‘Noticeable shift in warfare’: US Army under secretary on the lessons of modern combat

The U.S. Army is entering unprecedented territory.

Demand for exquisite munitions has skyrocketed as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine — and an ever-tense Indo-Pacific — continue to redefine stockpile demand.

So, too, has there developed an insatiable market for cheap systems and interceptors capable of balancing scales that, in regions like the Middle East, have been encumbered by cost-per-kill ratios as lopsided as 114-1 — in the case of a PAC-3 interceptor versus a Shahed-136 drone.

If that weren’t enough to consider, there’s the lightning-quick speed of AI integration and unmanned systems into formations, and the reality of having to rethink a simple concept — hiding — that was seldom given a second thought due to the total air superiority of the Global War on Terror.

Such frenzied developments, meanwhile, come against a backdrop of new Pentagon policy that aims to eliminate the antiquated red tape of the acquisition process and speed development to the battlefield.

A daunting cluster of problems to solve, no doubt. But if encountering such a catalog of to-dos is stress-inducing, one would not know it when speaking to U.S. Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal, who finds himself at the center of many of these discussions.

From his office and out on the trail, Obadal oversees the service’s business operations, acquisition strategy, and manpower and personnel systems, among myriad other duties.

Obadal assumed the position after a stint in the private sector, which followed a military career that included time as a Special Operations officer, the status of Master Army Aviator and qualifications in nine different aircraft.

Obadal spoke to Military Times about how he and the Army are approaching these seismic shifts in warfighting philosophy, and how this year’s AUSA exposition reflects the blistering pace of innovation that catalyzes them.

What I try very hard to do is not let my experience drive the way I do things. I want it to inform the way I do things, whether that’s my experience working with the interagency and seeing how other executive branch agencies operate, my experience in the conventional military or in other parts of the military, doing joint work, working with partners and allies or going out into corporate America.

I don’t want any one of those things to be the driver of how I make decisions and conduct myself in the business of the Army, but I do want all of it to come together and inform it.

Obadal meets with U.S. National Guardsmen at the Pentagon. (Sgt. Adrianne Lopez/U.S. Army National Guard)

So, it’s certainly very helpful for me when I talk to soldiers or when I look at programs or weapon systems.

The biggest thing it helps me with is understanding that there’s no single weapon system that operates by itself anywhere. They are all part of a joint force, and within that, you have a maneuver Army that is reliant — tanks are reliant on infantry, infantry is reliant on fires, all of it is reliant on aviation, medical and logistics.

All those components work together as a chain, and you have to make sure every link in the chain is as strong as possible.

That’s one of the biggest things that I take away from being in the military: an understanding that all of these things have to work in synergy, and there are no easy solutions.

If you walk around the hall at AUSA, it’ll give you a good indication of the Army’s priorities. Our priorities are reflected in what we’re procuring.

Going back several years, when we were in the Middle East and we first saw adversary drones — counter-drone systems became a really important topic. It kind of started in the special operations and then expanded into the larger Army.

Ukraine has not just reinforced that counter-UAS is a critical part of operations today; it’s cemented it.

So, if you walk around AUSA, you’re going to see an immense number of not only drones but also counter-UAS. That’s a reflection of the procurement and the budget, not just in the Army but in the Pentagon.

That’s number one. Number two is software. Being able to see, sense and integrate to understand what your positional advantage is, and understand the adversary and their vulnerabilities.

That’s just military operations, but today it’s looking at how we apply the best sensors and best software to bring all of that together to give decision advantage to our commanders.

The third one is fires, and when you look at current conflicts, the importance of long-range precision fires is highlighted.

So, what you’ll also see at the conference is a reflection of our investment portfolio in our magazine depth, but also the variety of munitions.

Expanding out the optionality that commanders have beyond just one or two exquisite munitions, with everything from longer-range artillery, one-way attack and loitering munitions, up into our higher-end missiles.

All of those represent our fires portfolio, but that’s just for offensive operations. When we get into the defensive side, we’ll be seeing everything from ballistic missiles down to Group One drones.

If you look at those three areas — drones and counter-UAS; software and sensors; and the fires portfolio — and were to roll back the clock to AUSA 10 years ago, the difference is remarkable.

