The appointment of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to serve as President Trump's national security adviser has created a vacancy at the top of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, which is charged with defining the Army of the future.
In his capacity as ARCIC director, McMaster has championed modernization of the Army's combat vehicle fleet, repeatedly challenging arguments about cost by emphasizing the critical need of a capable maneuver force.
In December, he highlighted the array of problems facing the service: "the Army's too small, the Army got too light . . . the Army was out of position . . . [and] we were out of date; we were not modernized." In order "to reduce risk to the mission and to the force in the future," he said, the Army has to address all of these issues.
While advocating for new capabilities, as codified in ARCIC's "Big 6+1" effort, McMaster also pushed for the Army to gain additional capability from existing equipment, highlighting directed energy, cyber and electronic warfare as avenues for such efforts. He touted the "Russian new-generation warfare study" as helping to direct and focus Army modernization efforts to combat potential threats from a high-end adversary.
The work continues at his former command.
Maj. Thomas Campbell, a TRADOC spokesman, told Inside the Army: "TRADOC and ARCIC were of course proud of Lt. Gen. McMaster's appointment as the national security adviser."
McMaster assumed the post of ARCIC director in July 2014. In that time, Campbell said, "his impact on the organization in helping to develop the future Army has been immeasurable, and he will certainly be missed."
Campbell explained that the organization "will continue to move forward with all essential priorities under the direction of" Maj. Gen. Robert "Bo" Dyess, who has served as deputy director of ARCIC since July 2015, "until a replacement is named for Lt. Gen. McMaster."
Campbell noted that "ARCIC and TRADOC were already in the process of preparing for the planned departure of Lt. Gen. McMaster later this summer."
As senior service officials work to identify a successor for McMaster, "it really becomes a question of which direction they want ARCIC to go, and what's most important to them for the leader," Lt. Gen. Mike Murray told ITA in a Feb. 23 interview. -- Courtney McBride