At U.S. Army Materiel Support Command — Korea, the unit Carpenter commands, soldiers built the bolt through the drill-out process of subtractive manufacturing for a cost of $1.27, avoiding months of delay and saving more than $300 in the process.

As the Eighth Army in Korea builds out its logistics capability, it’s investing in advanced manufacturing with an eye to supplying spares, not only to local Army forces, but also to troops across the Pacific region.

“I want to be the advanced manufacturing center for INDOPACOM,” Carpenter said at an engagement with reporters at the AUSA meeting. “That’s my goal.”

Eighth Army officials spoke earlier this year about how establishing a Korea-based regional sustainment hub, or center for logistics, maintenance and supply, could cut down the burden and cost of long-distance sustainment. At a roundtable event Monday, Eighth Army Commander Lt. Gen. Joseph Hilber indicated the force was moving out to build that sustainment hub.

“Now, rather than taking equipment that might need a major overhaul and send it back to the United States, we’re looking at ways that we can overhaul it there in Korea and keep it in the fight longer. Keep it west of the [International Dateline] longer,” Hilber said. “That’s going to involve everything from some added manufacturing capabilities to additional repair capabilities that we’ve got in there in terms of being able to fabricate parts, being able to fabricate materials, and then being able to return that equipment back into the fight.”

The Eighth Army has already resourced maintenance support teams that cross service and regional boundaries, departing the Korean Peninsula to support the III Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, Japan, and to Hawaii to support Army rotational units, Carpenter said.

Through additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, and subtractive manufacturing, or cutting a part out of a solid block of metal, the Eighth Army is manufacturing an increasing number of critical parts, Carpenter said. The materiel support command recently acquired a metal 3D printer and is now building out infrastructure to house it.

“But we think come January, February, the metal 3D printer [will be] in, and my goal is … I would like to get to a point where I can 3D print the bolt,” Carpenter said.

By next summer, he said, the Eighth Army is set to receive $3 million worth of advanced manufacturing machines, with some $10 million worth of additional machinery set to be requested in the Army’s fiscal 2028 budget.

“I’ll be able to print bumpers; I’ll be able to print doors,” Carpenter said. “These are not just desktop printers.”

Recently, he said, a Guam-based military unit requested an assembly that would have cost $36,000. The Korea-based team built it through subtractive manufacturing for $82.

Through a request system, Carpenter said, any joint forces member can now request a part and get routed to the Army’s logistics hub in Daegu, South Korea.

“If you’re the Marines operating in Okinawa and you need this bolt … I get this bolt back over to the Marine at a fraction of the cost, and a lot quicker than if they were to order through the supply system,” he said. “So again, we’re maintaining combat power inside the First Island Chain.”

Hilbert said some hurdles remained for the Eighth Army, including intellectual property restrictions with manufacturers; data-sharing to ensure the advanced manufacturing processes deliver components that are up to spec; and seamless connection into existing Army logistics systems not designed for these new modes of parts production.

“We’re continuing to work through those pieces to enable us to fix faster,” Hilbert said.

Sig Sauer completed the test in concert with Israel Aerospace Industries, maker of the Fire Storm 250, a reusable drone that can stay airborne for two hours and is designed with a stabilized machine-gun mount.

According to a Tuesday announcement from the companies, the test required the system to hover over a simulated battlefield, ID targets with an onboard camera and fire on them using both single-shot and semi-automatic firing modes “from varying distances and altitudes.”

It’s a fast development timeline for the drone, which was first unveiled last October. The defense publication Janes reported in February that flight tests for the system were scheduled for summer 2026. The system, as Janes reported, incorporates Sig’s micro-remote-controlled weapon system along with the M250, a version of which is set to replace the Army’s M249 squad automatic weapon as part of the service’s Next-Generation Squad Weapon program.

According to Tuesday’s announcement, the system can carry 200 rounds of ammunition and the 53-pound RCWS. It can take off and land vertically, lending itself to operation in austere forward locations.

“Sensor information and fire-control data are combined into a unified targeting solution, giving the operator a continuous operational picture and supporting a rapid sensor-to-shooter cycle,” the companies said.

