Army Must Transform With Urgency, ‘Underdog’ Mindset

Army Must Transform With Urgency, ‘Underdog’ Mindset

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth speaks at AUSA 2024
Photo by: Jonathan Newton for AUSA

Army leaders across the force must move faster and with more urgency to transform for the future fight, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said.

“America’s adversaries are not going to sit back and let the United States set the pace,” Wormuth said Oct. 14 in her keynote speech to open the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2024 Annual Meeting and Exposition. “Despite being the world’s best land fighting force, we need to start thinking and acting more like underdogs. We need to push ourselves to build a stronger culture of innovation inside the Army. We need to adopt a greater sense of urgency and accept greater risk.”

Wormuth said that Army senior leaders “feel that urgency, and we are prepared to underwrite prudent risk-taking.”

A key part of this risk-taking involves the Army’s transforming in contact initiative, where the service is putting new, emerging technology and equipment in soldiers’ hands for testing and experimentation. “There is risk in testing new systems in challenging environments and getting soldiers hands-on experience with new technology in the field, but we do not have the luxury of time to wait for perfection,” Wormuth said. “We must ‘field to learn.’ ”

The Army also is working with Congress to develop “more agile funding mechanisms,” particularly in areas such as unmanned aerial systems, counter-unmanned aerial systems and electronic warfare, she said. “If this pilot approach helps us keep pace with rapidly improving technology without sacrificing congressional oversight, it could help build the trust needed for greater spending flexibility in the future,” she said.

But as the Army builds a culture of innovation, it cannot lose sight of the human dimension, Wormuth said. “No amount of new technology is more important than the individual American soldier,” she said. “We have an obligation to every soldier—and their families. We owe them the equipment and training they need to be able to win on the battlefield, but we also owe them the compensation, opportunities and quality of life their service has earned.”

This is why the Army increased paid parental leave to 12 weeks, expanded child care offerings and increased compensation for child care workers on Army posts, Wormuth said. The Army also is investing $2 billion a year on barracks improvement, she said.

“These investments are substantial, but the question is whether they are enough, considering the changed expectations of young people today as they make career decisions,” Wormuth said. “I worry the answer to this question is no.”

Like every generation, today’s young people have different needs and expectations, Wormuth said.

“Data suggests they are prioritizing family life, genuine engagement with their bosses and financial compensation over traditional job satisfaction, and private sector employers are eager to offer these things because they want the very best talent they can find,” she said.

At the same time, the Army lifestyle hasn’t changed significantly in decades, Wormuth said.

“We still expect our soldiers to move every two to three years, uprooting children from schools and friends, and upending aspirations of spouses who want careers of their own,” she said.

Wormuth emphasized that the Army cannot telework to war, but it should consider taking a “hard look” at how to provide troops with “greater career flexibility, stability and predictability.”

In addition to soldiers serving today, the Army has poured resources into recruiting new soldiers.

“It’s no secret that the Army—along with our sister services—has had some significant recruiting challenges, and these challenges are not going away,” she said.

The Army tackled the problem by implementing several new programs and transforming how it recruits and how it selects and trains its recruiters. It also brought back its iconic “Be All You Can Be” recruiting campaign and it working to counter misconceptions about Army service.

The efforts paid off during fiscal 2024, which ended Sept. 30, when the Army surpassed its goal of recruiting 55,000 new soldiers. It also is adding 11,000 people in its delayed entry program, exceeding its goal of 5,000, Wormuth said.

“I believe that our success this year shows the promise of what is around the corner—complete transformation of our recruiting enterprise,” she said. “There is still work to do to finish this transformation, but the Army is moving out aggressively.”

This includes setting a higher goal of 61,000 new soldiers for fiscal 2025, Wormuth said, and the delayed entry program target will be 10,000, double this year’s goal.

“This goal is ambitious, but we believe it is achievable,” Wormuth said.

The Army has made significant progress in its transformation, but it still has a lot of work to do, Wormuth said. “I have confidence in the United States Army’s ability to solve problems and innovate,” she said. “This is the Army that went from riding horses to driving tanks. This is the Army that embraced aircraft and birthed the Air Force. This is the Army that sustained two decades of repeated deployments and heavy combat after 9/11—a force straining and bending, but never breaking, never failing to rise to the challenge and accomplish the mission.”