The Army wants to establish its new Futures Command in a technically-savvy city with access to academia, entrepreneurs and its own bases by summer, but will take about a year to iron out exactly what the modernization-focused organization will look like.
“The type of command we’re looking for, it doesn’t have flags out front or old tanks in front of it,” Undersecretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said Feb. 8 at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C. “It probably will be in a big city.”
The Army plans to have a leader lined up for the new command and some sort of operational capability by June or July. Lt. Gen. John Murray, who serves as the deputy Army chief of staff, G-8, testified to Congress on Feb. 7 that full operational capability will come about a year later.
“You almost can say we’re IOC now, because we have cross-functional teams (CFT),” McCarthy said at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 7. He did not mention specific cities that were under consideration for the Futures Command base of operations, though Austin, Texas and Boston, Mass., have been floated already as innovation hubs the Army and Defense Department are eager to tap.
“To make it sustainable over time, there are other capabilities that they need,” McCarthy said about the year-long effort to establish and perfect the Futures Command. “The Army has a lot of different voices about the future and they have a perfect record of predicting incorrectly. So, how do you get more of us together to get the best ideas possible?”
Though there are few hints to where the new Futures Command will be based, McCarthy offered an anecdote about visiting the University of Chicago’s business and engineering schools.
“When walked into the place, we’re all in dress blues, I’m in French cuffs, and everybody in there is in hoodies and wrinkled khaki pants,” McCarthy said. “It’s a culture shift. There is a recognition that we want to work with these folks. … We need an environment where they are going to want to work with us and help us.”
“The Army is putting the best people against this, but we need the rest of the country to help us,” he said.
The Futures Command should be established by summer, if Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley signs off on the plan Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon is currently devising. The four-star-led command will initially be informed by the work the CFTs are doing and then have about a year to solidify the structure and processes of the new command.
“They’ll have this capability in place, but you need to get the kinks out to make sure we got it right,” McCarthy said. “There may be alterations, changes in configurations over time. It’s not like a mechanical checklist.”