An internal combustion engine can accept a variety of jet fuels, allowing the drone to be reused in the field, per the Janes report. It’s designed, according to the company, to accompany tactical units “with limited manpower and support requirements.”

While it’s previously been reported that the system incorporates artificial intelligence to automate components of tracking and detection, the companies emphasized its human-in-the-loop fire control system, allowing human operators to make engagement and fire decisions while receiving imagery and tracking data from the Fire Storm 250’s onboard sensors.

“FIRE STORM 250 brings together the most advanced technologies in the world,” Sali Okanin, Israel General Manager for SIG SAUER, said in an announcement. “We’re proud of the new SIG SAUER M250, which is combat-proven technology. It is a belt-fed platform with greater range than legacy systems and weight savings that not only provide squad-level benefits but also make drone capabilities possible.”

Sig Sauer executives told Military Times earlier this month that fielding for the M250 is expected to begin in the first half of next year. While the Army’s version of the weapon is chambered in Sig Sauer’s internally developed 6.8X51mm ammo, the Israel Defense Forces began using a 7.62X51mm variant in 2025. The Fire Storm 250 reportedly can carry either.

The team attempted to return fire as they pulled back from a harrowing effort to target a cartel leader. Fajardo, then early into his military career, felt his adrenaline surge as he realized the team had been unsuccessful: A bullet had torn through the flesh of his friend.

Over a decade later, with the early autumn sun sinking over Panamanian base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, the 47-year-old, now a first sergeant, recounted the ordeal. His friend survived, but the horror changed Fajardo’s life.

The brush with death, he said, fueled him to learn as much as he could, militarily, and eventually led him to become an instructor at the U.S. Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama.

The class, offered for decades in the Central American nation before it was shuttered in 1999, has resumed in partnership between U.S. and Panamanian forces, with Panamanian service members teaching and attending the 18-day course.

As Panama’s troops have trained, lived — and in some cases, fought — in such environments, they are largely seen by U.S. personnel as the ultimate masters of the terrain.

Lt. Col. Andrew Eagen, who heads the U.S. Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, said that as U.S. forces developed the course, they became quickly attuned to the deft tactics their Panamanian counterparts had developed for survival.

“They are the experts of this environment. We will never catch up,” he told Military Times in a mosquito-riddled interview at the jungle school.

“This does not exist in the continental United States,” he said, gesturing to the lush canopy, which was twinkling with the day’s last glimmers of sun and abuzz with the evening hum of jungle creatures. “We do not have an exposure to it. They do, and they have incredible techniques and an incredible level of comfort that the average American [does not].”

Fajardo is one of nine Panamanian instructors — from three branches of the country’s armed forces — who teach at the reestablished school.

The instructors assist in some parts of the course, but lead in areas where students learn about jungle survival, Eagen said.

In addition to the leading group, more than 10 Panamanian service members attended the course in which Military Times took part, according to Eagen.

Throughout each exercise, Panamanian troops sat interspersed with U.S. personnel and were placed in squads with a Spanish-speaking U.S. participant for course assignments.

Though the language barrier admittedly made some tactical movements difficult, U.S. personnel seemingly learned just from observing their Panamanian counterparts.

During one practical exercise, one squad had to hide in the jungle, cover their tracks to erase any disturbance to the foliage, and position themselves so they would be alerted to any incoming intruders.

The other squad’s job was to hunt down the hiding squad using tracking clues, the activity forming a tense game of tactical hide-and-seek.

The hunters ultimately won, thanks to one Panamanian squadmate who spotted a tiny vine that appeared slightly too parallel to the ground.

One rule of the jungle? Nothing is a straight line. The Panamanian student correctly identified the trailing plant, hovering inches above the muddy ground, as a hasty trip wire. Made using a vine and a piece of trash, it would have alerted the hiding squad to the hunters’ presence.

When the two groups gathered to discuss the interaction, the lanewalker found that the Panamanian student in the other squad had set up the tripwire; a particularly impressive development, considering a tripwire class was scheduled for later in the day.