At that time, the focus was very vehicle-centric, armor-centric, pieces of kit for individual soldiers. All of those things are important and are continuing to advance, but these newer investment areas represent a noticeable shift in warfare.

The conflicts are definitely influencing and accelerating the way the Army — and certainly the broader Department — are innovating, prototyping, procuring and then fielding different capabilities.

If you were to roll back a decade or even less, you would see very traditional models that go from experimentation into writing an initial requirement document, then into prototyping, then selection, then low-rate production and then finally into fielding and high-rate production.

That’s years long. That process is very deliberate, and it built our military to where it is today, which is still the most dominant, but with a number of vulnerabilities because of technical innovation in the commercial market that adversaries are able to take advantage of.

So, where can we compress this cycle and get it more into a process where we ask the commercial industry to experiment on their dime?

A lot of this has to do with private capital being interested in the defense market. They’re making a bet that they can get through some of the experimentation, and then we can follow on with prototyping and quickly get into low-rate and high-rate production before fielding.

Fielding then allows us to get immediate feedback that goes back into industry. That is essentially what had to happen in Ukraine because it’s existential to them.

So, when we say wartime footing, Ukraine is on the ultimate wartime footing, and there are lessons to draw from there. What are the unnecessary steps in the acquisition process? Where can you smartly accept risk?

Probably one of the biggest drivers of speeding things up is acknowledging that we’re willing to accept risk. We know that if we get a tighter innovation cycle, we’re accepting more risk on the battlefield, but we’re also driving down risk on the battlefield because we’re getting it to them much sooner.

So, then we get into how that translates to fires. Exquisite versus low cost. It’s a balance, or a high-low mix, essentially, where we have to have both offensive and defensive exquisite weapons.

We have to have certain stockpiles to be able to counter the exquisite weapons of our adversaries and have our own effects. Then you get into mass, which comes when we start going beyond the first few days of a conflict, and we’re in protraction. We have to have affordable mass. The cost curve needs to come back in our favor.

While balancing the above, how much of a difference has the surge in domestic manufacturing made in having these pre-positioned elements assisting efforts?

A massive difference.

The Infantry Squad Vehicle is a perfect example. That’s a Chevy Colorado chassis; the drivetrain and suspension are a little different, but it’s nothing unusual.

Essentially, it then goes to a detailer that puts the military-specific equipment on top of it. It’s everything that we need it to be.

An example of an Infantry Squad Vehicle—Utility (ISV-U) that will be used in the final phase of testing being performed by U.S. Army DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center engineers. (Jennifer DeHaan/U.S. Army)

As with anything, it has its vulnerabilities. We’re sacrificing heavy armor and survivability, which we needed throughout the GWOT years, for mobility, transportability and ease of repair.

But using this model also allows us to sustain it far more easily because so many of the components are commercial.

It especially matters when you get into keeping the ISV — or domestically made equipment — in the decades ahead and needing improvements over the years. With the ISV, as Chevy makes improvements to its chassis and drivetrain, that immediately feeds back into the production line of ISVs.

So, we’re now getting upgrades that are just byproducts of the commercial market.

With acquisition, there’s a major emphasis on AI. What are you discussing with tech companies to ensure the human-in-the-loop element equates to maintaining final say despite the speed of the tech?

Every company that deals with this emerging technology and the military is of the same mindset, which is that the human-in-the-loop factor has to be the default.

There are workflows and cycles that human commanders can say, “I need this to run in the background, and I don’t need to see it or be on it.” But when it comes to kinetic kill chains and making decisions on the battlefield, the workflows that enable commanders have to have very hard stops.

It’s not just a commander saying yes or no. It’s far more complicated and nuanced. It’s presenting options based on a tremendous amount of computing analysis and saying, “Here are all the courses of action based on the priorities that you gave, based on the environmental factors that the agents have been able to ingest and all of the long-term planning that goes into it.

That allows the commanders to then take highly complex tasks like mission planning and distill it down into areas where they can consume it more easily, and then apply what only humans can do, which is context and reason.

That context and reason part is what the tech companies that work with us are very focused on enabling, as opposed to taking over entire workflows.

Autonomy is important, really, in three areas when it comes to warfighting.

