McAleese and Associates, a consulting firm, released a report on key takeaways from a discussion hosted by the Center for a New American Security with Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy and Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley of Army Futures Command on the service’s multidomain operations concept and modernization plans.
Wesley discussed the development of the multidomain operations concept in response to the efforts by Russia and China to invest in “multiple layers of standoff†and expand the competition space, Jim McAleese, founder and principal at McAleese & Associates and a 2019 Wash100 winner, wrote in the report.
To counter that standoff, he said the U.S. needs to broaden the competitive space, penetrate that space by investing in long-range precision fires and disintegrating multiple layers of adversary systems.
Wesley noted that the industry now outspends the military branch in research and development and cited the need for the Army to engage with the private sector and be decisive on both program trades and investments.
McCarthy said the Army leadership assessed every program through a “night court†and identified over $30B in savings over five years, which will be used to fund the service’s six modernization priorities. He also mentioned the National Defense Strategy, the Army’s plan to divest legacy systems and the service’s prototyping and experimentation work in artificial intelligence and robotics.