During that class, an American instructor showed students how to create different forms of tripwires that could act as early warning systems. Some set off rattling cans. Others used fauna.

Before letting students practice, the instructor shared stories from Panamanian cadres who once operated in the Darién Gap, a roadless land bridge of brutally dense, remote jungle that spans 60-plus miles between Panama and Colombia and has been notoriously rife with human and drug trafficking.

Trip wires there are not historical relics of warfare from decades ago, the instructor said. Cartel members are using them now.

Several instructors, including Fajardo, have attended Panama’s own jungle school, called Panajungla.

Fajardo shook his head and shivered as he recounted the intense course in which participants were forced to survive on their own in the Teribe region of Panama’s Bocas del Toro province.

Students of the Panamanian course must shop at the “supermarket de la selva” — the jungle supermarket — to eat, using machetes to prepare or kill any nourishment they can find, Fajardo said.

Fajardo’s prized jungle delicacy is ñame, a tropical root vegetable similar to a yam. He also appreciates the taste of grubs, he said, which he likens to butter.

Tucked neatly into each Panamanian instructor’s backpack, razor-sharp machetes sat nestled in intricately carved leather coverings.

The U.S. Army teaches machete training in its jungle school, but some Panamanian instructors have attended a separate, more intensive course on using the long, daunting blade. It can clear brush, help prepare food, carve shelter and even help start a fire.

To Fajardo, it is the single most important tool for survival in the jungle. And with a smile, he jokingly referred to the machete as “mi esposa,” or my wife, in English.

To date, the U.S. Army is developing the course to dedicate at least 20 of its 120 spots to partner forces and at least 15 to Panamanians.

Though no other countries have sent soldiers yet, Eagen is confident that the school is close to having Colombian students join.

The U.S. has partnered with Colombia’s Lancero course, which is similar to Ranger School, and all three countries exchange information. Panama supports hosting Colombian forces, Eagen added, as “they have a direct relationship with the country.

“They have a lot of shared bilat right there at the Darién,” Eagen said, “so both Panamanian leaders and Colombian leaders want them to be first.”

Panama’s expertise in navigating such unforgiving terrain, meanwhile, has also prompted other countries, like Costa Rica and Brazil, to express interest in the course, Eagen said.

Other jungle courses worldwide have so far informed the new U.S. Army jungle school’s curriculum, and Eagen said the Army is designing a scenario construct for the school using threat characteristics seen by Panamanian service members.

And while Panamanian forces often confront small-team drug trafficking operations attempting to establish supply lines, Eagen was clear that the Army endeavored to replicate a potential combat environment, not the country’s security situation.

“That is not the premise of us being in Panama,” he said. “We try to make sure there are clear boundaries of understanding for the students that this is about the skills required of the environment, not about the situation in Panama.”

Though public sentiment between the countries has ebbed and flowed in the decades that followed Panama’s 1994 formal abolishment of its standing army — several years after a U.S. military invasion ousted military dictator Manuel Noriega — those tensions were absent from interactions Military Times observed among the service members during the course.

Eagen said the U.S. is mindful of the pride Panamanians take in their nation’s sovereignty. The Army, he added, has been purposeful in approaching the course’s renewed partnership with an emphasis on learning from — rather than simply teaching — its Panamanian counterparts.

In an unusually strongly worded statement, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the spiritual care of Catholic members of the U.S. armed forces, raised a series of objections to the unprecedented plan to broadcast the execution of Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree.

Broglio said he presided at the funeral of one of Hasan’s victims, and lamented the shooting. But the Ohio-born archbishop asked whether the U.S. wanted to “imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries.”

“I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church,” Broglio said.

U.S. Army regulations do allow for soldiers to request religious exemptions or accommodations, and the Army has yet to say how it intends to select members of the firing squad.

Questions about the effect on young viewers

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to livestream the shooting last week, triggering a backlash among Republicans in Congress, religious leaders and international observers. U.S. President Donald Trump approved Hasan’s execution by firing squad but has said he is still deciding whether to allow the livestreaming to proceed.

