Network improvement means Army will need to 'stop doing some things,' George says

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said today that modernizing the network will require the service to take a harder look at the budget in terms of programmatics going forward.

“I think we’re going to have to stop doing some things,” he told attendees at the service’s 12th Technical Exchange Meeting in Philadelphia.

“We have a finite budget. I spend a lot of time looking at our budget . . . but if something we're spending our money on doesn't fit with where we're going, then I think that programmatically we have to look and say, ‘Hey, are we spending our money wisely?’” he said.

Since taking the reins as chief last year, George has stated that modernizing the network is one of the Army’s most important priorities. On Wednesday, he reiterated the need for formations to become lighter and more lethal, and to use technology that is more compact.

George also noted that he just signed off on the “characterization of need” for the Army’s C2 Next initiative. C2 Next refers to a prototyping effort for command and control the service is working on with industry that involves experimenting with a “data-centric” system, Breaking Defense reported in March.

George said Wednesday that the “characterization of need” means the Army must be flexible with its technology requirements.

“Because you all out there know what technology is available, and you will know how to satisfy those kinds of things so that we're not so specific,” George said.

Mark Kitz, the program executive officer for command, control and communications-tactical, added that there must be better synergy between Army Futures Command and the acquisition community going forward.

“Today’s version of C2 Next is not what we’re going to fight with three years from now. And so, iterating our requirements and getting much more volatile, [in terms of] how we get after capability is critical to the programmatics,” he said.