A look at acquisition in action.
Many organizations are blessed with employees who are dedicated to their work, but few can boast of employees who are just as committed to the people that they work with as the job itself. Jason Pitts was one such person—tirelessly dedicated to his job, his colleagues and ultimately the Soldiers in the field. The United States Army Acquisition Support Center (USAASC) was proud to have him as a leader within the organization.
Getting troops and equipment across the battlefield is a vital part of every theater operation. Soldiers and their kits, as well as spare ammunition and other supplies, need to arrive quickly, with nothing left behind—or risk jeopardizing the mission. The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and Humvee have done a great job at performing those tasks so far, but the battlefield is always changing. In some cases, those vehicles are too heavy and impractical for the task at hand—so, the Army chose to develop a new, ultra-light troop transport in 2018.
In modern conflicts, cyber space has emerged as a primary domain of warfare—an invisible but decisive battlefield that operates far from the traditional front lines. Ensuring constant cyber warfare superiority demands the ability to always be ready to pivot. The U.S. Army continues its momentum to adjust its portfolios and programs, when necessary, embrace more agile acquisition methods and devise innovative methods to swiftly funnel capabilities to Soldiers while finessing existing processes.
The U.S. Army’s Next Generation Command and Control initiative, known as NGC2, was created to meet this moment. NGC2 replaces legacy, stove-piped mission command systems with an open, extensible set of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, warfighting applications and resilient communications to achieve decision dominance against sophisticated adversaries.
Accountability is critical—at the heart of this reform is the imperative to hold Capability Portfolio Executives and program managers (PMs) accountable for developing robust, risk-balanced acquisition programs that deliver capabilities in a timely manner. This alignment is not merely a bureaucratic exercise; it is a vital step toward ensuring our Soldiers receive the tools they need when they need them.
“The Mid-Range Capability program is highly complex, operating at the intersection of joint operations,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Blackwell, Product Manager Mid-Range Capability with PAE Fires’ Advanced Fires Project Office. “It requires seamless synchronization across Army, Navy and DoW [Department of War] leadership, as well as diverse acquisition disciplines and operational units.”
The Army is leaning forward with a leaner, more efficient mantra by strategically aligning personnel into areas where they are needed most. To better align with the Army Transformation Initiative, the military acquisition community is undergoing a “rebalancing” effort of Functional Area (FA) 51 officers—those responsible for researching, developing, testing, contracting and fielding weapons systems and technology—by shifting multiple functional areas, including FA 51, into areas that the Army may either be short-staffed or are emerging fields that will help serve the future fight.
Organizational leaders constantly talk about transformational structures, launch modernization campaigns and redesign processes to pursue efficiency, innovation or competitive advantage. Yet despite decades of research and countless books, studies and industry surveys have repeatedly suggested that most change initiatives either fail outright or never achieve the intended results. Employees resist change, communication breaks down, leaders lose credibility and organizations quietly revert to the old way of doing business. Often, the technical solution itself is not the problem. The problem is the process.
The Army is operating in an era defined by strategic competition with China, technological disruption and software-defined warfare. In response to acquisition timelines that often take decades, the Army has shifted toward rapid prototyping, experimentation and accelerated pathways, leveraging Middle Tier Acquisition (MTA) authorities, rapid capability offices and iterative software models to compress delivery timelines and maintain strategic advantage. Read how accelerated pathways allow the Army to integrate user feedback earlier, adapt to evolving threats and deliver capabilities at speed.
According to Army Doctrine Publication 6-22, leadership is defined as the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization. Leadership is a continuously adaptive process of earning respect and commitment across all ranks. In the Army, leadership is never a monolithic or static trait, it is an ever-evolving endeavor designed to keep pace with constant change. Read how a leader’s ability to communicate ideas, build trust and encourage subordinates to excel even without direct oversight is central to modern military operations.
Army Acquisition Functional Advisors representing the six functional areas and career advocates within major commands and organizations, known as Acquisition Career Management Advocates (ACMAs), came together to discuss key issues affecting the Army Acquisition Workforce and share best practices from across the functional areas at the 2026 ACMA Summit held at the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center on June 3, 2026.
Over the past several years, CPE ST3 has undergone a cultural transformation, moving away from rigid, requirement-driven acquisition models toward a faster, more flexible and risk-tolerant approach. This shift is not just procedural; it includes a fundamental change in culture— shifting from paperwork to performance, and from process to outcomes. Read how CPE ST3 is empowering its workforce to engage directly with warfighters, experiment with emerging technologies and deliver capabilities rapidly, even before formal requirements are finalized.
For the U.S. Army to maintain its decisive edge, the procurement apparatus must operate on a wartime footing that no longer treats acquisition as a slow, linear relay race. To unlock the full potential, the Army is undergoing a historic structural realignment, centering modernization efforts on the portfolio acquisition executive (PAE) model. Read how the U.S. Army Contracting Command (ACC) is implementing a unified, “360-degree” framework called wrap-around contracting—an unbroken business architecture that binds the Soldier in the foxhole directly to the manufacturing line on the factory floor.
Read how the Army Systems Engineering and Architecture (ASEA), a centralized selection list-led directorate established at ASA(ALT) for the systems engineering discipline, is placing military talent into engineering and technical management roles, where they can model what a digitally fluent Army looks like in practice.