The event would be extraordinary, even for a country that has long employed capital punishment. A government execution has never been broadcast or livestreamed, according to death penalty experts, and the U.S. military has not executed anyone by firing squad since 1945. Hasan, now 56, requires a wheelchair, having been shot by police during his arrest.

Hegseth said last week he wants U.S. soldiers to execute Hasan at the time, day of the week and location of Hasan’s shooting spree. Hegseth has argued that making the event public will help serve as a deterrent.

Broglio questioned whether the effect of a livestreamed execution on young viewers had been considered. He said the U.S. military had a good reputation and asked if there was “really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheelchair to the whole world.”

Broglio’s statement was issued shortly after he met on Monday in Rome with Pope Leo, who has clashed with Trump and his Pentagon over issues including the Iran war. Leo on Saturday condemned the death penalty, without mentioning the Hasan case specifically.

Vice President JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, has said that if it does ultimately get livestreamed, he would not watch it.

Under the new brand, the Texas-based defense firm debuted Primex, a lightweight wearable meant to provide soldiers with night-vision capabilities and augmented reality so they can “maintain awareness without distraction or cognitive overload.”

For the design, Twenty-Six Defense said it engineered Primex for sustained operational use by equipping it with “the lightest head-borne load and near-neutral center of gravity.”

The company explained Primex uses low-light sensors, thermal imagery, and real-time processing to produce an ultra-low-latency digital perception that enables operators to better interpret the surrounding area even amid challenging environmental conditions.

What separates Primex from other advanced lightweight heads-up display units for operators, according to Twenty-Six Defense, is that its design was built on mature technologies that have already been fielded.

The company said it already produces AN/PSQ-44 Enhanced Night Vision Goggles, which contain features that allow for rapid target acquisition and augment reality to enhance visual clarity.

In August, Ernie Basic, Twenty-Six Defense’s senior director of research and development, explained how his company was developing equipment for the Soldier Borne Mission Command, a project to deliver augmented reality wearables to soldiers.

He said the technology combines fighter-pilot displays with night-vision systems, so soldiers get “the full operational picture.”

“You are not only seeing what is in front of you. You can leverage a feed coming from a drone or from other assets,” he said. “You can start seeing what is going on behind a house or another structure, cue a squad to a different location, and continuously update them.”

In addition to Primex, Twenty-Six Defense showcased defensive weapons and equipment like the XM1168 mobile 120mm mortar system, Autonomous Relocatable Surveillance Tower and SkyStriker Block 4E.

During the ceremony, 10 warrant officers were formally introduced as 390A robotics technicians. They will now serve as subject-matter experts on all aspects of using robotic and autonomous systems, including programming, building and repairing them, plus integrating them into combat.

The 390A inauguration is the result of a lengthy process that has been in the works since 2024, when U.S. Army Special Operations Command announced its aim to train experts in using autonomous systems.

The Army deemed it necessary to introduce robotics as a separate specialization to avoid overburdening special warfare operators with having to master an additional, highly complex skill set, in addition to their existing knowledge.

“What we’ve determined is it cannot be an additional task or an additional hat for someone on the ODA,” Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jerry Brown, command chief warrant officer for 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), said in a release, adding that the new specialists will be able to leverage their specific field of knowledge within robotics to help the force as a whole.

The new 390A technicians will be assigned to tactical formations at the brigade and group level. As experts in autonomous warfare, they will advise commanders on how best to deploy autonomous systems during operations.

They will also be required to think quickly in the field to instantly propose solutions to any problems that may arise with robotics in the field, and to use their expertise to come up with innovative ways of using drones to reach objectives.

To prepare them for this role, 390A candidates are required to complete a 19-week course, where they must build drones from scratch that do not require GPS or radio frequencies to navigate.

The Army stated in a release that robotic systems assembled during the course will rely primarily on artificial intelligence and machine learning to navigate to targets.

Fiber optic cables also provide a way for drones to reach targets while being invulnerable to external signal interference, such as jamming. Known as “tethered drones,” cable-linked unmanned aircraft systems can use artificial intelligence for targeting and navigation while having a direct physical connection to their operator.

