Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced a sweeping transformation of the U.S. Army, directing changes that will reshape force structure, procurement priorities, and leadership alignment.
The initiative, dubbed the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI), marks one of the most significant overhauls in recent military history. PJ Media reports that in a memo issued this week, Hegseth laid out plans to divest outdated formations, cancel older system procurements, and merge the Army Futures Command with the Training and Doctrine Command into a single, streamlined organization.
“To build a leaner, more lethal force, the Army must transform at an accelerated pace by divesting outdated, redundant, and inefficient programs, as well as restructuring headquarters and acquisition systems,” Hegseth wrote.
A central element of the transformation is informed by battlefield observations from Ukraine, where the traditional dominance of heavy armor has been eroded by the rise of inexpensive drone warfare. According to the ATI strategy, the Army will “Reduce and restructure manned attack helicopter formations and augment with inexpensive drone swarms capable of overwhelming adversaries,” and “Divest outdated formations, including select armor and aviation units across the Total Army (Active, Reserve, National Guard).”
The chief of staff of the U.S. Army, Gen. Randy George, echoed the need for rapid change. In his own memo to the force, George wrote that the Army “will reexamine all requirements and eliminate unnecessary ones, ruthlessly prioritize fighting formations to directly contribute to lethality, and empower leaders at echelon to make hard calls to ensure resources align with strategic objectives.”
The deadline for these sweeping changes is 2027—a timeline Hegseth repeatedly emphasized in his communications. That year is widely regarded by defense analysts as a potential inflection point in China’s military modernization efforts.
“This is a bold plan by the Army and its leadership that aligns decision making and execution by setting 2027 as the date to be completed — a mere 32 months,” John Ferrari, a senior nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and retired Army Maj. Gen., told Breaking Defense today.
“The Army’s changes will be rapid, align with the capabilities of the new tech defense startups, while the other services are still measuring their changes in years and decades,” Ferrari added.
The outlet reports that the urgency behind this overhaul is highlighted by the recent experience of American equipment on the battlefield. The U.S. sent 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, hoping to reinforce Kyiv’s armored capabilities. But despite the favorable terrain, 20 of those tanks were destroyed, primarily by low-cost FPV (First Person View) and suicide drones used by Russian forces. One U.S. official lamented the imbalance: a $21 million tank neutralized by a drone costing just a few thousand dollars.
