the Army’s future weapon systems along with new warfighting concepts, and Murray said the new modernization strategy will ensure the service is bringing along new organizational structure along with its capability development.
The most recent strategy kickstarted senior officials effort to fully fund development of future weapon systems, which led to over 180 programs receiving cuts to shift $33 billion in funds in the recently released FY ’20 budget request toward modernization priorities.
Murray said the Army must now focus on how the service will roll out these new capabilities. Including decisions to either spread out new systems across the force or focus on fully modernizing Brigade Combat Teams one at a time.
“The most the Army’s ever going to be able to afford in terms of say the new tank is going to be about a brigade a year. That’s just budget reality,” Murray said. “So we’re going to have to choose which brigades get those tanks first. And all vertical modernization means is we put some thought into which brigades those are against which pacing threats.”
Senior leadership has not made a final decision on whether to go with a horizontal or vertical fielding strategy, while Murray said he has recommended the vertical approach of building out individual BCTs with fully modernized capabilities.