At the time of publication, the Army had not responded to questions about whether 390A candidates would be learning to build and field tethered drones.

“The Army is implementing changes in force structures, adding a multi-domain task force equipped with autonomous long-range fires,” Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, said in a statement.

“These technical experts will help command teams understand integration across the force. We are scaling this across the Army.”

The defense giant unveiled the PAC-3 Edge this Friday and debuted it at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., today.

“This missile is capable of being launched from the traditional M903 launcher. It’s capable of being launched from the containerized launchers that are being sought after domestically and internationally, as well as our HIMARS FLEX, which is the offense and defense configuration of our traditional HIMARS vehicle,” Jason Reynolds, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Integrated Air and Missile Defense, told Defense News.

Lockheed in January announced a seven-year framework agreement to increase annual PAC-3 interceptor production from approximately 600 to 2,000.

Designed to defend against hypersonic and advanced missile threats, the unveiling of the PAC-3 Edge comes as the U.S. military’s reliance on costly interceptors against cheap munitions, particularly those deployed by Iran during Operation Epic Fury, has come under increased scrutiny over the past eight months.

The new PAC-3 Edge missile builds on the foundations of the PAC-3 MSE, Lockheed’s baseline missile, and pushes its abilities farther.

The Edge system is longer and features a larger diameter, increasing its range.

“It also goes higher in altitude and has more agility. It has attitude control motors, which are located near the front of the missile and basically divert the missile in flight,” Reynolds explained. “This has additional attitude control motors that give it additional agility.”

While the PAC-3 MSE uses a two-pulse solid rocket motor to speedily approach moving targets, the new system has multi-pulse motor designed by Northrop Grumman.

“It has a third pulse to the motor, so that means the motor will fire three times during its flight, giving it additional agility to kill the target,” Reynolds said.

The weapon is designed not only for unprecedented maneuverability but to be easily integrated with both present and future missile defense networks. It is compatible with Northrop’s Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, a command-and-control network the Army uses to mesh air and missile defense sensors into a central hub.

The company intends to begin testing the PAC-3 Edge in 2027 and have it ready to deploy by 2031, although Lockheed aims to have it ready earlier, Reynolds added.

“The U.S. Army’s timeline is 2031. We, Lockheed Martin, are trying to pull that in and deliver this capability sooner, so around the turn of the decade,” he said.

The Nomad 100 fast pack fits four aircraft, mission-command software, power, communications and sustainment equipment inside one standard 20-foot shipping container, the company said in a release.

In its planned configuration, two of the aircraft can be mission ready in under 15 minutes, and the other two available within four to six hours, according to Sikorsky.

The system is designed to launch without a runway from sites such as naval vessels, tactical vehicle staging areas and improvised landing zones. After a mission, crews can repack the container, load it onto a compatible vehicle and move it to a new site.

Depending on how a customer configures it, the kit could support intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting missions, as well as light attack and contested logistics, the company said.

Sikorsky said the U.S. military needs to rapidly expand its inventory of autonomous aircraft with compact systems that can be deployed, sustained and moved quickly in contested environments.

“By packaging aircraft, mission command, communications, power and sustainment into a single containerized system, we are making it easier to move, employ and reposition VTOL UAS capability with urgency and flexibility,” Rich Benton, Sikorsky’s vice president and general manager, said in the release.

The Nomad 100 has an 18-foot wingspan and is a Group 3 drone under the Defense Department’s classification system. It uses Sikorsky’s rotor blown wing design, which pairs a helicopter’s vertical lift and hover with the speed, range and endurance of a fixed-wing aircraft, and it flies with the company’s MATRIX autonomy software.

The company has not released the Nomad 100’s payload, range or endurance.

Sikorsky developed the aircraft with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, under its Early VTOL Aircraft Demonstration program, known as EVADE.

In July, Sikorsky said it had finished initial ground and flight testing of the Nomad 100 and would next put the drone through an intensive flight test campaign at a government facility. The company said DARPA chose MATRIX as the autonomy system for all five aircraft in the EVADE program.

Sikorsky introduced the Nomad family in October 2025, after an extended flight test of a smaller prototype, the Nomad 50, with a 10.3-foot wingspan.

