An anticipated shakeup in civilian leadership across the Department of Defense in the coming year could see Daniel Driscoll installed as the 26th Secretary of the Army, pending approval from Senators. President-elect Donald Trump announced his selection—former soldier and advisor to Vice President-elect JD Vance—early in December for the role that will entail crucial decisions regarding weapon development programs, modernization, and implementing efficiencies.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George addressed some of these challenges back in October, emphasizing the need for a shift in procurement strategies. “It should be clear to all of us that the days where we indiscriminately could buy an entire Army’s worth of inventory in a single program of record are gone,” he stated at the Association of the US Army annual conference. “We can’t afford to invest in obsolescence.”
General George elaborated on the Army’s approach, stating, “There are also some things that we are going to stop buying—old, stand-alone tech that doesn’t connect to our network, or equipment that can’t operate in our [transformation in contact] formations. Even if it was a requirement in the past, even if it was a program of record, we may have to stop buying it.”
While he refrained from specifying which programs might be at risk, the Army has been navigating a flat budget while advocating for modernization priorities established during the first Trump administration. These priorities include long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehicles, future vertical lift, networking capabilities, air and missile defense, and soldier lethality. The Biden administration maintained most of these priorities, although some programs, such as the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), were cut, and others were sent back for reevaluation.
As 2025 approaches, the Army faces key decision points regarding funding prioritization. Earlier this year, the Army officially ceased development on its Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) program after extensive testing and integration of a new 30-foot, 58-caliber gun tube onto the BAE Systems Paladin M109A7 self-propelled howitzer. Following this, five companies—Rheinmetall, BAE Systems, Hanwha, General Dynamics, and Elbit Systems—were selected to demonstrate their existing platforms. In December, Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks, the Director of the Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, indicated that early evaluations show vendors are “absolutely ready for competitive evaluation,” suggesting a decision could be forthcoming in 2025 without engaging in another lengthy development phase.
Depending on when Driscoll officially takes office, major initiatives such as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) Next and the selection of a single vendor for the Robotic Combat Vehicle Phase II could be prioritized.
Additionally, the Army plans to use the next year’s Project Convergence capstone event to assess the service’s future command and control (C2) architecture. Successful outcomes would likely result in the project being handed over to the Army Futures Command’s (AFC) Network Cross-Functional Team for ongoing development.
Col. Michael Kaloostian, the AFC’s networks and security director for Next Generation C2, explained, “That team is already getting the requirements developers together. They’re already looking at the budget that it will require, and working [on] the acquisition approach.”
A significant aspect of this tentative plan involves delivering a “minimal viable product” to units later in 2025 for further testing before full deployment to soldiers, tentatively in 2026.
Another pressing concern for the government next year will be the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This initiative, rather than a standalone department, comes amidst threats of significant cuts to the DoD. Gen. George has expressed his support for identifying efficiencies within the Army.
“We’ve been talking about process innovation in the Army for the last year,” he noted during an early December address at the Reagan National Defense Forum. “If it doesn’t make us more lethal or our teams more cohesive, we have to be looking at, you know, should we be doing it? So I think we have to review everything that we’re doing in that light.”
