Even more than most federal departments in the first six months of the second Trump presidency, the Department of the Army is undergoing big changes. Putting aside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s directive at the top of May for sweeping Army modernization, a three-star general in the service said it’s rethinking its requirements documentation, which could have big impacts for the speed of technology development and usage.
Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich, deputy chief of staff G-8, said the Army is tapping into automated tools in order to review existing requirements paperwork and evaluate their essentialness. Gingrich made his remarks at a Washington event earlier this spring, where he also revealed several important updates about the status of the Army’s command and control systems and how the continuing resolution is affecting its budget. We break it all down below.
To hear the very latest on the Army’s budget allocation and tech initiatives, be sure to attend the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Army Summit on June 18. This all-day, expertly programmed GovCon networking event will feature Lt. Gen. Gingrich as a keynote speaker, alongside other notable guests such as the DOD component’s Chief Information Officer Leonel Garciga. Register now!
What Are Requirements in Military?
When the U.S. military discovers it needs a certain capability, it codifies this need into a requirement document. These documents then are submitted to contractors either in-house or externally who can work on building what’s been outlined. The service already uses the Army Requirements Oversight Council, dubbed AROC, to review such statements, but now, Gingrich said, they’ve established the Continuous Objectives Requirements Analysis, or CORA, to go back and root through old requirements to see if they’re a good use of funds.
“What we are doing is we are actually using some automated tools to go back and take a look and see what’s still relevant with all these requirements documents,” Gingrich laid out, according to Army Times. “Often, old requirements are still associated with some operations and sustainment funding, which can be allocated elsewhere.”
What Are the Downsides of Poorly Conceived Requirements?
Requirements that haven’t been thought through can lead to stovepiping, or isolated creations that don’t talk well to one another. They can also result in wasted money that Army Times estimates can and has amounted to billions.
The Future of Army Command and Control Systems
An effective, unified command and control network is “is incredibly important, probably [the] number one priority for the United States Army for modernization,” Gingrich said in March, per DefenseScoop. Not realizing that would mean failing to achieve warfighting effectiveness writ large.
“Now what we are working on is, how do we link this all together, how do we transport that data to the point of need, how do we do it in a DDIL environment if we are disconnected, but then re-sync at that point, so that we can marshal national and reach-back capabilities all the way to the tactical edge?” Gingrich posited.
Next-generation C2
One current use of the CORA-powered requirement assessments that Gingrich is excited about is making sure that no money is going toward legacy C2 systems and if there is, divesting from them and turning all money and attention toward the future-focused C2 efforts embodied by the Next Generation Command and Control initiative, dubbed NGC2, a total reimagining of its decision-making apparatus.
Impacts of Continuing Resolution on Army Activities
NGC2 builds upon the Army’s Transformation in Contact—or TiC—project, a movement to greatly reduce the time spent languishing in research and development for Army tech and propel it into the testing phase in various domains. The second installment of TiC is being rolled out this year, despite the fact that a year-long continuing resolution is in place while lawmakers try to agree on a more concrete budget. Gingrich believes—per Breaking Defense—that this will undoubtedly affect how much the Army is able to get done. But maybe not by as much as you’d think.
“Is it going to have a dramatic impact? In my opinion, no,” he added. “And why is that? Because we have worked with [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] OSD, and we really appreciate Congress and the allocation of replenishment funding.”
Be sure to catch Lt. Gen. Gingrich when he keynotes the 2025 Army Summit on June 18. The GovCon conference, the first of POC’s summer-long service branch series, will include many distinguished speakers from across industry, DOD and the Army enterprise. Save your spot today!