Monday’s release did not say whether a fast pack has been built, or whether any military service has ordered or is evaluating one.

On March 27, when a missile hit Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia, Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Spc. Nicholas Cabo and Sgt. Xavier Jones, all with the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division Artillery, sprang into action.

A 550-pound ballistic missile exploded yards from a bunker on base, filling it with dust and debris.

“We’re sitting there talking, and then all of a sudden, we didn’t hear anything, no sound at all. Everything went black, so we were hit,” Mitchell said in a recent release.

While expecting just another missile warning, the soldiers were thrown from their position and slammed against the opposing interior wall, forcing all three to lose consciousness. They had their initial medical evaluation later that day at the Role 2 Medical Facility on base.

“Woke up, checked on them. They were good. At that time, we heard screams from the opposite side of the bunker. Two Soldiers, I’m not too sure who they were, who had significant injuries; ran over there, applied tourniquets, T Triple C (Tactical Combat Casualty Care), everything,” Mitchell recounted.

Mitchell, Cabo and Jones applied a tourniquet to a severely wounded soldier, treated another with a neck injury and helped keep a disoriented soldier safe until it was safe to evacuate the bunker, per the release.

Despite their own injuries, the trio continued to assist others, carrying others out to an ambulance and helping a soldier whose leg was severely damaged, speculating that the soldier could have lost their life if not for the group.

Capt. Tyler Ritter, commander of 6-56 ADAR, 1st Cav. DIVARTY, received messages from the injured soldier saying, “Sir, your Soldiers saved my life. I thank God every day that these gentlemen survived. Their actions brought great credit upon the 6-56 Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division and III Armored Corps. These Soldiers are my heroes. May God bless them.”

Mitchell, Cabo and Jones’ service, described as the “ultimate description of what we mean when we talk about warfighting, readiness, grit and taking care of our Soldiers,” earned them each a Purple Heart during an Oct. 1 ceremony at the III Armored Corps headquarters building at Fort Hood, Texas.

“So honestly, it’s kind of cool,” Jones said in the release. “I don’t think any of us was like going for a Purple Heart because it actually sucked. Like that situation was horrible … When I saw it on my STP (Soldier Talent Profile), I was like, man, I never would have thought I would have got a Purple Heart. I never thought I was going to see anything like we saw.”

Demand for exquisite munitions has skyrocketed as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine — and an ever-tense Indo-Pacific — continue to redefine stockpile demand.

So, too, has there developed an insatiable market for cheap systems and interceptors capable of balancing scales that, in regions like the Middle East, have been encumbered by cost-per-kill ratios as lopsided as 114-1 — in the case of a PAC-3 interceptor versus a Shahed-136 drone.

If that weren’t enough to consider, there’s the lightning-quick speed of AI integration and unmanned systems into formations, and the reality of having to rethink a simple concept — hiding — that was seldom given a second thought due to the total air superiority of the Global War on Terror.

Such frenzied developments, meanwhile, come against a backdrop of new Pentagon policy that aims to eliminate the antiquated red tape of the acquisition process and speed development to the battlefield.

A daunting cluster of problems to solve, no doubt. But if encountering such a catalog of to-dos is stress-inducing, one would not know it when speaking to U.S. Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal, who finds himself at the center of many of these discussions.

From his office and out on the trail, Obadal oversees the service’s business operations, acquisition strategy, and manpower and personnel systems, among myriad other duties.

Obadal assumed the position after a stint in the private sector, which followed a military career that included time as a Special Operations officer, the status of Master Army Aviator and qualifications in nine different aircraft.

Obadal spoke to Military Times about how he and the Army are approaching these seismic shifts in warfighting philosophy, and how this year’s AUSA exposition reflects the blistering pace of innovation that catalyzes them.

There are many examples of individuals without military experience working in consequential positions within the Pentagon. You are not one. How has your military experience shaped how you approach this role?

What I try very hard to do is not let my experience drive the way I do things. I want it to inform the way I do things, whether that’s my experience working with the interagency and seeing how other executive branch agencies operate, my experience in the conventional military or in other parts of the military, doing joint work, working with partners and allies or going out into corporate America.

