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El US Army\u00a0 anunci\u00f3 que estaba considerando 15 ciudades\u00a0 para la sede de un nuevo\u00a0 Comando de \u201cFuturos\u201d, cuya principal finalidad es impulsar\u00a0 el cambio tecnol\u00f3gico en el ej\u00e9rcito. Las posibles ciudades son :\u00a0 Denver\u00a0; Austin, Texas; Bost\u00f3n; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Nueva York; Filadelfia; Raleigh, Carolina del Norte; San Diego; San Francisco; y Seattle.<\/p>\n
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PENTAGON: When\u00a0Army Futures Command\u00a0stands up this summer, it won\u2019t just be a new organization. It\u2019ll embody a new way of organizing \u2014 and reorganizing, and reorganizing again. The goal,\u00a0Army Secretary Mark Esper\u00a0told me in an exclusive interview, is to keep adapting to new challenges in a way that, while alien to the federal government, is common to both frontline Army units and the private sector.<\/p>\n
A Marxist might call this \u201cpermanent revolution.\u201d Esper\u2019s agenda isn\u2019t quite so radical, though: Call it \u201cpermanent evolution.\u201d It\u2019s about getting comfortable with\u00a0change. That\u2019s something Pentagon bureaucracies generally don\u2019t handle well. Organizations created to drive change \u2014 the\u00a0Office of Force Transformation\u00a0under Art Cebrowksi, the\u00a0Strategic Capabilities Office\u00a0under Will Roper \u2014 can make an impact for a time but often wither when they lose their\u00a0original, visionary leader, their\u00a0high-level patron, or both. Organizations that endure often become as hidebound as the old order they replaced. So how can the Army ensure Futures Command succeeds?<\/p>\n
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First do no harm, Esper told me when we sat down in his Pentagon office last week. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to migrate bad practices into Army Future Command,\u201d he said, however time-honored those practices are in the institutional Army. \u201cWe won\u2019t create layer upon layer, you know, the traditional councils of colonels and general officers\u2019 steering committee and this level and that level. It\u2019ll be a much leaner type of organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
But\u00a0org charts aren\u2019t the solution, Esper said: Leadership is. \u201cThe key thing is getting the commander right,\u201d he told me. \u201cPart of what we want to do is make sure the commander can put his touch on that and figure out the best way to optimize this organization. So we have a game plan, we have a developing organizational chart, but at the end of the day the commander and the command will have to learn what is the best way to wire this thing, to operate, and to ensure that it\u2019s effective as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be willing to operate in the grey for some period of time until we find out what works best,\u201d Esper said. \u201cWe experiment, we try, and we learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Army Futures Command will be especially in flux for its first year, between Initial Operational Capability (IOC) this summer and Full Operating Command (FOC) next year. But even after that, Esper said, it needs to keep adapting in a way Army bureaucracies traditionally have not.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a carved in stone type of person. I think you have to remain flexible to react to what happens in the environment,\u201d Esper said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably fair to say, by next summer, we should have worked out a great deal\u2026. And over time, you want to continue to refine and make changes\u2026. so the concrete never really hardens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of my approach and that would be my direction to the commander as well,\u201d Esper said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to remain open to change, you\u2019ve got to remain flexible, you\u2019ve to remain accessible. That is the purpose of this command.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Enter the Matrix<\/strong><\/p>\n How can Army Futures Command stay flexible? Esper draws lessons from the two worlds he\u2019s worked in beside the Army: Capitol Hill and the\u00a0private sector.<\/p>\n \u201cHill offices, committees are generally flat, so you see a lot of efficiency,\u201d said Esper, who\u2019s worked in both the\u00a0House and Senate. \u201cThey can move quickly. You have great access to the boss.\u201d That insight militates against the traditional layers upon layers of federal bureaucracy and Army commands.<\/p>\n Then, Esper continued, \u201cin the private sector, you see a lot of matrixed organizations.\u201d In traditional bureaucratic or, for that matter, military organizations, everyone working in a given unit or activity reports to one boss, who reports to his boss, who reports to another boss, on up the chain. That structure makes who\u2019s in charge very clear but complicates collaboration on projects that cut across these vertical \u201cstovepipes.\u201d By contrast, some\u00a084 percent\u00a0of American workers now belong to matrixed organizations, in which they report to two bosses for different purposes \u2014 say the head of R&D and the regional manager for New York \u2014 and each boss can pull on talent from multiple parts of the company. This eases collaboration at the potential cost of clarity.<\/p>\n What parts of Army Futures Command will be matrixed? While the full org chart isn\u2019t yet final, at least one crucial element of the command will definitely have a dual reporting relationship. The\u00a0Program Executive Officers\u00a0and subordinate Product Managers who actually contract for, develop, and acquire weapons systems will report to the general running Futures Command, but by law they must still report to the civilian\u00a0Service Acquisition Executive. The\u00a0Cross Functional Teamsthe Army has already created to work on its Big Six modernization priorities are also matrixed to a degree, since they bring together representatives from multiple organizations to coordinate their operations under a one or two-star commander.