Douglas A. Macgregor's Blog, page 9

The vibes of AUSA 2025: Change, and drones, in the air

AUSA 2025 is in the books, and one thing seems clear: Change is coming for the US Army.

In the above video, Editor-in-Chief Aaron Mehta and Land Warfare Reporter Carley Welch walk you through some of the key themes from the show.

Make sure to check out our AUSA landing page for all our stories, and our multimedia page for daily video roundups and photos from the conference.

AUSA Day 3: How much is that doggy in the AMPV? [PHOTOS]

AUSA 2025 — Defense trade shows don’t only peddle things that go boom. Between the massive displays of traditional firepower sit microwave weapons, artificially intelligence-powered shooting targets and even mechanical versions of man’s best friend.

On the last day of America’s largest annual defense exposition, companies packed up their wares with the hope that the Army’s push for nontraditional acquisition will lead to new contracts. Service officials pointed to their homeland defense and space missions as areas of particular growth ahead, hinting that there’s more to come on acquisition reform.

Check out all of our pictures and videos from AUSA 2025, and find our full coverage of the show here.

Epirus’s Leonidas high-powered microwave counter-drone system sits atop of a General Dynamics land vehicle. (Michael Marrow/Breaking Defense)A four-legged attendee checks whether the infantry carrier variant of BAE Systems’ Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle can also carry canines. (Sydney Freedberg/Breaking Defense)Honeywell showcases a hybrid quadcopter/fixed-wing drone on the show floor. (Aaron Mehta/Breaking Defense)RTX displays its missiles in front of a Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor. (Aaron Mehta/Breaking Defense)It wouldn’t be a defense trade show in 2025 without a robot dog on hand. (Aaron Mehta/Breaking Defense)Marathon Targets says soldiers can use its “AI-driven, armored, autonomous robotic humanoids” for realistic target practice before they reach a battlefield. (Aaron Mehta/Breaking Defense)

Air Force reverses course on Integrated Capabilities Command

WASHINGTON — The Air Force announced today it is reversing plans to create a brand new major command dedicated to revolutionizing service technology acquisition, opting instead to create a new position under an existing apparatus to take on the intended role.

Last year, Air Force officials under the Biden administration revealed plans to set up a new organization known as Integrated Capabilities Command (ICC), one of several key initiatives under a sweeping overhaul dubbed “reoptimization.” A year ago a provisional version of the ICC was established, beginning work as the chief organization overseeing the service’s requirements for buying weapon systems.  

But instead of establishing the new command, the Air Force will transfer the ICC’s intended functions into an existing structure known as Air Force Futures, also known as A5/7, by April 2026. The service will also create a new Chief Modernization Officer role in the process, which the service’s press release said will lead efforts in the following areas:

Strategy and force designMission integration and mission threadsCapability development and requirementsModernization investment prioritization

“This restructuring will accelerate the delivery of combat power, improve efficiency, and shorten the decision timeline,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a press release published by the service.

An Air Force official told Breaking Defense today that Maj. Gen. Christopher Niemi will lead A5/7 organizational restructuring efforts. Niemi most recently served as the commander of the Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, according to his service biography.

The Air Force paused reoptimization efforts earlier this year, and the decision today to forego the new ICC stems from that review. The fate of other efforts under the sprawling overhaul, which extends to Space Force initiatives as well, remains unclear.

Trump officials for their part haven’t exactly offered a warm reception of reoptimization initiatives. Disagreements within the service over the reoptimization drive also reportedly helped motivate the ousting of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin. Former Air Combat Command chief Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach has since been nominated as Allvin’s replacement.

“I think a lot of the ideas that have been floated around, regardless of where they came from, are important, right?” Meink said in September during a roundtable with reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association conference in Washington, emphasizing a need for readiness and modernization.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not a big believer in the competition side of the house,” Meink continued, apparently alluding to the nomenclature of Biden administration officials who referred to the overhaul as “reoptimizing for great power competition.” Instead, Meink said, “we need to be able to win, period.”

Why artillery still matters on the modern battlefield

Technology is rapidly driving change on the modern battlefield, but artillery still makes a difference. Long-range fire superiority is critical to maintaining an edge in modern conflicts, and meeting this goal with mobile, survivable artillery allows forces to maintain fire superiority on the move. 

We talked with Elbit America President and CEO Luke Savoie about the role of artillery on the modern battlefield and Elbit’s commitment to building artillery in America. 

Air Force shields CCA drone wingman program from effects of government shutdown

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is shielding its nascent drone wingman program from effects of the ongoing government shutdown to ensure the effort can proceed apace, a service official revealed today.