Think about combat breaching. That’s one of the most dangerous things we ask a human to do: to breach a linear minefield or barrier. If we can automate that, that removes something inherently dangerous.

The second is highly complex, like command and control. How do you distill what would take human staff officers hours or days into seconds, and give a commander not only several options, but the analysis behind it and the confidence in the product being presented?

The third is the ability to remove repetitive and mundane things human soldiers are doing. Resupplying via trucks, for instance. If we can automate that, we are removing that task from our logistics soldiers and allowing them to apply their talents to solving real problems with a clear vision and mindset.

Beyond weapon systems, something as simple as staging — or hiding — equipment or personnel requires a vastly different strategy than even 10 years ago. How does something as simple as saying, “How do we hide this helo?” impact your conversations with industry?

It’s not something that we’ve had to truly consider as an Army for 40 or 50 years because we were guaranteed air superiority.

We don’t have air superiority at this point because of long-range fires and precision targeting from space.

So, you go back to dispersion, displacement of assets and disaggregation of large headquarters. As you remember from recent decades, a division headquarters would be a massive entity with satellite dishes and other assets in the open. Those days are gone.

We now have to consider how we bring in technology from the companies to allow us to displace 10-foot satellite dishes and 20 miles of wire, and actually have small-scale edge compute and transport systems that can disaggregate everyone. That’s incredibly important.

Certainly, camouflage comes into play. Other classified capabilities come into play as well, and that’s all just the visible element. Then you get into electronic warfare and the ability to monitor.

So, how do you disaggregate some of that?

Those are all things that we are actively moving — and coming back to — in a more modern stance.

J.D. Simkins is Editor-in-Chief of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.

美国陆军正在进入前所未有的领域。

随着伊朗和乌克兰的冲突以及日益紧张的印太地区局势不断变化，对精良弹药的需求也随之飙升，这不断改变着军火储备的需求。

因此，也出现了对廉价系统和拦截器永不满足的市场，这些系统和拦截器能够平衡中东等地区因成本与击杀比率失衡而造成的局面，例如 PAC-3 拦截器与 Shahed-136 无人机的比率高达 114:1。

如果这还不够让人考虑的话，还有人工智能和无人系统以闪电般的速度融入编队，以及不得不重新思考一个简单的概念——隐藏——的现实，而由于全球反恐战争中空中优势的绝对优势，这个概念很少被认真考虑过。

与此同时，这些疯狂的发展发生在五角大楼新政策的背景下，该政策旨在消除采购过程中陈旧的繁文缛节，加快研发成果向战场的转化。

毫无疑问，这是一系列令人望而生畏的问题需要解决。但如果面对如此繁多的待办事项会让人感到压力，那么与美国陆军副部长迈克·奥巴达尔交谈时，你却丝毫感觉不到这一点，因为他正是许多此类讨论的核心人物。

奥巴达尔既在办公室里，也在野外巡逻，负责监督该部门的业务运营、采购战略、人力和人事系统，以及其他无数职责。

奥巴达尔在私营部门工作一段时间后担任了该职位，此前他曾是一名军官，拥有陆军特级飞行员资格，并持有九种不同飞机的驾驶资格。

奥巴达尔在接受《军事时报》采访时谈到了他和陆军如何应对战争理念的这些巨大转变，以及今年的美国陆军协会展览会如何反映出推动这些转变的迅猛创新步伐。

我努力做到不让我的经验左右我的做事方式。我希望它能指导我的做事方式，无论是我在跨部门合作中的经验，以及了解其他行政部门机构运作方式的经验，还是我在常规军事或其他军事部门的经验，包括参与联合行动、与伙伴和盟友合作，或是进入美国企业界的经验。

我不想让其中任何一项因素成为我做决定和处理军队事务的驱动力，但我希望所有这些因素都能综合起来，为我的决策提供依据。

奥巴达尔在五角大楼会见了美国国民警卫队队员。（美国陆军国民警卫队中士阿德里安娜·洛佩兹摄）

所以，当我与士兵交谈或者查看项目或武器系统时，它对我肯定非常有帮助。

它对我最大的帮助在于让我明白，没有任何一种武器系统能够独立作战。它们都是联合部队的一部分，而在这个联合部队中，机动部队又依赖于其他部队——坦克依赖于步兵，步兵依赖于火力支援，而所有这些都依赖于航空、医疗和后勤保障。