The Army has signed a new policy that fundamentally transforms the materiel release process, replacing decades of administrative friction with a risk-informed, enabling framework that delivers capabilities to Soldiers faster. The streamlined Materiel Release Policy reassigns materiel release decision authority to the Army’s newly established Portfolio Acquisition Executives, aligning the authority to release capability with the leaders accountable for delivering it.
On April 22-23, 2026, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Procurement (DASA(P)) convened its DASA(P) Advisory Board, a pivotal two-day summit at the Pentagon. The summit focused on accelerating artificial intelligence integration and workforce transformation across Army contracting.
CECOM ASIC has incorporated GenAI capabilities into its Enterprise Help Desk that services the Army’s critical Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. The overarching mission of integrating GenAI into ERP systems is to increase readiness by automating responses for common fixes, enabling analysts to resolve tickets faster and providing more time to prioritize their efforts on complex mission-critical problems.
As the Army moves at speed toward continuous transformation, ATEC is embracing early integration, diverse data, digital enablement and enduring partnerships to redefine how test and evaluation support the acquisition life cycle. Through Continuous Evaluation Campaigns, ATEC is providing Army senior leaders with agile, integrated strategies that deliver Soldier-validated feedback early and continuously to inform responsible, risk-informed decisions.
The Naval Postgraduate School hosted its 23rd annual Acquisition Research Symposium and Innovation Summit on May 6–7, 2026, which brought together leaders and experts to explore innovations aimed at delivering capabilities to the warfighter faster and more effectively.
The Next Generation Squad Weapon program stands as a clear example of how CPE Ground is accepting and managing risk rather than avoiding it.
On today’s algorithmic battlefield, the U.S. Army’s success hinges on its capability to sustain forces over vast distances and in austere conditions.
As unmanned aerial threats intensify across Europe, the Army PIT’s G‑TEAD has emerged as a decisive force in delivering combat‑credible capabilities at the speed of war.
Cyber networks that are imperative for national security are probed by adversaries every day.
The Army is embracing low-code solutions to rapidly develop and deploy applications with minimal hand-coding, resulting in faster time-to-production, lower costs and greater agility in responding to changing mission requirements.
The M139 Volcano System is a rapidly deployable anti-vehicular mine dispensing system that counters enemy mobility and provides strategic advantages in diverse operational scenarios.
Built to deliver decisive effects from standoff distances, these systems are rapidly moving from concept to operational use.
The Army’s acquisition reform is beginning to show tangible results, as early actions taken under the new portfolio acquisition executive (PAE) construct translate strategic intent into measurable progress.
The ECTDP are Army initiatives created to produce senior civilian leaders with an enterprise perspective.
In 2025, my team within the Soldier Evaluation Directorate won the U.S. ATEC’s AI Challenge with a tool that could draft the first version of an AEP.
The nature of warfare is in constant flux, and with it, the demands on military logistics. As the U.S. Army shifts its focus toward Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) and confronts the challenges of Anti-Access/Aerial Denial (A2/AD) environments, the ability to sustain dispersed forces becomes a principal concern.
Traditional approaches to Army prototyping efforts have been known to move at a lackluster speed, letting ideas gather dust, while near-peer adversaries field “good enough” solutions to operational units. FUZE is the U.S. Army’s flagship innovation program, which adopts a venture capitalist (VC) model to expedite military technology development.
As the Army enhances Soldier lethality, Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition’s (JPEO A&A) Product Manager (PdM) Small Caliber Ammunition is developing the XM1224 Hybrid-Anti Materiel Round (HAMR) precision cartridge for the MK22 Precision Sniper Rifle.
As the Army enhances Soldier lethality, Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition’s (JPEO A&A) Product Manager (PdM) Small Caliber Ammunition is developing the XM1224 Hybrid-Anti Materiel Round (HAMR) precision cartridge for the MK22 Precision Sniper Rifle.
The United States Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) Software Engineering Center (SEC) will transfer the life cycle sustainment responsibilities of the Wideband Satellite Communications (SATCOM) Operational Management System (WSOMS) to the United States Space Force (USSF) in fiscal year 2026.
Near-peer adversaries now field a sophisticated arsenal of aerial threats capable of executing complex, multidomain attacks designed to overwhelm traditional defenses.
The DACM mission is to recruit, train and retain an agile, adaptive and professional workforce with the acquisition acumen and critical thinking skills to accelerate delivery capability to Soldiers.
New threat set is causing commanders to re-think the employment of armored formations, underscoring a fundamental shift in modern combat dynamics.
Foreign military sales, or FMS, is a cornerstone of U.S. security cooperation, enabling partner nations to acquire American military equipment and services.
The Army’s Joint Program Executive Office Armaments and Ammunition (JPEO A&A) is celebrating the success of its direct-hire Program Analysis Intern Program launched in 2021.
The Army launched its most ambitious procurement overhaul in decades—designed to slash bureaucracy, fast-track innovation and sharpen organizational agility.
Army agencies gathered to demonstrate their latest scientific and technological achievements on Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Among the demonstrations were key technologies from U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)…
Digital engineering and modeling and simulation (M&S) are transformative approaches that enable precision, efficiency and innovation in munitions production and warfighter capabilities.
The Army’s ability to adapt and innovate in real time is critical to mission success on the modern battlefield.
The U.S. Army prioritizes a shift to faster, more agile software development and acquisitions to deliver defensive cyber operations.
By directly enhancing capabilities in protection, intelligence, movement and maneuver, fires and sustainment, biometrics provide an operational edge.
© 2026 USAASC.