“There are currently no impacts to the Department of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program as a result of the government shutdown,” the official told Breaking Defense in a statement. “Personnel supporting critical test and development activities were identified as excepted and returned from furlough to ensure continuity of operations and avoid any potential delay. The program remains ahead of schedule, and flight testing is proceeding as planned.”

The statement came days after Palmer Luckey, the founder of defense tech firm Anduril, told reporters that the shutdown would “certainly” delay the first flight of the company’s YFQ-44A drone, one of two prototypes under contract for the CCA effort.

Luckey backtracked on those comments in a statement today. 

“Last week I said that the shutdown has already delayed the first flight for our Collaborative Combat Aircraft. What I meant to say is that if the shutdown continues, there could be impacts to our schedule, but we haven’t actually seen that yet,” Luckey said. 

Anduril’s drone was originally expected to fly this summer, but Air Force Secretary Troy Meink recently predicted its maiden flight would take place around the middle of this month. The Air Force did not confirm if that specific timeline is still intact. General Atomics’ YFQ-42A prototype drone bid took flight in August.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc’s CCA on display at AFA 2024. (Valerie Insinna/Breaking Defense)

Ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown that has paralyzed government services across the country, the Defense Department identified several of the Trump administration’s “highest priorities” to protect from the shutdown’s effects, including operations at the US Southern border, the Golden Dome missile defense program and other activities.

The Pentagon said active duty military would continue to report to work, while a “minimum number of civilian employees necessary” were spared from furlough to carry out activities excepted from the shutdown. It’s not clear what other programs the Air Force has moved to safeguard.

Anduril and General Atomics are currently facing off under the first round of the CCA program, where the companies’ drone designs will fly with autonomy software provided by Shield AI and RTX, respectively, as Breaking Defense previously reported.

Service officials maintain they can carry multiple contractors, including new entrants, into production for the first round, while awards for conceptual contracts for the CCA program’s second round are expected within months.

Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command expands homeland defense mission

AUSA 2025 — As part of the US Army’s emerging Western Hemisphere Command, a three-star general said the service’s Space and Missile Defense Command has expanded its purview and is now overseeing a larger portion of the service’s contribution to homeland air and missile defense mission.

“We did grow in responsibility,” SMDC head Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey told Breaking Defense on Tuesday. “The ground-based midcourse defense mission that we traditionally held under NORTHCOM has expanded to air and missile defense holistically” to include defense against other threats, including drones.

That also means SMDC has been given more organizational support. As of this month, the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, which historically supported US Central Command, and the 263rd Army Air and Missile Defense Command have both been assigned to SMDC.

“As we received the two [commands], our role changes from GMD [ground-based midcourse defense] … to AMD [air and missile defense],” Gainey said. “So, in that capacity, we now have all elements of the defense of the homeland … and to help plan and execute missions like the National Capital Region.”

“We inherit that responsibility,” the three-star general added. 

The move comes as part of the Army’s broader plan to stand up a Western Hemisphere Command, which will combine the Army North Command, Army South Command and Force Command (FORSCOM). The Trump administration is also expected to place an enhanced focus on homeland defense in the forthcoming National Defense Strategy, and is pursuing a more comprehensive Golden Dome strategy. 

In the meantime, the Army has also completed its new Air and Missile Defense (AMD) Strategy 2040, though the document is awaiting the blessing of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Secretary Dan Driscosll. 

“It’s right now going through final staffing,” Gainey said. “We expect that to happen in November and be released in November timeframe.”

The revamped strategy, he explained, encompasses lessons from Ukraine and the Middle East, along with a shifting focus on homeland defense, and touches on the ever-growing drone threat. 

“It’s now more of an architecture approach where you have several systems with the ability to sense and engage several different places, because of the way the threat is offering the complexities,” Gainey said. “No longer are you going to be just [going to see] a tactical ballistic missile threat. No longer are you just going to [see] a cruise missile threat. You’re going to be in all of that at one time, so you need to have a system of systems approach as opposed to a specific, isolated system approach.”

Theresa Hitchens contributed to this report from Washington, DC.

Army budget prioritizes counterspace for first time

AUSA 2025 — The Army for the first time has included counterspace capabilities as a top priority in its five-year budget program starting in fiscal 2027 as it moves closer to establishing a new space branch, according to senior officials.

“This year during program budget review, we included counterspace capabilities for the first time in our strategic priority list. Again, that’s the Army prioritizing how important these consequential capabilities are in making sure that they get the requisite resources, a really consequential action,” Col. Pete Atkinson, space division chief at the Army Strategic Operations Directorate, said today during the annual Association of the US Army (AUSA) conference here in Washington, DC.