I don’t want any one of those things to be the driver of how I make decisions and conduct myself in the business of the Army, but I do want all of it to come together and inform it.

So, it’s certainly very helpful for me when I talk to soldiers or when I look at programs or weapon systems.

The biggest thing it helps me with is understanding that there’s no single weapon system that operates by itself anywhere. They are all part of a joint force, and within that, you have a maneuver Army that is reliant — tanks are reliant on infantry, infantry is reliant on fires, all of it is reliant on aviation, medical and logistics.

All those components work together as a chain, and you have to make sure every link in the chain is as strong as possible.

That’s one of the biggest things that I take away from being in the military: an understanding that all of these things have to work in synergy, and there are no easy solutions.

We continue to watch the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran unfold. What do you expect to see at an event like AUSA that reflects what America has learned from them?

If you walk around the hall at AUSA, it’ll give you a good indication of the Army’s priorities. Our priorities are reflected in what we’re procuring.

Going back several years, when we were in the Middle East and we first saw adversary drones — counter-drone systems became a really important topic. It kind of started in the special operations and then expanded into the larger Army.

Ukraine has not just reinforced that counter-UAS is a critical part of operations today; it’s cemented it.

So, if you walk around AUSA, you’re going to see an immense number of not only drones but also counter-UAS. That’s a reflection of the procurement and the budget, not just in the Army but in the Pentagon.

That’s number one. Number two is software. Being able to see, sense and integrate to understand what your positional advantage is, and understand the adversary and their vulnerabilities.

That’s just military operations, but today it’s looking at how we apply the best sensors and best software to bring all of that together to give decision advantage to our commanders.

The third one is fires, and when you look at current conflicts, the importance of long-range precision fires is highlighted.

So, what you’ll also see at the conference is a reflection of our investment portfolio in our magazine depth, but also the variety of munitions.

Expanding out the optionality that commanders have beyond just one or two exquisite munitions, with everything from longer-range artillery, one-way attack and loitering munitions, up into our higher-end missiles.

All of those represent our fires portfolio, but that’s just for offensive operations. When we get into the defensive side, we’ll be seeing everything from ballistic missiles down to Group One drones.

If you look at those three areas — drones and counter-UAS; software and sensors; and the fires portfolio — and were to roll back the clock to AUSA 10 years ago, the difference is remarkable.

At that time, the focus was very vehicle-centric, armor-centric, pieces of kit for individual soldiers. All of those things are important and are continuing to advance, but these newer investment areas represent a noticeable shift in warfare.

These conflicts are obviously influencing the speed of acquisition. But that process includes an emphasis on both cost-friendly and exquisite munition stockpiles. What is the best balance to ensure success?

The conflicts are definitely influencing and accelerating the way the Army — and certainly the broader Department — are innovating, prototyping, procuring and then fielding different capabilities.

If you were to roll back a decade or even less, you would see very traditional models that go from experimentation into writing an initial requirement document, then into prototyping, then selection, then low-rate production and then finally into fielding and high-rate production.

That’s years long. That process is very deliberate, and it built our military to where it is today, which is still the most dominant, but with a number of vulnerabilities because of technical innovation in the commercial market that adversaries are able to take advantage of.

So, where can we compress this cycle and get it more into a process where we ask the commercial industry to experiment on their dime?

A lot of this has to do with private capital being interested in the defense market. They’re making a bet that they can get through some of the experimentation, and then we can follow on with prototyping and quickly get into low-rate and high-rate production before fielding.

Fielding then allows us to get immediate feedback that goes back into industry. That is essentially what had to happen in Ukraine because it’s existential to them.

So, when we say wartime footing, Ukraine is on the ultimate wartime footing, and there are lessons to draw from there. What are the unnecessary steps in the acquisition process? Where can you smartly accept risk?

Probably one of the biggest drivers of speeding things up is acknowledging that we’re willing to accept risk. We know that if we get a tighter innovation cycle, we’re accepting more risk on the battlefield, but we’re also driving down risk on the battlefield because we’re getting it to them much sooner.