所有这些部件像链条一样协同工作，你必须确保链条上的每一个环节都尽可能牢固。

这是我在军队中学到的最重要的一点：那就是所有这些事情都必须协同运作，没有简单的解决办法。

如果你在AUSA的展厅里走走，就能很好地了解陆军的优先事项。我们的优先事项体现在我们的采购内容中。

几年前，我们在中东地区首次遭遇敌方无人机时，反无人机系统就成了一个非常重要的话题。它最初是在特种作战部队中兴起的，后来扩展到了整个陆军。

乌克兰不仅重申了反无人机系统是当今作战行动的关键组成部分，而且还巩固了这一点。

所以，如果你在AUSA展会上走走，你会看到大量的无人机，还有反无人机系统。这反映了采购和预算情况，不仅是陆军，还有五角大楼。

这是第一点。第二点是软件。能够观察、感知和整合信息，从而了解你的位置优势，并了解对手及其弱点。

这只是军事行动，但如今我们正在研究如何应用最好的传感器和最好的软件，将所有这些结合起来，为我们的指挥官提供决策优势。

第三点是火力，当你观察当前的冲突时，就会发现远程精确火力的重要性。

所以，您在会议上还将看到，我们的投资组合不仅体现在我们杂志的深度上，也体现在我们军火的种类上。

扩大指挥官的选择范围，使其不再局限于一两种精良的弹药，而是涵盖从远程火炮、单向攻击弹药和巡飞弹药到我们更高端的导弹等各种弹药。

以上这些都属于我们的火力武器组合，但这仅仅是进攻性作战。在防御方面，我们将看到从弹道导弹到第一类无人机等各种武器装备。

如果你看看这三个领域——无人机和反无人机系统；软件和传感器；以及消防产品组合——并将时间倒回到 10 年前的 AUSA，你会发现差异是巨大的。

当时，重点主要集中在车辆、装甲和单兵装备上。所有这些都很重要，而且仍在不断发展，但这些新的投资领域代表着战争模式的显著转变。

这些冲突无疑正在影响和加速陆军（当然也包括更广泛的国防部）创新、原型设计、采购和部署不同能力的方式。

如果把时间倒回十年甚至更短的时间，你会看到非常传统的模式，从实验到编写初始需求文档，然后是原型制作，然后是选择，然后是小批量生产，最后是部署和大批量生产。

这需要数年时间。这个过程是经过深思熟虑的，它使我们的军队发展到今天的规模，至今仍是最强大的军队，但由于商业市场的技术创新，也存在一些弱点，对手可以利用这些弱点。

那么，我们如何才能缩短这个周期，让它更像一个流程，让商业企业自掏腰包进行试验呢？

这很大程度上是因为私人资本对国防市场感兴趣。他们押注于能够完成一些试验，然后我们可以继续进行原型制作，并在部署前迅速进入小批量和大批量生产阶段。

这样一来，菲尔丁就能让我们立即获得反馈，并将这些反馈应用到行业中。这在乌克兰至关重要，因为这关乎他们的生死存亡。

所以，当我们说乌克兰处于战时状态时，它实际上已经完全进入了战时状态，我们可以从中吸取一些教训。采购过程中有哪些不必要的步骤？哪些方面可以明智地承担风险？

加快研发进程的最大驱动力之一，或许在于我们愿意承担风险。我们知道，如果创新周期缩短，就意味着我们在战场上承担了更大的风险，但同时，由于我们能更快地将产品交付给对手，我们也降低了战场上的风险。

接下来，我们就来探讨这如何应用于火灾。精美与低成本之间的平衡，或者说高低搭配，本质上是一种平衡，我们需要兼具进攻性和防御性的精美武器。

我们必须储备一定的武器，才能对抗对手的精密武器，并取得相应的战果。接下来就涉及到大规模作战，也就是冲突持续到几天之后，进入持久战阶段。我们需要价格合理的大规模武器。成本曲线必须对我们有利。