He stressed that the Army transformation memo signed by Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth in April actually calls out counterspace as one of several “consequential mission areas to accelerate” work on, along with precision long-range fires, air and missile defense capability, cyber, and electronic warfare.

“Calling it counterspace by name, is really important,” Atkinson said.

The Army’s 2024 Space Vision sets two main thrusts for its space activities: integrating space support capabilities — such as satellite communications (SATCOM), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) — across the service and “interdiction” of adversary space capabilities.

“Interdiction is ubiquitous with counterspace. What it’s getting at is counter-satellite communications, counter surveillance and reconnaissance, [and] navigation warfare,” Atkinson said. “How do we protect friendly forces from threats emanating from the air and space domains? It’s really important for the Army. No one service has a monopoly on protection. We have to protect ourselves, and so we work as a team across the Army and the joint force to make sure we have the requisite capabilities.”

Meanwhile, the Army is getting close to standing up its own space branch, Brig. Gen. Donald Brooks, deputy commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), said during the AUSA conference.

“It’s in the approval process,” he said. So far, he added, the plan has received “overwhelming affirmation” from general officers, and … the chief is all about Army Space Operations.”

SMDC last December approved the creation of a new military occupational speciality, or MOS, for enlisted personnel expected to double the number of service space specialists, called “40D Space Operations Specialist.”

Brooks said that MOS “activates in August of ’26.”

Those non-commissioned officers, along with space-specialist officers known as 40 Alphas, will be integrated across the service from brigade combat teams all the way up the chain “to make those warfighting formations more lethal,” he said.

Brooks explained SMDC has “been working over the last several weeks” on a proposal about how the command “will integrate people at the various echelons … not just down into the company level, but up into the Multi-Domain Task Force [and] the headquarters level.”

How radar, counter-UAS, and long-range fires fit into Army transformation

The Army’s “transformation in contact” initiative is top of mind right now, and capabilities such as air defense, counter-UAS and long-range fires are all part of it.

Breaking Defense spoke with Tom Laliberty, president of Raytheon Land & Air Defense Systems, about how capabilities such as LTAMDS radar, counter-UAS and long-range fires are being developed and adapted to meet new threats.

Gen. George says Army’s new Western Hemisphere Command to stand up in weeks

AUSA 2025 — The Army’s Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George announced Tuesday that Western Hemisphere Command, which will combine the Army North Command, Army South Command and Force Command (FORSCOM), will be stood up before the end of the year. 

The move to stand up the new command comes as the service has been making strides to slim down the size of its headquarters and cut the number of four-star general officer billets as part of its larger continuous transformation effort. Earlier this month, the Army combined Futures Command with Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), into one command dubbed the Transformation and Training Command, or T2COM.

“You should expect in […] about the next six to eight weeks, we are looking to do the same thing with Western Hemispheres Command, where we will actually have down at Fort Bragg, will be that four-star headquarters that is responsible for the Western Hemisphere, and Army North and Army South will merge into that headquarters as well, to make sure that we are condensing headquarters,” George said Tuesday at the AUSA conference here in Washington, DC. 

The new command will be “focused on homeland defense and partnerships with Western Hemisphere allies,” per an April memo that first announced the consolidation among other sweeping Pentagon changes.

In his remarks here, George argued that the push to shrink the Army’s headquarters doesn’t just let the service use funds for various priorities, but it also could make it “more efficient,” as leaders would do more with less. 

“Our Army has gotten smaller, and we have grown headquarters. I mean, so we have to reduce the headquarters, and I think we can become more efficient,” George said. 

“We started by saying that we were going to downsize our own [headquarters] by 1,000 people,” he added. “Instead of passing all the people [and] product around, I have been able, in my own office, to look at a smart board and make decisions, not ask for info papers [to] understand what’s happening inside of our formation. So, we need less people to do that.” 

Army North and Army South are currently headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, but in the next six to eight weeks, operations will move to Fort Bragg in North Carolina where FORSCOM is located. However, some elements of the command will stay at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, according to local media. 

Nuclear power might be coming to an Army base near you, and sooner than you think

AUSA 2025 — The Army is weeks away from kicking off a new competition that could see nuclear microreactors deployed to domestic military bases in the next few years.

Dubbed the Janus Program, the joint effort with the Department of Energy intends stand up commercial nuclear microreactors — defined as generating 1-20 megawatts of power — for use on domestic bases. It ties into Executive Order 14299, signed earlier this year by President Donald Trump, which ordered the operation of nuclear-reactors on a domestic military installation by Sept. 30, 2028.

