The U.S. Army’s top officer sought to reassure industry leaders that the service remains committed to modernization and autonomous systems, announcing a new name for the command charged with shaping the future force during remarks at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve said that the Futures and Concepts Command has been redesignated as U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. The change comes as the Army aligns its weapons purchases, force structure and training around new “How the Army Fights” guidance, which was published last week and explains how the service intends to wield land power in future wars.
“We are not walking away from modernization,” LaNeve said, addressing the industry partners directly at one point in his speech. “We are sprinting towards, it,” he said, adding “and we are doing so responsibly with a recognition that resources are not endless.”
LaNeve has charged FASCOM with developing corps-level autonomous capabilities through experimentation and testing.
According to a Tuesday release, the three-star command will have “capability-based formations centered on autonomous long-range fires, protection, tanks, logistics and obstacle breaching,” and will include some of the Army’s first 390A Robotic Technicians, which were activated this month.
The Army said it chose those capabilities based on their ability to affect maneuver and their alignment to the “four elements” of land power outlined in last week’s guidance: convergence, strike, close battle and endurance.
“This goes beyond drones,” LaNeve said in the release, “FASCOM will pioneer operational concepts that harness autonomous capabilities across all warfighting functions.”
The Army has come under fire recently after shuttering its experimental drone battalion in Europe less than a year after launching the novel unit to test how such a formation could operate. According to The Wall Street Journal, the decision to end the experiment — the brainchild of LeNeve’s predecessor, Randy George — came as part of LeNeve’s broad “back-to-basics” approach.
In September, a bipartisan group of lawmakers signed a letter expressing concern about eliminating the 600-member “Unmanned Assault Battalion,” which was created as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The legislators questioned how the U.S. would continue to learn drone warfare from Ukraine.
In a September media roundtable, Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, the acting Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, said the future of the U.S. Army’s drone warfare is spread across formations, not condensed into one unit.
“In Ukraine and Russia you’ve seen those armies create brigades and entire unmanned systems forces, whereas the U.S. Army’s approach has been to decentralize; to accelerate learning across all units,” he said, adding that the Army is aiming to push one-way attack drones to the squad level in the near future.
Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
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