The concept of “transforming in contact” inherently optimizes the U.S. Army’s ability to rapidly adapt for a future war with near-peer adversaries. However, there are technological risks and transformation considerations Army senior leaders must address for successful implementation of the concept in a peacetime period of nation-state competition.
The transformation in contact concept has the Army selecting specific units or formations to help test, evaluate and provide feedback on new, emerging technologies, including near-term network communications systems designed to deal with adversary systems in combat operations.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George is actively pioneering transforming in contact to expedite delivery and integration of new systems. In a February 2024 interview with War on the Rocks, George said, “One of the things we want to start doing is transforming in contact, so we can start getting after some of these changes almost immediately.” Consequently, the concept is fast becoming an integral part of evaluating and improving technological performance, not just of network equipment, but also of key emerging combat systems the Army needs in contemporary and future operating environments.
The utility of the concept of transforming in contact is evident when viewed within the broader subject of military change. How do armies or militaries in general change over time? Militaries innovate in relative peacetime conditions and adapt in war. The concept of transforming in contact will enable the Army to overcome the problem of wartime adaptation by inherently optimizing the institution’s ability to learn and recover quickly from technological surprise.

What is technological surprise? Militaries experience technological surprise when an adversary deploys and fights combat systems that not only exceed their expectations, but also provide the adversary with a tactical or strategic advantage. For example, superior German armor constituted technological surprise for the U.S. Army during World War II.
Second Lt. Freeland Daubin of the 1st Regiment, 1st Armored Division, witnessed this technological surprise firsthand during the 1942 Battle of Happy Valley in North Africa against the German army.
Daubin recalled his horror upon seeing the 18 tank rounds fired from his M3 Stuart light tank bounce harmlessly off the superior armor of the German army’s medium Mk IV Panzer tank. Before he could evade, the Panzer fired one round from its bigger 75 mm main gun, blowing Daubin out of his tank turret, killing his driver and blinding his gunner. The German tank then riddled Daubin’s wounded tank loader with machine-gun rounds as he tried to escape the destroyed tank.
Rapid Evolution
Wartime adaptation is the rapid military evolution that happens in war in response to the systems and capabilities of an adversary relative to a force’s tactical, operational and strategic objectives. The difference between peacetime innovation and wartime adaptation highlights the utility of the concept of transforming in contact.
So, how does wartime adaptation differ from peacetime innovation? Characteristically, military adaptation in war is distinct from the generally slower-paced, deliberate, future-focused innovation that occurs in a relative peacetime operating environment because it must happen quickly enough to positively impact ongoing operations.
Consider the following example of wartime adaptation: During World War II, to prevail in combat operations against German tanks wielding superior armor and guns, the U.S. Army in 1944 introduced a new Hyper-Velocity, Armor-Piercing round. But according to David Johnson, author of , the rounds were still in short supply to forces in Europe by the spring of 1945, consequently delaying their benefits to ongoing combat operations.
According to Williamson Murray, author of “Military Adaptation in War,” a 2009 paper prepared for the director of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, “The problem of adaptation in war represents one of the most persistent, yet rarely examined, problems that military institutions confront.”
The concept of transforming in contact incises deep into the heart of the wartime adaptation challenge and will help the Army overcome that challenge in a future conflict with near-peer rivals. The concept optimizes a change cycle like Air Force Col. John Boyd’s famed OODA loop—observe, orient, decide and act. Through transforming in contact, the Army would:
• Observe or learn the performance shortcomings of fielded systems in real-world operations.
• Orient or focus on the technical solutions needed to address those shortcomings.
• Decisively and rapidly develop solutions in concert with industry partners.
• Act quickly to field solutions and regain a decisive edge for the Army and joint force.
The Army is implementing transforming in contact as part of a larger effort to harness soldier feedback into systems development for faster system delivery. The institution intends to leverage units deployed to different regions around the world to test and evaluate diverse systems under development.

Risky Business
Though beneficial, the concept of transforming in contact carries risk, and there are transformation considerations senior leaders must address to optimize capability development. Transforming in contact could transfer technological risk from the system developer to the warfighter by employing technologically immature systems in Army and joint operations.
The concept compels the system developer to issue systems to soldiers for use in an operational environment to gain data supportive of ongoing development. It is possible that in select cases, a particular system’s technology may not be sufficiently mature, stable and reliable for soldiers to employ in real-world operations, which could prove disastrous. This is a risk that must be managed in a disciplined, formal process to avoid catastrophic failure and avoidable loss of life in Army operations. The latter begs the question: How can Army senior leaders mitigate this risk?
To mitigate the risk of fielding systems that are too technologically immature into Army and joint operations, Army senior leaders must codify and follow a methodical process for determining a system’s technological readiness to transform in contact. Senior leaders potentially could leverage the Army Requirements Oversight Council, or a similar oversight forum, to take an analytically rigorous look at a system’s technology readiness level and its limitations relative to the performance requirements in its Capability Development Document.
A Capability Development Document specifies key performance parameters and system attributes and other related information necessary to support development of one or more increments of a materiel capability solution, according to the Defense Acquisition University.
Additionally, the Army Staff, in concert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, the relevant Army cross-functional team, U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, as well as the fielding unit’s higher headquarters staff, can effectively assess a system’s technological readiness and maturity to transform in contact.

Controlled Testing
Undoubtedly, a codified and formal process will help senior leaders determine if a system is too technologically immature for introduction to real-world Army operations. In such a case, the institution potentially could test the system in a controlled experiment such as Project Convergence to accelerate learning and development. Codifying a methodical process for nominating programs for the transforming in contact initiative not only will better support Army senior leader decision-making; it also will foster discipline in how the institution manages its limited fiscal resources for modernization.
A key transformation consideration Army senior leaders must account for in implementing this concept is the misperception that fielding new systems to Army forces automatically equates to attaining a new decisive capability. Historically, this is not always the case. While a new system can enhance the Army’s existing capability, to innovate new capability, the Army must integrate new systems with changes in doctrine, organization, training methods, leader development and decision-making.
For example, the Army fielded helicopters during the Korean War, which helped with transportation and medical evacuation. But it did not develop airmobile (and later, air assault) capability until the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s, more than a decade later.
To build and ultimately employ airmobile capability in the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, the first major clash between U.S. soldiers and North Vietnamese troops during the war, according to Britannica, the Army had to integrate helicopters with new doctrine, organization, training, leader development and systems like new radios and rifles under the auspices of the U.S. Army Combat Developments Command and the then-experimental 11th Airborne Division.
Consequently, when looking to transform existing capability in the advent of a new system, Army senior leaders must insist on reviewing a thorough analysis of the institution’s preparedness to fully integrate and capitalize the system using the DOTMLPF-P framework—doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities and policy. This methodical approach will compel the institution to analyze how it can innovatively integrate new systems to foment paradigmatic shifts in the character of war and inflict technological surprise.
The Army faces potential conflict against near-peer, industrialized adversaries whose ability to adapt in war is just as mature as the United States’. This makes operationalizing the concept of transforming in contact ever more imperative, not only to expedite learning and development of emerging combat systems, but also to enable the Army’s ability to rapidly adapt, fight and win.
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Lt. Col. Hassan Kamara is the Army acquisition product manager for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor under Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. He deployed three times to Iraq. He has two master’s degrees: one in acquisition and procurement from Webster University, Missouri, and one in strategic studies from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.