Kudos and Concerns over SecDef Hegseth’s Army Acquisition Transformation Vision

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s memo of this 30 April on Army Transformation and Acquisition Reform is setting into motion huge changes across the service’s portfolio. Of importance to MS&T will be the concurrent transformational activities in the Army’s learning (training and education) enterprise.

An Initial Round of Applause

As an American tax-payer I commend Mr. Hegseth’s direction to the Army Secretary to “eliminate wasteful spending,” “reform the acquisition process” and take other actions to transition the service into a more effective and efficient warfighting organization.

Beyond the mechanics of acquisition, the secretary is also enabling the Trump administration to synchronize the national defense strategy to investments in training readiness. In one well-timed move, Hegseth directs the Army to increase its forward presence in the Inda-Pacific by expanding pre-positioned stocks, rotational deployments, and exercises with allies and partners to enhance strategic access, basing, and overflight. The focus on exercises maintains the uptick in US combined training (with allies and partners) activities MS&T continues to report on in the region.

Yet, the senior department civilian is missing the mark on how to achieve some overdue and well-intentioned outcomes in his efforts to gain top-to-bottom change through the active and reserve, and National Guard components. These observations are not tied to vested and parochial interests, but rather follow Halldale’ Group’s 40-year tradition to provide unbiased and apolitical comments on developments in defense and adjacent high-risk industries.

Tap the Brakes on Some Reform Goals

In one instance, the secretariat seeks to downsize, consolidate, or close redundant headquarters   through the merger of Army Futures Command (AFC) and Training and Doctrine Command

into one command. AFC has been the service’s one focal point for putting “future” into Army programs and activities. We have watched the efforts of the command’s Synthetic Training Environment cross-functional team help advance technologies for terrain and other thrusts, with regular returns on investment. Any effort by the Army to consolidate the commands should retain and, more important, promote the service’s ability to advance technology in and beyond simulation and training.

Additional service command structure change may not stop there. While not part of the 30 April memo, there are concurrent staffing discussions underway to reduce the 13 Army Program Executive Offices to nine. One of many options to achieve 9 PEOs would eliminate PEO STRI.

The command’s elimination would have wide-ranging implications beyond a loss of military and civilian jobs for the Orlando-based command. PEO STRI has a $2.7 billion annual budget, under which the command acquires and manages the modeling, simulation, and instrumentation capabilities to support training programs for the Army’s, and, in some cases, US allies’ and partners’, worldwide activities. Further, we have watched PEO STRI play an outsize role in central Florida’s M&S community – with its integration into the expanding Team Orlando and its efforts to develop appropriate relationships and maintain a dialogue with the area’s burgeoning industrial community. Secretary Hegseth would be well advised to preserve PEO STRI’s capabilities and presence in the Central Florida S&T community during any possible shakeup of the Army-wide PEO structure.

Army Transformation and Reform Have our Attention

We’re about four months into the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline and quickly generate reform and change in federal government processes and programs. The Hegseth memo of this 30 April on Army transformation and acquisition reform may be the secretary’s initial effort to compel similar change across the broader department. MS&T will be monitoring and commenting on the Army’s efforts to meet the secretary’s wide-ranging direction in his 30 April memorandum as they pertain to the service’s training and education programs.