War Department reorganizes innovation ecosystem to accelerate technology delivery to American warfighters

The realignment makes several concrete structural changes:

• Elevates the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) to become Department of War (DoW) Field Activities, giving them a more formalized, department‑wide role.
• Places six “execution organizations” under the purview of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO)/Under Secretary for Research & Engineering: the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), and the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC).
• Operationally aligns SCO under the CTO (while it still reports statutorily to the Deputy Secretary) to cut duplication and focus it on near‑term capabilities.
• Introduces term‑limited appointments at DIU and SCO to keep those organizations agile and enable more rotation of private‑sector and operational military talent.
• Creates a new CTO Action Group (CAG) as the main forum to coordinate innovation efforts, clear bureaucratic obstacles, and oversee technology transition decisions.
• Directs each Military Service to reorganize its own innovation community (labs, research enterprises, experimental units, rapid‑capability offices) and submit “Service Innovation Plans” that align their work with the department‑wide innovation outcomes and acquisition pathways. These steps are intended to replace a fragmented innovation structure with a unified, faster‑moving enterprise focused on getting technology into operational use.

The announcement and associated memo explicitly touch several specific organizations and broad communities:

• Named “execution organizations” under the CTO’s purview: the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), and the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC).
• DIU and SCO are most directly affected: both are redesignated as Department of War Field Activities; SCO is operationally aligned under the CTO while still reporting by law to the Deputy Secretary; both adopt term‑limited appointments.
• The Military Services’ innovation ecosystems are affected collectively: their labs, research enterprises, experimental units, and rapid‑capability offices must be reorganized and documented in new Service Innovation Plans.
• Acquisition organizations are indirectly affected because those Service plans must describe how acquisition portfolios will “on‑ramp” innovations emerging from the ecosystem. The memo does not list every individual lab or acquisition program, but it clearly intends to pull the service laboratories, experimental units and rapid‑acquisition offices into a more coordinated framework under the CTO and CAG.

Emil Michael’s role, as described in the release and consistent with the traditional U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)) / CTO role, combines department‑wide technology leadership with specific new responsibilities:

• He serves as Under Secretary for Research and Engineering and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Department, making him the senior civilian official responsible for science and technology, research and development, prototyping, and technology modernization across the department.
• He has purview over six core innovation and technology organizations: CDAO, DARPA, DIU, OSC, SCO, and TRMC, and is explicitly charged with aligning their work to outcomes that matter for warfighters.
• He supports DIU on “administrative and resource matters” and aligns DIU’s portfolio with department priorities (while DIU’s director still reports directly to the Secretary as a Principal Staff Assistant).
• He operationally oversees SCO’s work (while SCO maintains its statutory reporting to the Deputy Secretary) to avoid duplication and emphasize near‑term capability delivery.
• He chairs the new CTO Action Group (CAG), identified in the memo as the senior forum for the innovation ecosystem, responsible for setting agendas, tracking progress via standardized dashboards, clearing blockers, and making fast decisions on innovation and transition issues.
• By analogy to the current USD(R&E) in the Department of Defense, he is also the principal advisor to the Secretary on research, engineering, and technology development and is responsible for establishing department‑wide technology strategy and priorities.

Historically, the U.S. had a Department of War until the late 1940s, when it was replaced by the Department of Defense (DoD) under the National Security Act amendments; since then, the official cabinet‑level department responsible for the armed forces has been the Department of Defense, not a “Department of War.” In the 2026 release, however, the entity describes itself as the “U.S. Department of War” and uses the acronym DoW, with contact information at “1400 Defense Pentagon” and a war.gov domain, and Mirage News attributes the release to the “U.S. Department of Defense.” That combination indicates this is intended to refer to the main U.S. defense department rather than an internal office, but with a different branding or naming convention in the text of the memo. Because open, independent legal or policy documentation confirming a formal renaming from “Department of Defense” to “Department of War” after 2024 is not accessible here, it is not possible to say with confidence whether “DoW” is the department’s official statutory name in 2026 or a political/communications rebrand used in this set of materials. What can be said from the document itself is that “DoW” is being used as the label for the entire U.S. defense department, not for a sub‑office.

