At his formal swearing-in ceremony as the 23rd Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper said the service’s most daunting task is to fulfill its current obligations while preparing to fight future wars.
“The Army is at a critical inflection point in its history, not unlike what it faced at the end of other long wars, except the one we’ve been fighting in now for 17 years hasn’t ended,” Esper said. “In my first few weeks as secretary, it is clear to me that the most difficult task the Army faces is ensuring we are ready for today’s fight while simultaneously preparing for future wars.”
A West Point graduate and 25-year Army veteran, Esper most recently served as Raytheon’s [RTN] chief lobbyist before being confirmed by the Senate in November. Since then, he has traveled to several Army installations – Fort Irwin, Calif., Fort Bragg, N.C. and Afghanistan among them – to visit soldiers and take the pulse of the force, he said Jan. 5 during a swearing-in ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall outside Washington, D.C.
Like Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Esper has declared near-term readiness his top priority, a commitment he reiterated Friday. Modernization ranks a close second, he said.
It is on modernization that Esper and his deputy, Ryan McCarthy, will likely leave a lasting legacy. The pair will oversee establishment of a Futures Command led by a four-star general that will subsume all of the Army disparate research, development, engineering and acquisition functions. When launched this summer, the command will represent the most significant restructuring of the institutional Army in more than four decades.
“For modernization to be successful, though, the current acquisition system must be overhauled,” Esper said. “This includes improving how requirements are set, empowering acquisition personnel to be successful, ensuring accountability, prototyping and demonstrating systems early and involving the private sector, much, much, much more.”
“In short we need to provide soldiers with the tools they need when they need it and I am confident the new Futures Command will do just that,” he added.
Milley, who in his three years as chief of staff has served under seven acting and confirmed Army secretaries – though only six men – had high praise for Esper, who has a lengthy resume in and out of uniform. As well as serving with the 101st Airborne Division and becoming an Army Ranger, Esper served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for policy and as policy director for the House Armed Services Committee, among other government positions.
“Mark Esper is no sunshine soldier,” Milley said. “He is a combat veteran and he has proven himself through the hardship of service for over two decades in all three components of our Army in both peace and war. He not only has the experience of the Army and the deep knowledge of how the Army runs, how things operate in and around the Pentagon. He also has deep knowledge of Capitol Hill, the Department of Defense, think tanks and industry.”
“His record is one of exceptional competence,” Milley added.