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<\/a><\/p>\n Jared Serbu<\/a>@jserbuWFED<\/a><\/p>\n \n October 14, 2025 9:29 am <\/p>\n 3 min read<\/p>\n The Army\u2019s new secretary says the service is weeks away from unveiling changes that will \u201ccompletely disrupt\u201d Army acquisition bureaucracy, arguing that the existing system and the civilian leaders who work within it have failed for decades to deliver the capabilities soldiers need.<\/p>\n Speaking at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington, Secretary Dan Driscoll offered few specifics on the planned changes, but suggested they would reorient and centralize the current structure, which depends on program executive officers to manage portfolios of weapons systems or related capabilities.<\/p>\n The system as it stands, he said, is much too slow and costly and serves \u201cto line the prime [contractors]\u2019 pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur acquisitions enterprise is more complicated than it should be, and that\u2019s getting in the way of empowering soldiers. So we will combine it all under a single organization that reports directly to senior Army leadership,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want fast and efficient. We want to get soldiers the tools they need now, not a decade in the future; we will break down barriers until we measure acquisitions not in years and billions of dollars, but in months and thousands of dollars. We will keep cutting red tape until the capabilities you use at work are equal or better than the ones you use at home.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Overall, Driscoll said he intended to model his reforms after the way business is done by Silicon Valley tech firms, calling the approach \u201cabsolutely ideal\u201d for the Army.<\/p>\n The service began previewing aspects of that approach at this week\u2019s conference via what it\u2019s calling xTechDisrupt<\/a>, a \u201cshark tank\u201d style competition that lets small and medium businesses present technology proposals and compete for prizes of $62,500 each to start implementing their ideas over the next 30 days. The Army plans to pick eight winners during the AUSA conference.<\/p>\n \u201cThen, they will take it to the field and iterate with soldiers for another month to improve their product. Our goal is to contract with startups that have never worked with the United States Army before in just 60 to 70 days. For companies we have worked with that have prototype-level entries, we want to contract in 10 and start soldier iterations in 30 to 45 days,\u201d Driscoll said. \u201cWe train like we fight. Acquisition should be no different. We wouldn\u2019t take 10 to 12 months to sign a contract while in a fight. So we will train our system to move fast and soon, Ukraine won\u2019t be the only Silicon Valley of warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n