Cramer Chairs SASC Airland Subcommittee Hearing on Army Modernization

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) chaired the Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee in a hearing examining how the Army is accelerating modernization in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 President's Budget submission. The hearing spotlighted the Army's push to expand critical munitions and missile production, field autonomous and counter-drone capabilities more quickly, and ensure U.S. forces maintain readiness for future conflicts in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Members also asked witnesses how the conflict in Ukraine has shifted understanding of the combat landscape.

Cramer opened the hearing thanking witnesses Jesse Tolleson, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, and Lt. Gen. Edmond "Miles" Brown, Acting Commanding General of the United States Army Transformation and Training Command (T2COM), who visited with Cramer prior to the hearing.

"The goal of Army modernization is pretty straightforward," said Cramer in his opening statement. "It's to ensure American Soldiers have the most capable, survivable, and lethal equipment possible to deter conflict and, if necessary, to win on the battlefield. The character of war is changing rapidly as we all know, we're watching it in real time. Recent conflicts have demonstrated the growing importance of unmanned systems, electronic warfare, long-range precision fires, integrated air and missile defense, and resilient communications networks. At the same time, China continues to be the pacing challenge for the Department of War, while Russia, Iran, North Korea, and violent extremist organizations continue to threaten U.S. interests and global stability.

"But the Army faces another challenge as it modernizes, and that's adapting fast enough to keep pace with technological change," continued Cramer. "The battlefield is evolving in days or months, rather than decades. The Army must balance affordability, sustainment, mobility, and survivability while ensuring new capabilities can be fielded rapidly and of course at scale. Modernization cannot simply focus on developing exquisite systems. It must also prioritize production capacity, operational relevance, and the ability to integrate emerging technologies into formations quickly. […] I believe Army leadership recognizes this reality and is moving the Army in the right direction."

Opening Remarks

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The Army recently conducted its first?"Right to Integrate" hackathon, codenamed Operation Jailbreak. The initiative is designed to break down information silos between systems. Over 600 participants and more than 50 companies voluntarily opened their sensors, platforms, and weapons systems?to share?data seamlessly in real time. Pushing well beyond prior efforts, the hackathon produced real impacts with software patches immediately pushed to U.S. Central Command.

When Cramer asked Lt. Gen. Brown and Tolleson how Operation Jailbreak succeeded at breaking down proprietary silos and securing vendor buy-in, Lt. Gen. Brown told Cramer about the number of vendors who thought Operation Jailbreak would be an easy exercise, while Tolleson spoke about Operation Jailbreak's creation in response to lessons learned from Operation Epic Fury.

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The conversation then shifted to acquisition, contracting, and sending demand signals to attract capital, as well as the need for speed in terms of transformation and innovation. Cramer asked the witnesses how they envision reconciling long-term contracts and making sure what's being produced is relevant for the moment.

Lt. Gen. Brown said they see new capability in a variety of places. He reiterated how T2COM needs to be able to recompete whenever technology matures and then build formations to accept the technology. Tolleson said the structure mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act has set the conditions well for the Army to make sure "whatever innovative capability that we start focusing on, it will stay relevant."

Cramer and the witnesses stressed the importance of working with U.S. allies, with Tolleson noting how "we've got to bring […] the partners in here [...] because any conflict we get into is going to be a joint fight."

With regard to the actual production from the defense industrial base, Cramer discussed with Tolleson and Lt. Gen. Brown what they see as the potential "bottleneck challenge," going forward with producing capabilities, particularly munitions. The witnesses identified actions the Army is currently taking, as well as future opportunities, to improve supply chains.