The implementation starts immediately but unfolds in stages:

• The release states that, “Effective today,” DIU and SCO are designated as Department of War Field Activities and placed under the new alignment, meaning those organizational changes take effect as of the announcement date (January 12–13, 2026, depending on time zone).
• The memo directs that, “Within 90 days,” the Secretaries of the Military Departments must brief the CTO on their Service Innovation Plans, which detail how their labs, research enterprises, experimental units, rapid capability offices, and acquisition portfolios will be organized around the new innovation outcomes and pathways.
• The creation of the CTO Action Group (CAG) and the appointment of a new CDAO are also announced as contemporaneous with the realignment, implying they begin operating during this initial implementation window. The documents do not specify precise dates on which warfighters will first see new capabilities in the field, but the immediate redesignation of DIU and SCO and the 90‑day deadline for Service plans indicate that organizational changes and planning are expected to roll out over the first quarter following the memo, with impacts on technology delivery depending on how quickly those plans translate into funded projects and acquisition decisions.

The public release and the accessible portions of the memo emphasize mechanisms and governance more than hard numeric performance targets, but they do describe how success will be monitored and managed:

• The CTO Action Group (CAG) is established as the senior forum for the innovation ecosystem and is described (in the memo) as operating through “standardized dashboards, highly prioritized topics, and management‑by‑exception,” allowing the CTO to assess status, clear blockers, and make rapid decisions. That implies regular tracking of key indicators such as transition status for priority projects, decision timelines, and blockers.
• Service Innovation Plans must explain how Service acquisition portfolios will “on‑ramp innovation” from labs, DIU, SCO, etc., and identify policy and legislative barriers. The requirement to brief these plans to the CTO within 90 days creates an initial milestone and a review mechanism for how each Service ties innovation to funded acquisition programs.
• The overarching goal stated in the release is to “deliver technology to the warfighter with greater urgency” and “transition breakthrough technology into the hands of America’s bravest warriors,” suggesting that the de facto metrics are speed and rate of successful technology transitions from experimentation or prototyping into operational units. The memo, as quoted in search snippets, does not provide specific numeric targets (e.g., days to contract award or number of transitions per year) in the publicly visible portions, so any such detailed metrics—if they exist—are not discernible from the accessible documents.

Yes. While the release does not provide dollar figures, it clearly signals changes in how funding, contracting, and partnerships with industry and academia will work:

• DIU is reaffirmed as the department’s organization for “technology scouting, rapid contracting, and commercial adoption services at the speed of industry,” now as a Department of War Field Activity working closely with the Mission Engineering and Integration Activity (MEIA). This implies continued and potentially expanded use of flexible, commercial‑style contracting (e.g., OTA‑type mechanisms) to bring in private firms quickly.
• Term‑limited appointments at DIU and SCO are meant to bring in more talent from the private sector and operational force, tightening the department’s connection with industry and practitioners.
• The Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), placed under the CTO’s purview as one of the six execution organizations, is specifically focused on aligning private capital with defense priorities, which suggests a stronger emphasis on investment‑oriented partnerships with industry and possibly university‑affiliated startups.
• The requirement that Services’ Innovation Plans describe how acquisition portfolios will on‑ramp innovation indicates that program‑of‑record funding lines and contracting strategies will be adjusted so that technologies from DIU, SCO, labs, and other innovators can transition into sustained, funded capabilities.
• The memo and release explicitly frame the overhaul as “rolling out the red carpet for innovators who want to work with the War Department” and creating “a more direct path to move technology into the hands of the American warfighter,” which points to streamlined engagement models and clearer pathways for companies and research institutions to contract with or partner with the department. However, the publicly available documents do not spell out detailed changes to specific contract types, budget toplines, or university grant programs, so those aspects remain unspecified.