Ukrainian servicemen of the Defence Intelligence prepare to launch long-range drones An-196 Liutyi in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Ukrainian servicemen of the Defence Intelligence prepare to launch long-range drones An-196 Liutyi in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — The Army by 2027 plans to field its first “human-machine integrated formation platoons,” a transformational shift that the Pentagon says will allow robots, not soldiers, to make first contact with the enemy on the battlefield.
Those human-machine integrated formations, or HMIF, are part of a strategy to protect the Army’s most valuable resource — its soldiers — by sending robots into direct combat, to remove obstacles or to defuse explosives before they kill or injure U.S. personnel. It’s a central part of what some Army officials refer to as “no blood through first contact,” a 21st-century warfighting principle that aims to leverage artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, advanced robotics and other technological advantages to keep soldiers out of harm’s way as much as possible.
It’s a key point of discussion at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium & Exposition this week in Huntsville, one of the nation’s epicenters for cutting-edge research, development and fielding of capabilities in the space, military and other domains critical to U.S. national security.
Army officials say the HMIF initiative is a recognition of the changing nature of war and of the fighting forces waging it.
“Military operations worldwide are becoming increasingly dominated by the integration of humans and machines on the battlefield,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Judy, a military deputy for HMIF in the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.
“HMIF will bring robot systems into formations with the goal of having machines, not soldiers, make first contact with the enemy,” Lt. Col. Judy told an audience here. “Our primary goal in the development of HMI formations is to integrate and standardize interfaces of multiple technologies to increase formation capabilities while minimizing the cognitive burden on our soldiers.”
He said that the human-machine capabilities will be rolled out in two configurations, one for armored vehicles and another for infantry. Lt. Col. Judy said that a central piece of the program is to “push out the forward line of robotics as far as possible,” meaning that Army personnel would potentially rely on robots to operate as deep into the battlefield as possible before humans enter the fight directly.
The Army’s push for reliance on robotics comes amid the rapid pace of evolution in the military technology space. Drones and other unmanned systems have become commonplace on today’s battlefields, in the Russia-Ukraine war, Middle East conflicts and elsewhere around the world.
Robotics are a top priority for all of the world’s top militaries. The U.S. and its adversaries, mainly Russia and China, are in the midst of huge advances in missiles, ordnance and other weapons.
But it’s precisely those advances, said some analysts and military insiders, that make the HMIF push so vital as the Army looks for ways to defuse an enemy’s capabilities without risking human lives. And it’s an initiative that is forward-looking, imagining a battlefield even more advanced, chaotic and deadly than today’s.
“The Army of 2040 will encounter weaponized drones, unmanned ground and aerial vehicles and systems, various forms of hypersonic and improved weapons and weapons systems, and many other challenges. All will require the ability to efficiently and expeditiously render these items safe and deactivated, without unnecessary risk of life to [explosive ordnance disposal] personnel, other soldiers, or civilians,” retired Col. Dick A. Larry, now the owner of Defense Strategy Consulting LLC, wrote in a 2024 piece for Defense Acquisition University magazine.
“Placing a soldier in a bomb suit, regardless of its strengths and inherent flaws, should be a last resort for the Army of 2040,” he wrote.
In a theoretical future war, HMIF could also help the Army capture territory without the kinds of massive human casualties seen in some current conflicts, particularly the Russia-Ukraine war, in which both sides have sustained major losses.
“One of the reasons we’re the best Army in the world is we do joint all-arms maneuvers. So, we would not settle into an attrition-based fight and trade … our men and women for acres, for meters, for feet,” Gen. James Rainey, the commander of U.S. Army Futures Command, said at a Center for Strategic and International studies event last year.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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