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Originally published at Armed Forces Press.
On October 19, the War Department put out a Pentagon letter on how they plan to build a four-star Autonomous Warfare Command. The letter, on Project Agincourt letterhead and signed twice by officials marked “CEO,” began by referencing the past attempt by the Army to transform itself in 1928.
The letter is titled “Building the Autonomous Warfare Command” and comes from the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems (DRPM-UxS), which leads Project Agincourt. The letter revisits a historical episode from the interwar years of the War Department’s attempt to build a unified mechanized force of tanks, armored trucks and motorized infantry. In 1928, Secretary of War Dwight Davis directed the Army to experiment with such a force. However, that force was soon disbanded, and the effort at mechanization was ultimately broken up and added as an afterthought to the various services. It required the German blitzkrieg in 1940 to force the creation of the U.S. Armored Force.
“We face an equally urgent revolution,” the letter says, pointing to low-cost drones that have changed the character, speed and economics of war. Instead of going down the path of 1928, it says, Secretary Pete Hegseth “chose the maximal path.”
Project Agincourt has two missions. The first is to stand up the Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM) by October 1, 2027, as the largest institutional change since the interwar years. The second mission of Project Agincourt is to continue the mission of the DRPM-UxS while pioneering a new acquisition model, which pairs autonomy and robotics companies with operational forces at the “edge.” “The goal is not a particular drone. It is a system built to adapt at scale,” the letter states.
Power projection since the Cold War has been based upon a limited number of very high-end, very expensive systems, and that model has been disrupted. The new advantage for the U.S. will come from the edge, adapting faster than adversaries with two key assets: its lead in superintelligence and an unmatched NCO corps.
There will also be a test on spending money, with systems going head-to-head in competitions, exercises and combat. Spending auditable dollars should reduce cost-per-kill or risk-to-force, the letter said. Systems will not be declared ready on paper. Combatant commanders will use the systems in combat, and the “ideal” Pacific portfolio will not be the “ideal” European portfolio. Each theater will have its own mix.
The new command will institutionalize a mission-based system to create a product above all else: adaptation to meet the changing operational environment and get a solution in the field as fast as possible. The letter also quotes Joint Chiefs Chairman Caine: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”
Armed Forces Press has not independently authenticated the letter. The CEO of the DRPM-UxS, which leads Project Agincourt, is Owen West, according to the Army.
Secretary Hegseth talked about the effort in a public presentation at the AUSA meeting on October 14. He referred to the $1 billion allocated for drone dominance, and stated that the services are not “fighting” against the end state that he referred to as Project Agincourt, which he said the services believed in and were working towards. In addition to the large numbers of one-way attack systems that he said would be fielded this year, he said that in the following years, there would be millions of systems.
The full letter is embedded below.
