This is an important week for the U.S. Army on Capitol Hill.
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Gen. Randy George, Army chief of staff, will appear before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
Driscoll and George are coming to Capitol Hill with a new mission — the Army Transformation Initiative. We spent some time with Driscoll at the Pentagon last week to discuss it.
ATI, as it’s known in the Pentagon, has three objectives: “deliver critical warfighting capabilities, optimize our force structure, and eliminate waste and obsolete programs.”
Lawmakers need to understand that this could be a seismic shift for the Army that impacts every member and senator, according to Driscoll.
The Army leadership — from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Driscoll and George — wants Congress to stop forcing the Pentagon to buy things that soldiers don’t need. Lawmakers often seek to do this to help companies and workers in their districts, whether the Pentagon needs the equipment or not.
Driscoll, a close friend of Vice President JD Vance from Yale Law School, put it this way:
“What’s occurred in the federal government, kind of at scale for 30 or 40 years, is decision making that is not always optimized for the logical outcome that a taxpayer may want, Driscoll said.
“And as that applies to the Army, I think when we have purchased things or what we have done on behalf of the American soldier for the last 30 or 40 years, oftentimes it’s not in their best interest.”
Warning to the Hill. Driscoll lays the blame for some of the Army’s problems on the Pentagon’s “calcified bureaucracy.” Fair enough — the Pentagon byzantine acquisition process can take on a life of its own.
But Driscoll also noted the Pentagon is forced to buy things they don’t need because “members of Congress and the Senate are impacted by things that have nothing to do with soldiers.”
Driscoll — a one-time congressional candidate himself — pointed out that the Army has 104,000 Humvees. The Army doesn’t want and hasn’t requested them for “a very long time.”
But Congress forces Army officials to buy Humvees, taking up funds that could otherwise be spent on more advanced or better systems for the “modern battlefield.” The war in Ukraine has been a revelation for how quickly military technology morphs in the AI age.
“We have got to stop having these spending line items that are so specific,” Driscoll insisted.
Driscoll — a former platoon leader in Iraq — was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan vote on Feb. 24. Even as Hegseth has faced scandal and controversy, Driscoll and other service branch leaders are pushing for dramatic internal changes.
President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders also are seeking tens of billions of dollars in additional defense spending as part of the GOP reconciliation package.
Driscoll canceled the M10 Booker light tank, which had an estimated $17 billion price tag. There won’t be purchases of new Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters or Gray Eagle drones either. The Robot Combat Vehicle looks done too.
Yet remember that when the Pentagon stops buying something, that could mean that jobs get cut in someone’s district or state. Driscoll said he’s already getting pushback from both parties — a sign that he “made the right decision,” in his view.
“Our responsibility is the soldier and the American taxpayer,” Driscoll said. “And even kind of beyond that, we have taken — and I can say this with a straight face — zero parochial interests into account.”
Driscoll added that he and George are willing to travel to members’ districts to explain any of the Pentagon’s decisions.
A warning for K Street. In Driscoll’s view, lawmakers should shoulder the blame for any legislative maneuvers designed to tie military leaders’ hands on weapons acquisitions.
But the Army secretary said defense contractors should also stop lobbying to force the Pentagon to buy things it doesn’t want — or else.
“We think it is a waste of their dollars to try to impact beyond what the soldier and our leadership actually want and need,” Driscoll said.
“If they’re going to continue to spend dollars there … in the medium term, they will lose their businesses … and they may go out of business. Instead, I would advocate that they recycle those dollars to R & D and innovation and actually building the things the American soldier needs.”
How Silicon Valley plays into this. Driscoll worked in venture capital and seems particularly bullish on startups and how they might be able to help the Pentagon. He recently traveled to California to meet with companies that are creating new products for the U.S. military. Driscoll hopes that ATI is a “renaissance” for some of these companies.
“What we’re hoping to unlock is companies throughout all of America that have a good idea for a soldier to basically bring it to us. Let it get us. Let us get in the hands of soldiers, hear what they have and what they’re learning from it, and then give it back to the company to continue to iterate.”
That said, the Pentagon seems to be finding use for some of Big Tech’s products as well. The Army has Meta’s Ray-Ban sunglasses and is having mechanics wear them as they repair vehicles to train AI systems.
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