With the resignation of Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, the US Army has lost another top leader who was driving its sweeping transformation for future wars.
As the service secretary, Dan Driscoll was a leading figure in reshaping the Army’s relationship with industry and accelerating its focus on drone warfare. His departure, along with the dismissal of the service’s top general earlier this year, has left the Army’s modernization efforts in question.
The Army did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on how leadership changes will affect these efforts.
Driscoll, a former military officer and investment banker, submitted his resignation on Monday. A US official told Business Insider that the secretary spoke to President Donald Trump about the state of the Army prior to that decision.
Multiple news reports have indicated that Driscoll had concerns about the Army transformation initiative amid Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s removal of top generals. Earlier reporting had identified frictions between Driscoll and Hegseth.
Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George in April, dismissing him roughly a year and a half before the end of what is usually a four-year term. George’s firing came as a shock, with reports indicating that his removal came after disagreements between the general and Hegseth.
The service does not currently have any Senate-confirmed leaders, leaving elements of its leadership and its transformation up in the air.
Early last year, Hegseth issued a memo ordering sweeping changes in the Army; at the time, it was described as the largest shift in force structure and priorities since the Cold War.
The memo directed Driscoll to “transform the Army now for future warfare,” with changes ranging from flooding divisions with drones to shedding older legacy systems and reforming the acquisitions process.
The total cost of the transformation was estimated to be around $36 billion over the next five years.
George and Driscoll became two of the most visible leaders carrying out that transformation. Driscoll, who Trump had previously identified as a “change agent” and “disruptor,” spoke publicly about which weapons programs hadn’t been successful, pushed for significantly greater investments in uncrewed capabilities, and pressed the Army to work differently with industry and adopt a more commercially driven mindset.
Early in his tenure as the Army secretary, Driscoll told Business Insider that there was a need for the Army to modernize ahead of a future fight.
“We feel a large enough existential threat, and it is important enough that we can no longer make decisions simply based off where jobs might exist or what private companies may benefit from our decisions,” he said. “Instead, we have to optimize for soldier lethality in the fight ahead.”
One of Driscoll’s latest transformation efforts was the Right to Integrate initiative, an attempt to break down walls between weapons from different suppliers and integrate them so that soldiers can more easily connect and use different systems.
In May, he told reporters he had an “aha” moment about the idea after seeing how Ukraine had successfully connected drones, sensors, and weapons into its battle management program.
George was also influential in service transformation efforts. He was involved in several efforts to speed up the Army’s modernization, including helping drive the Next Generation Command and Control experimentation initiative to develop a prototype for the Army’s new command and control system.
Another of his signature initiatives was the creation of the Army’s Unmanned Assault Battalion, an experimental unit in the 173rd Airborne Brigade launched last fall to apply lessons in drone warfare from Ukraine. The idea was that the battalion would specialize in drone tactics and help spread those lessons across the force.
But last month, George’s acting replacement, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s vice chief of staff, disbanded the battalion.
The battalion is participating in an exercise that will conclude this month, an Army official told Business Insider. And then it “will deliver what it learned there, together with the past year’s findings, to the Army to inform force design and future experimentation.” After the exercise, it will refocus as airborne infantry.
The decision confused defense analysts.
“This decision is quite puzzling, given the Pentagon’s Drone dominance initiative and the push for the US military to integrate drones into their formations and operations,” Stacie Pettyjohn, a defense expert at the Center for a New American Security, told Business Insider.
“They have asked to spend billions of dollars on drones,” she continued, “and forgoing an opportunity to learn from Ukraine, a partner nation that is the most experienced in the world at using drones, does not make any sense,” she said.
The Department of Defense has continued to signal that technological innovation and uncrewed systems are priorities, as has LaNeve, who said in a written post that “the work of change continues.” At the same time, he said that the Army also needs to prioritize warfighting fundamentals and soldier readiness.
The Army’s broader transformation is on uncertain footing. The push for change is still there, but it is unclear whether the initiatives put forward under Driscoll and George will continue. If they do, it’s unclear who will be moving them forward.
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