Army officials, defense industry leaders to land in D.C. for big military conference

Key military officials and defense industry leaders will descend on Washington this week for a major Army conference, with the service’s 21st-century modernization effort in the spotlight and against the backdrop of a push across the Pentagon to maintain an edge over America’s adversaries.

The Association of the United States Army (AUSA) bills its annual conference, which begins Monday in downtown Washington, as the “Army’s most powerful event.” More than 44,000 people are expected to attend.

The service and its private-sector defense industry partners will have more than 750 displays set up across a sprawling exhibition floor at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Those displays will include drones, robotic vehicles, missile and missile defense exhibits, firearms, artificial intelligence tools and manned ground vehicles, plus intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance equipment.

The Army’s effort, and the Pentagon’s broader initiative, to field huge numbers of small, tactical attack drones will be one of the most prominent aspects of the show, from the convention floor to the keynote addresses from military officials and defense sector leaders.

The Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile shield, and the role that the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command will play in it, will be another central theme of the show.

Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll will join retired Army Gen. Robert Brooks Brown, now the president of AUSA, on stage to open the event Monday morning. Top Army officials from all corners of the service will speak at panel discussions or roundtables throughout the week.

The AUSA gathering comes amid the federal government shutdown. That’s casting a spotlight on future federal funding for military services and offices throughout the Department of Defense, which President Trump calls the War Department.

Mr. Brown argues that no matter what some critics might say, cutting the Army’s budget would deeply harm U.S. national security.

“There’s rumors now of ’cut the Army,’ which has happened historically,” Mr. Brown told The Washington Times in an exclusive interview earlier this year. “That would be very foolish because [the Army is] the linchpin of the joint force.”

Meanwhile, the Army is in the midst of a generation-defining modernization push as questions abound about the service’s structure when it comes to fielding 21st-century capabilities.

The Army has shuttered its Army Futures Command, which was launched in 2018 in Austin, Texas, and was designed to more quickly get new weapons and technology into the hands of soldiers. Officials said that mission will be absorbed into the service’s Transformation and Training Command.

The defense contractors at the AUSA conference will involve the largest household names as well as start-ups and Silicon Valley disruptors aiming to be part of that modernization push and to secure a piece of lucrative projects such as the Golden Dome.

General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin are expected to have a sizable presence at the entrance of the exposition’s upper floor.

General Dynamics is bringing its MUTT XM robotic vehicle, equipped for counterdrone missions. American Rheinmetall, a General Dynamics partner on the Army’s future optionally crewed Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle, the XM-30, will have a booth on the floor.

General Motors Defense, Bell and RTX also have prime booth placement, as do a host of other defense firms.

Attendees across the industry will share the new platforms and technology that they think will shape future wars, discuss options for countering major threats, and theorize about the future of the force for America and its allies.

Industry leaders will address the Army’s focus on uncrewed vehicles, modernization of current platforms and other Army Transformation Initiative priorities, such as Mr. Driscoll’s drumbeat of advancing “right-to-repair” into future wars.

Mr. Driscoll views technologies like 3D printing to quickly repair, develop and build small tactical drones as critical for how Army logistics and maintenance will function in future combat zones.

Other leading Army officials say they’re moving ahead quickly with those capabilities.

“Very soon we will have the capability to manufacture the vast majority of the system in-house, with government-owned tech data,” Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, the acting commander of Army Materiel Command, said during an interview on the Threat Status weekly podcast earlier this year.

“Right now we are 3D-printing [drones] less than 23 pounds at Rock Island Arsenal [in Illinois]. The unit is learning from partners and pushing things forward. We look at what they have and we make modifications to make it better, but also to make it more manufacturable.”

Army officials believe the 3D printing of drones could be crucial in a future conflict in the Pacific, where it would be tough to move huge numbers of unmanned aircraft and other equipment into the theater quickly.

China’s anti-access and area-denial strategy, or A2/AD, is designed to make such movements difficult for an enemy. A2/AD refers to the combination of defensive systems, artillery, radar and other tools to deny an enemy the ability to occupy or move through a specific area of land, air or sea.

China is widely expected to employ such a strategy in the event of a future conflict with the U.S., perhaps during a Chinese invasion of the island democracy of Taiwan.

Gen. Brown said China’s rapidly expanding military capabilities have reshaped the dynamics around U.S.-China competition. Keeping pace with those capabilities is a core objective for the Army and the Pentagon as a whole.

“They’re very aggressive. I’ve worked many years, over 30 years, with China and I’ve seen that they used to fear us and respect us. In my opinion, they don’t fear us anymore,” he said of communist China.