The U.S. Army has ordered the creation of its own command for autonomous systems, a day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a new four-star military command for unmanned and autonomous warfare.
An Oct. 1 memo signed by Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle directs the Army vice chief of staff to establish the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. It also tells the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, who oversees how the Army buys weapons, to put one office in charge of purchasing its priority autonomous systems. Telle wrote that he issued the memo under guidance from Hegseth’s Sept. 30 State of the Force address.
The memo does not say who will lead FASCOM, where it will be based or when it will be established. “Specifics on structure, command, mission, etc. will be announced at a future date,” Col. Marty Meiners, an Army spokesperson, told Defense News.
The new acquisition office, a Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Autonomy, would have single authority over buying the Army’s priority autonomous systems. The Army reorganized its weapons buying last year under six portfolio acquisition executives, each overseeing a group of related programs. This would add another for autonomy.
The memo also directs the assistant secretary to prioritize buying and fielding several types of autonomous systems no later than fiscal 2028. The list includes fires, the Army’s term for artillery, rockets and missiles; combat vehicles; watercraft resupply; breaching systems that clear obstacles such as minefields; reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition systems; and drones and robots working alongside crewed vehicles and aircraft.
The Army said in its release that the memo’s initiatives build on work already underway, including an office set up earlier this year to work autonomous technology into weapons programs across the Army. Neither the memo nor the release says whether that office, the Capability Program Executive Office for Mission Autonomy, will move under the new acquisition office.
The memo tasks the Army staff’s force management office, which shapes how units are organized and equipped, with quickly working out how to fit autonomous systems into at least six existing types of units: aviation, armor, fires, sustainment, engineer and training.
It also tells the assistant secretary of the Army who oversees manpower and personnel policy to add drone and robotics specialist positions to all applicable Army units.
Both specialties already exist: the 15X tactical unmanned aircraft systems specialist for enlisted soldiers, and the 390A robotics technician for warrant officers.
“The Army is rapidly advancing to maintain our lethal edge,” Telle said in a statement released by the Army. “We are forging the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command to get cutting-edge technology into the hands of soldiers, while prioritizing autonomy in our formations, our acquisitions, and our training to dominate the future of warfare.”
Hegseth announced the Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom, during his Sept. 30 State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Military Times reported. He said the command would have service-like authorities to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the military.
Hegseth’s own memo, “Project Agincourt: Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command,” signed the same day as his address, puts the Pentagon’s unmanned systems office in charge of Project Agincourt, an effort to lay the groundwork for AutoWarCom.
Hegseth said in his address that the project is named for the 1415 battle in which an outnumbered English army used the longbow to defeat a larger, heavily armored French force. The memo argues that cheap, precise weapons built at massive scale now threaten the expensive aircraft, ships and vehicles the military has long relied on.
The Agincourt memo describes AutoWarCom as a four-star functional combatant command, a headquarters organized around a mission rather than a region, like U.S. Cyber Command. It says the command would have dedicated manpower, budget and authority to buy equipment.
Powers like those require an act of Congress, which gave U.S. Special Operations Command a similar setup when it was created in 1987. The memo directs the unmanned systems office to work with Congress on the needed legislation, with a goal of establishing AutoWarCom by Oct. 1, 2027.
The Agincourt memo says AutoWarCom will “define joint needs and integrate Service-provided forces in support of geographic combatant commanders,” the four-star officers who lead U.S. forces in regions such as the Middle East and the Pacific. A plan due by Oct. 30 is to lay out command relationships and what forces each service will contribute. Telle’s memo does not say how FASCOM will fit into that structure.
The new command’s name revives “Futures” a year after the Army inactivated Army Futures Command. In October 2025, the service merged Futures Command with Training and Doctrine Command to form the Army Transformation and Training Command, or T2COM, headquartered in Austin, Texas.
The memo does not address how FASCOM will relate to T2COM. A T2COM spokesperson referred questions about the new command to Army headquarters.
Asked how FASCOM will relate to T2COM and AutoWarCom and how the changes will be paid for, Meiners said the Army had no information to provide beyond its release.
Michael Scanlon is a defense journalist covering air and space warfare. A former U.S. Air Force A-10 crew chief, he has supported land and sea programs for the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