So, then we get into how that translates to fires. Exquisite versus low cost. It’s a balance, or a high-low mix, essentially, where we have to have both offensive and defensive exquisite weapons.

We have to have certain stockpiles to be able to counter the exquisite weapons of our adversaries and have our own effects. Then you get into mass, which comes when we start going beyond the first few days of a conflict, and we’re in protraction. We have to have affordable mass. The cost curve needs to come back in our favor.

While balancing the above, how much of a difference has the surge in domestic manufacturing made in having these pre-positioned elements assisting efforts?

A massive difference.

The Infantry Squad Vehicle is a perfect example. That’s a Chevy Colorado chassis; the drivetrain and suspension are a little different, but it’s nothing unusual.

Essentially, it then goes to a detailer that puts the military-specific equipment on top of it. It’s everything that we need it to be.

As with anything, it has its vulnerabilities. We’re sacrificing heavy armor and survivability, which we needed throughout the GWOT years, for mobility, transportability and ease of repair.

But using this model also allows us to sustain it far more easily because so many of the components are commercial.

It especially matters when you get into keeping the ISV — or domestically made equipment — in the decades ahead and needing improvements over the years. With the ISV, as Chevy makes improvements to its chassis and drivetrain, that immediately feeds back into the production line of ISVs.

So, we’re now getting upgrades that are just byproducts of the commercial market.

With acquisition, there’s a major emphasis on AI. What are you discussing with tech companies to ensure the human-in-the-loop element equates to maintaining final say despite the speed of the tech?

Every company that deals with this emerging technology and the military is of the same mindset, which is that the human-in-the-loop factor has to be the default.

There are workflows and cycles that human commanders can say, “I need this to run in the background, and I don’t need to see it or be on it.” But when it comes to kinetic kill chains and making decisions on the battlefield, the workflows that enable commanders have to have very hard stops.

It’s not just a commander saying yes or no. It’s far more complicated and nuanced. It’s presenting options based on a tremendous amount of computing analysis and saying, “Here are all the courses of action based on the priorities that you gave, based on the environmental factors that the agents have been able to ingest and all of the long-term planning that goes into it.

That allows the commanders to then take highly complex tasks like mission planning and distill it down into areas where they can consume it more easily, and then apply what only humans can do, which is context and reason.

That context and reason part is what the tech companies that work with us are very focused on enabling, as opposed to taking over entire workflows.

Autonomy is important, really, in three areas when it comes to warfighting.

Think about combat breaching. That’s one of the most dangerous things we ask a human to do: to breach a linear minefield or barrier. If we can automate that, that removes something inherently dangerous.

The second is highly complex, like command and control. How do you distill what would take human staff officers hours or days into seconds, and give a commander not only several options, but the analysis behind it and the confidence in the product being presented?

The third is the ability to remove repetitive and mundane things human soldiers are doing. Resupplying via trucks, for instance. If we can automate that, we are removing that task from our logistics soldiers and allowing them to apply their talents to solving real problems with a clear vision and mindset.

Beyond weapon systems, something as simple as staging — or hiding — equipment or personnel requires a vastly different strategy than even 10 years ago. How does something as simple as saying, “How do we hide this helo?” impact your conversations with industry?

It’s not something that we’ve had to truly consider as an Army for 40 or 50 years because we were guaranteed air superiority.

We don’t have air superiority at this point because of long-range fires and precision targeting from space.

So, you go back to dispersion, displacement of assets and disaggregation of large headquarters. As you remember from recent decades, a division headquarters would be a massive entity with satellite dishes and other assets in the open. Those days are gone.

We now have to consider how we bring in technology from the companies to allow us to displace 10-foot satellite dishes and 20 miles of wire, and actually have small-scale edge compute and transport systems that can disaggregate everyone. That’s incredibly important.

Certainly, camouflage comes into play. Other classified capabilities come into play as well, and that’s all just the visible element. Then you get into electronic warfare and the ability to monitor.

So, how do you disaggregate some of that?

Those are all things that we are actively moving — and coming back to — in a more modern stance.