综合考虑以上因素，国内制造业的蓬勃发展对这些预先部署的要素的辅助作用究竟有多大影响？

差别巨大。

步兵班组车辆就是一个完美的例子。它的底盘是雪佛兰科罗拉多皮卡；传动系统和悬挂系统略有不同，但这没什么特别的。

基本上，之后它会被送到专门负责加装军用设备的部门。它完全符合我们的要求。

这是一辆步兵班组通用车辆（ISV-U）的样车，将在美国陆军研发司令部地面车辆系统中心工程师进行的最终阶段测试中使用。（Jennifer DeHaan/美国陆军）

任何事物都有其弱点，它也不例外。我们为了机动性、运输性和易于维修性，牺牲了在反恐战争期间至关重要的重型装甲和生存能力。

但使用这种模式也使我们能够更容易地维持下去，因为其中很多组件都是商用的。

这一点在考虑如何让ISV（或国产设备）在未来几十年内保持良好性能并不断改进时尤为重要。对于ISV而言，雪佛兰对其底盘和动力传动系统进行改进后，这些改进会立即反馈到ISV的生产线上。

所以，我们现在得到的升级只是商业市场的副产品。

在收购过程中，人工智能是一个重点。您与科技公司讨论的重点是什么，以确保在技术飞速发展的情况下，人机协作环节仍然能够保持最终决定权？

所有从事这项新兴技术和军事领域的公司都有着相同的理念，那就是人机交互必须是默认选项。

有些工作流程和周期，人类指挥官可以这样说：“我需要它在后台运行，我不需要查看或操作它。”但当涉及到动能杀伤链和战场决策时，指挥官赖以生存的工作流程必须有非常严格的限制。

这不仅仅是指挥官说“是”或“否”那么简单。它要复杂得多，也微妙得多。它是基于大量的计算机分析提出各种方案，并说：“这里是根据你们给出的优先级、特工们能够获取的环境因素以及所有相关的长期规划，列出了所有可行的行动方案。”

这样一来，指挥官们就可以将任务规划等高度复杂的任务简化成更容易理解的领域，然后运用只有人类才能做到的事情——背景和理性。

与我们合作的科技公司非常注重的是提供这种背景和原因，而不是接管整个工作流程。

在战争中，自主性在三个方面确实非常重要。

想想战斗破障。这是我们要求人类执行的最危险的任务之一：突破线性雷区或障碍。如果我们能将其自动化，就能消除一项固有的危险。

第二个问题非常复杂，比如指挥控制。如何将参谋人员需要花费数小时甚至数天才能完成的工作浓缩到几秒钟内，并不仅为指挥官提供多种选择，还提供背后的分析以及对所提出方案的信心？

第三点是能够减轻士兵们重复性和繁琐的工作负担，例如用卡车运送补给。如果我们能实现自动化，就能将这项任务从后勤士兵身上解放出来，让他们能够运用自身才能，以清晰的思路和思维去解决实际问题。

除了武器系统之外，即使是像部署或隐藏设备或人员这样看似简单的事情，也需要与十年前截然不同的策略。像“我们如何隐藏这架直升机？”这样简单的问题，会对您与业界的沟通产生怎样的影响？

在过去的四五十年里，作为一支军队，我们从未真正考虑过这个问题，因为我们拥有空中优势。

目前，由于远程火力打击和来自太空的精确瞄准，我们尚未取得空中优势。

所以，最终还是要回到分散化、资产转移和大型总部解体的趋势上来。你可能还记得，近几十年来，一个部门总部往往是一个庞大的实体，卫星天线和其他资产都暴露在外。那种日子已经一去不复返了。

现在我们必须考虑如何从这些公司引进技术，从而取代10英尺的卫星天线和20英里的电缆，真正拥有能够将每个人分散到各个角落的小型边缘计算和传输系统。这至关重要。

当然，伪装发挥了作用。其他一些机密能力也同样重要，而这仅仅是可见的部分。接下来还要涉及到电子战和监控能力。

那么，如何对其中一些进行细分呢？

这些都是我们正在积极推进——并且正在以更现代的姿态回归——的事情。

JD Simkins 是《军事时报》和《防务新闻》的总编辑，也是参加过伊拉克战争的海军陆战队老兵。