From his first day as the first commander of the newly created U.S. Army Futures Command, Gen. Mike Murray has focused on one core mission.

“All that really matters is, are we giving young soldiers today or into the future the capability they’re going to need to win on the future battlefield?” he said. “Or better yet, are we giving [them] the capability that nobody will ever take us on in the future? And that’s really what deterrence means.”

Tasked with leading one of the largest, most ambitious transformation and modernization efforts in Army history, Murray has led Futures Command as it grew in August 2018 from about 20 people to the major command it is today with more than 26,000 soldiers and civilians.

On Dec. 3, Murray relinquished command after more than three years at the head of Futures Command, and he will retire in February after almost 40 years of service. He recently took time to reflect on how far the command has come.

“Every job I’ve ever been in, I’ve walked into, there’s a training schedule, a training plan, a vision, there’s documents that exist to cross units over from commander to commander,” Murray said. “Of course, none of that was here. The biggest challenge we had on Day 1 was, would the printer work?”

Agile Organization

Murray worked to create a command that would be nimble and adaptable enough to help the Army meet its sweeping modernization goals—a daunting task.

To get there, Murray tried to establish a culture that focused more on output than process. “Process is only important as a road map,” he said. And for an organization that was focused on results—and quickly—Futures Command had to have a culture of “calculated risk acceptance.”

“Don’t be afraid of failure,” Murray said. “If you look back at past Army modernization programs, the common answer to running into a problem is [to] throw more money at it. I’m convinced that if we’re going to do cutting-edge experimentation, and if we’re going to move fast, and if we’re going to fail, we need to fail fast before you have a program with a dollar figure that begins with a ‘b.’ ”

The Army had to learn to walk away from ideas or equipment “when it becomes apparent it’s probably not going to work,” Murray said.

So far, the Army has stuck to its modernization priorities of long-range precision fires, air and missile defense, next-generation combat vehicles, Future Vertical Lift, the network and soldier lethality. It also prioritized the programs based on the belief that future battlefields will present complex challenges requiring the Army to be more agile, move faster and be more deadly.

“I think what’s been invaluable has been the Army sticking to its modernization priorities and not changing them every time we change leadership,” Murray said. “I think the Army’s commitment in terms of resources and funding sent a pretty significant signal not only to the Army but to industry.”

Seeing Results

That discipline is already producing results. Two programs, the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular and the Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense system, are already in soldiers’ hands, Murray said.

By fiscal 2023, the Army plans to field hypersonic missiles, fly prototypes of its next-generation assault and attack aircraft, field the Next-Generation Squad Weapon, test prototypes of the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, field prototypes of a directed energy-based system to counter unmanned aerial systems—a threat leaders have called the IEDs of the future—and more, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said during the 2021 Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition.

“All told, we’ll have 24 of our 31 plus 4 signature systems in the hands of soldiers by [fiscal year 20]23,” McConville said, referring to the Army’s priority modernization programs, 31 managed by Futures Command and four overseen by the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.

’A Different Approach Early’

Those programs, as outlined by McConville, remain on track, Murray said. And while the decision in early 2020 to restart the process for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle was “painful,” it was “an example of taking a different approach early as opposed to continuing to put money against something that may or may not meet the requirement,” Murray said.

Murray also is pleased with the relationships that have been built between Futures Command and other parts of the Army, as well as with universities, small businesses and industry. “I think there is solid momentum here,” he said.

Challenges Ahead

Looking ahead, Murray is confident that the Army will remain on its path to modernizing and transforming the force, but cautioned there will be challenges, especially as budgets shrink and threats continue to evolve.

Using as an example the Army’s efforts in the 1980s to field the Big Five—the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the AH-64 Apache helicopter, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and the Patriot missile system—Murray said resources will be a key factor in how quickly the Army can deliver on this next generation of equipment.

“Resources get tight, and resources get better,” he said. “You go back over history, funding for DoD is very cyclic depending on what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in the country, the administration, there’s lots of factors that go into it.”

Decisions get tougher as resources shrink, Murray said. “There are some tough decisions coming, and the chief and the secretary will have to figure out a way of delivering the best Army they possibly can with the resources we’re given,” he said.

Some of those decisions could impact Futures Command’s work. “But impacting doesn’t mean canceling,” Murray said. He added, “I think if the Army can maintain its focus on its priorities, and they’ve been well proven in a couple different scenarios we’ve run, then we’ll find a way to work our way through it.”

Murray also stressed the importance of making sure Futures Command remains focused over the horizon, not just on the five-year plan. “If I’m not thinking about what 2035 could look like, given the day-to-day battles and issues the Pentagon deals with, I’m not sure who is,” he said. “I do think there’s value in having someone who thinks about what could be in that future.”

Thinking about the future ensures the Army remains focused on evolving threats and developing requirements based on those threats, he said. “One of the things we’ve done that’s kind of gone under the radar is we’re not developing requirements based upon capabilities,” he said. “We’re developing threat-based requirements.”

Common Purpose

Murray said he has “absolute” faith in the Army’s leaders and in whoever succeeds him at Futures Command. “There’s always somebody more qualified than you ready to take your job,” he said. “I think an organization reaches a point where fresh eyes are actually good.”

He also credited his team for Futures Command’s successes. “There’s lots of things we have done at [Futures Command], none of it I could have done by myself and none do I take credit for, lots of things we’ve screwed up, and I’ll take responsibility for all that,” he said.

Futures Command has a “phenomenal group of people. They have put up with me for three years,” Murray said. “There’s lots of things I won’t miss. The one thing I will miss is the people, and that goes [for] the civilian side and the uniform side, and really that sense of a common purpose with a group of like-minded people, people just rolling up their sleeves and getting things done,” he said. “That’s what I’m going to miss.”