<\/p>\n Smoothly performing matrixed organizations \u201care very comfortable and very practiced in working horizontally and vertically and are very practiced in working amongst changing teams based on the problem in front of you,\u201d Esper said. \u201cI think that\u2019s something we have to become very nimble at.\u201d<\/p>\n But government has tried matrixed organizations before, I argued, with distinctly mixed results. And don\u2019t matrixes confuse the chain of command in a way that\u2019s distinctly uncomfortable for the military?<\/p>\n Not at all, argued Esper, who himself has served in the\u00a0regular Army, National Guard, and Reserve. \u201cIt\u2019s not unusual for Army leaders in a tactical environment to work for more than one commander. We have that all the time. What we do is\u00a0OPCON\u00a0units.\u201d Army units reorganize in the field all the time, what\u2019s called \u201ctask-organization\u201d: For example, a tank battalion that needs to operate in a city may get additional infantry from an infantry battalion. While a transferred unit may still report to its original commander on matters of personnel, equipment, training, and so on \u2014 Administrative Control or ADCON \u2014 it gets its missions and operational orders from whoever has Operational Control, or OPCON.<\/p>\n Army Futures Command needs to show the same kind of flexibility, Esper argued. \u201cYou always have some folks that wrestle with that type of structure,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s actually not a new thing, in many ways, to the\u00a0tactical<\/em>\u00a0Army, but it is something we have to, again, adopt, embrace, and become comfortable with in the\u00a0institutional<\/em>Army.\u201d<\/p>\n Jointness and Multi-Domain<\/strong><\/p>\n Esper wants to improve coordination not only within the Army but between the Army and the other services. He, Navy Secretary\u00a0Richard Spencer, and Air Force Secretary\u00a0Heather Wilson\u00a0now\u00a0meet every few weeks \u2014 without staff\u00a0\u2014 to discuss ways to work together, especially by combining their efforts on R&D.<\/p>\n \u201cI think setting the example goes a long way in terms of building cooperation between the services,\u201d Esper said of the three secretaries\u2019 \u201cbreakfast club.\u201d<\/p>\n In particular, \u201cSec. Wilson, Sec. Spencer and I are fully aligned in terms of the need to further cooperate on building multi-domain operations,\u201d Esper said. \u201cWe all see that as the future. That\u2019s the way to go\u2026..We\u2019ve had that discussion in meetings larger than the three of us, with the Secretary (of Defense,\u00a0Jim Mattis).\u201d<\/p>\n Traditional jointness calls for the services to split up the world so they don\u2019t get in each other\u2019s way: Army takes the land and enough airspace above for helicopters, the Navy takes the sea and divides airspace with the\u00a0Air Force, and so on. But the emerging concept various called\u00a0multi-domain operations, multi-domain battle, or\u00a0multi-domain command and control\u00a0\u2014 depending on who\u2019s talking \u2014 calls for the services to operate beyond their traditional domains. The\u00a0Army, for example, could launch anti-ship missiles from shore to help the Navy, blitzkrieg anti-aircraft batteries to help the Air Force, or disrupt enemy networks with jamming and cyber attacks.<\/p>\n Much of the move to multi-domain operations is a matter of institutional culture, doctrine, and tactics. But fully realizing the vision will also require new technologies, like anti-ship missiles for the Army. The three service secretaries are coordinating their investments.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve identified some technologies that are common and important to us all:\u00a0hypersonics,\u00a0directed energy,\u00a0artificial intelligence,\u00a0robotics,\u201d Esper said. \u201cThose are the areas where we\u2019re talking with the deputy secretary of defense (Patrick Shanahan) and Dr.\u00a0Mike Griffin\u00a0(under secretary for research & engineering) about how do we leverage each individual (service\u2019s) work, how do we make sure that we\u2019re cooperating with one another, how does R&E kind of help facilitate that cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have our own budgets, we still have our own priorities, but the degree we can cooperate, work together, share our findings, share our research, it allows us all to advance a lot more quickly,\u201d Esper said.<\/p>\n The Army Secretary is acutely conscious that he may be modernizing on borrowed time. \u201cI\u2019m unsure of funding in \u201920 and beyond,\u201d he said, when the current budget deal expires and the\u00a0Budget Control Act, aka sequestration, returns in full force. \u201cWhile I have two good years,\u201d he said, \u201cI want to use these two good years to work and to find efficiencies to free up as much money as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if the Army\u00a0cuts lower-priority programs\u00a0and\u00a0streamlines services, however, Esper doesn\u2019t see it being enough to insulate the\u00a0Big Six priorities\u00a0from a full-scale return of BCA spending caps, he said: \u201cIf sequester returns, it will be devastating to our readiness approach, (and) it will certainly affect our modernization plans.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Army](\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/10\/TRADOC-HQ-Fort-Eustis-Virginia-300x200.jpg\")
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