The reactors will be commercially owned and operated, and acquired through a partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit. The news was announced in a joint appearance on Tuesday here at AUSA from Army secretary Daniel Driscoll and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, with the two men describing nuclear energy as the potential future for American energy independence.

“If you think about our engagement in a conflict in the Indo-Pacific, it is not going to be like a war we have had in the last 40 or 50 years,” Driscoll said. “We’re going to need to be able to access power like we have never needed it before.”

Hours later Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, laid the program out for reporters. According to Waksman, a draft request for proposals will go out in the next “few weeks” — although that may be delayed by the government shutdown —  which will lead into an industry day and, following that, a full competition.

“Realistically, it’s gonna take us a few months to do all this. But we are planning to put a draft RFP out within a few weeks, so we’re gonna move very quickly,” Waksman said. “Selecting the sites will take longer, okay? Because that’s gonna be part of the local engagement.”

Earlier this year, DIU announced it had selected eight companies under its Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations (ANPI) effort. However, for Janus, all energy companies, not just those previously cleared by DIU’s older effort, will be welcome to participate. That’s in part because the requirements for Janus are different than ANPI, and in part because in the time since DIU launched that program, some nuclear startups have received investments that allow them to scale in ways they didn’t before.  

The Debate: Should Army Bases Have Nuclear Reactors?

On Army bases, nuclear energy can’t add resilience, just costs and risksNuclear power for military bases will increase our national security

Ultimately, the goal is to downselect to multiple companies, each of whom will be given a specific Army installation (likely in the contiguous 48 states) for which they would build a pair of reactors. Building more than one reactor is important, Waksman said, because it proves to the Army that this isn’t just a company making a one-off R&D effort. Over the course of this phase, he added the hope is that the supply chain can be codified and condensed to find efficiencies for all the companies involved.

As to which of the up-to-nine sites will be selected, Waksman emphasized several times that there is no plan to force a nuclear reactor on a community that doesn’t want it. In turn, communities or states that are more open to nuclear power may have an edge in the decision as to which bases these reactors go to.

“There’s gonna be a long period of local engagement and local discussion. … I think as long as we have that discussion, as long as we have a clear face to the project, and we’re clearly engaging with local communities, then I think there’s going to be a lot of appetite for it,” he said. “Now, if the local communities decide they don’t want it, then we won’t go there. We’re not here to impose on any local communities.”

Even more complex than nuclear reactors for the US is the question of staging such systems abroad. That’s particularly true in Japan, a key hub for the military in the Pacific.

Waksman acknowledged that is a complex situation, noting the Navy has been able to get nuclear-powered subs in other countries through a status of forces agreement. But again, he was emphatic that there is no plan to force these reactors on anyone.

“Some people may or may not be aware that in the 1960s the Army snuck a nuclear reactor into Greenland. They did not tell the Danish, and then [the Danes] got very peeved about it. But that was the 60s, or, as I like to say, before there were laws,” Waksman said. “That’s not how we operate in 2025, so we’re not gonna be sneaking these reactors in anywhere.”

Sharing Power With The Gird

A big part of the reason the Army is pursuing nuclear power for bases goes back to fears about the civilian power grid, which powers domestic facilities. Ultimately, any military base in the US is reliant on the grid around it — sharing its vulnerabilities to sabotage or cyber attacks in a conflict.  

But earlier in the day, Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-NC., told an audience at AUSA that there is a chance to create a win-win situation not just for national security, but for economic growth as well.

“As many of you may or may not know, nuclear capabilities on our military installations are not regulated the same way by the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] as they are off our bases,” Harrigan said. “And so we can ostensibly put small modular reactors, even big nuclear [reactors] on our military bases, and use some of that power to power data centers, for example, that would be immediately adjacent.”

Waksman also brought up the idea of giving power back to the grid, but noted that there are legal and regulatory issues that have to be worked out in Congress, due to overlapping rules about which agencies govern military, civil and commercial nuclear energy.

“It’s just kind of a gray area in law that no one’s ever had to worry about, because we’ve never had Department of Defense-regulated reactors that were trying to sell commercially,” he said. “So that’s why we’ve taken this to Congress. There seems to be a bipartisan appetite to figure this out.”

In terms of cost, Waksman noted that nuclear may end up being slightly more expensive than traditional sources — but that if the cost is close enough, there’s a trade off that is worth it.

“The question is, how much are we willing to pay for resiliency? That’s still an open question,” he said. “I don’t think we need to meet absolute parity with fossil fuels, but I think we need to be reasonably close.”

Sydney Freedberg contributed to this report