The Army is seeking the holy trinity of command and control: seamless connections across echelons and functions; resilience, flexibility, and interoperability; and the ability to modernize at the speed of technology. Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, but leaders who have fought in the chaos of modern war know that victory lives or dies with command and control. Maritime engagements in the congested waters of the Persian Gulf, air missions through dense air defense and electronic warfare, and bitter fighting in Iraqi cities and Afghan mountains taught this generation of leaders that the ability to move and visualize combat data in near real time provides a decisive advantage. More recent lessons from Ukraine, Israel, and INDOPACOM confirm the point: legacy systems are stove piped, fragile, and inadequate for large-scale combat against near-peer adversaries.
The Army’s modernization of command and control is unfolding in two phases that together represent a significant, enduring market. C2 Fix, launched in 2022, delivers near-term upgrades to divisions and brigades by improving mobility, communications, and a standardized common operating picture — a bridge capability funded through the existing network portfolio.
C2 Fix sets the stage for the moonshot: Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2), a total rebuild of Army C2 from the ground up. At its core, NGC2 is a four-layer stack — transport, infrastructure, data, and applications — designed to unify C2 from special operators at the edge to corps and theater commanders. It emphasizes interoperability with joint and coalition systems, resilience in degraded (DDIL) environments, and the use of AI/ML to accelerate decision-making.
The Army is moving fast with decisive investment. It completed proof of principle in March and established a dedicated program office in April. The FY26 budget request includes nearly $2.9B in procurement and R&D to test and scale NGC2. This summer, the Army awarded Anduril a $100M OTA to deliver a division-level prototype within the year, followed by a $26M award to Lockheed Martin to develop the data layer.
The acquisition approach is equally transformative. Teaming is no longer just a capture strategy; it is the core competency. The Army has made clear that no single company can deliver NGC2. Winning means building and evolving teams that can understand requirements, deliver components across each layer, integrate them into a functioning system, and update capabilities as technology and missions evolve. Persistent experimentation through Project Convergence, combined with flexible contracting, ensures that iteration is continuous and competition remains open.
NGC2 represents one of the Army’s largest emerging opportunities — nearly 10% of its FY26 procurement budget and hundreds of millions in R&D. For major primes, the Army’s determination to avoid vendor lock means ongoing competition across all four layers. For small and mid-sized firms, opportunity is abundant, but survival depends on making the right team, proving value quickly, and staying indispensable.
At BCE, we can help clients translate this transformation into strategy: shaping winning teams, targeting the right opportunities, and positioning to thrive in a program that will define Army command and control for decades.