In an interview ahead of the Eurosatory conference in Paris, which runs June 17-21, the general commented on the changing security situation, capabilities the Army will demonstrate at Europe’s largest defense show, and how the armed forces must adapt to the “hyper-lethality” of the modern battlefield and evolving warfare.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Given the evolving security landscape in Europe, what are the most critical areas of ground combat where increased European cooperation in the field of defense can help meet common military challenges?

Meeting common military challenges means being able to fight side by side and, ideally, together. Here I won’t go into the aspects of mutual knowledge and officer exchanges, which are vital but are part of a different time frame.

The first challenge is that of equipment interoperability — that is, the capacity to act in concert in spite of different equipment. This is about designing and producing natively interoperable equipment. On that point, communication networks are key. In this respect, the level of ambition of the CaMo partnership between the Belgian and the French units of the motorized brigade is remarkable. The units in the field will be interchangeable, without any technological or operational obstacle.

In addition to the combat system, Belgium and France collaborate in the field of operational concepts, education and training. This partnership is a model to follow to increase European defense cooperation.

France orders €1.1 billion of cannons, vehicles and helicopters

The second challenge is the capability to have military equipment designed and produced by several European countries. We have experience in this area: The Tiger and NH90 helicopters as well as the Milan and HOT missiles have been produced in cooperation between European partners.

The project for the future Franco-German heavy tanks, the Main Ground Combat System, is a vector of dynamism in Franco-German relations in terms of the defense industry. The MGCS will be more than just an improved successor to the Leclerc or Leopard tanks; it will be a new-generation system that will benefit from the best technologies of each of the nations involved in the program.

The third challenge is that of shared experiences. Cooperation is expressed in joint deployments in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and in the Sahel, which have led the European armies to share, interact and coordinate; the deployment of the French-German brigade in Mali in 2018 strikes me as particularly illustrative. Today, we are committed in a common support to the Ukrainian army.

Which key capabilities will the French Army present at Eurosatory? How do they align with France’s defense priorities?

Eurosatory will be showcasing the Scorpion range of vehicles, the variety of unmanned aerial vehicles used in the units and the network-enabled capability — the first steps toward collaborative combat. You’ll have the opportunity to see the Jaguar vehicle, the renovated Leclerc tank, the Griffon vehicle and the Serval vehicle.

The French army is an army of operational deployment and is a reference in Europe owing to its skills in aerocombat, the quality of its equipment and its operational experience. The NH90 Caiman, the Tiger and the Guepard helicopters will be presented to illustrate this air-mobile capability.

The Caesar Mk1 howitzer as well as the new-generation SAMP/T Mamba air defense system will demonstrate the Army’s determination to increase its combat power by speeding up the decision between intelligence collection and deep fires. Moreover, numerous UAVs and anti-UAV solutions will demonstrate our ambition in the field of aerial drone employment in air-ground combat.

Other items of equipment will be presented. You’ll discover how the Army is transforming itself to win tomorrow’s air-land battle.

The war in Ukraine has highlighted new tactics and technologies used on the battlefield. From France’s perspective, what are the biggest surprises or confirmations about modern warfare revealed by this conflict? Consequently, what adjustments is the French Army making to training doctrines and equipment priorities?

Let’s remain modest at this stage in the analysis of lessons learned from this conflict. We should try to discriminate the elements that are situational from what is structural. The extensive use of UAVs, like that of civilian technologies adapted for military use, has changed the dynamics of combat. The vital importance of electronic warfare, intelligence superiority, and the need to control information to influence both national and international public opinion has been confirmed.

Four structural priorities can be identified. The first priority is connectivity. To outclass the adversary, it is necessary to understand the tactical situation, design a plan, give orders, and carry out the maneuver by controlling and reorienting this cycle. Ensuring a smooth and rapid functioning of this cycle makes it possible to be quicker than the enemy and keep one’s freedom of action. The network-enabled combat developed in the framework of the Scorpion program has enabled us to be ahead in this area.

The second priority is the transparency of the battlefield. The use of UAVs and satellites increasingly makes it possible to pierce the fog of war. It makes it more difficult [for adversaries] to conceal intent, setups and movements. To enhance its in-depth detection capabilities, the Army is developing its UAV range, developing its means to analyze the images from all the sensors and is focusing its effort on electronic warfare.

The third priority is lethality. In the context of high-intensity warfare, lethality is characterized by tactical targeting through the use of increasingly powerful, accurate and sophisticated means of destruction — and in sufficient numbers to be able to cause considerable damage in a very short amount of time.

The fourth priority is protection. Hyper-lethality puts increased pressure on the survival and resilience capacity of high-value targets, including command posts, which are particularly easy to detect due to their electromagnetic footprint. Their protection must be enhanced; the command methods must be diversified to ensure their operational continuity in case of attack.

For the Army, this translates into the use of armor in the framework of the Scorpion vehicles; the entry into service of the ARLAD armored personnel carriers as of this year; and the development of ground-air defense through the modernization of the PAMELA vehicles.

How will emerging technologies influence the role of the French soldier in the coming decade? What measures are taking place to prepare Army personnel for an evolving battlefield?

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous systems will profoundly transform the soldier’s environment in the coming decade. AI will enhance decision-making by providing rapid, synthetic and accurate analyses of the combat situations. As for robotics, it will take on dangerous or repetitive tasks, such as mine clearance or reconnaissance in hostile terrain. Autonomous systems, such as UAVs and unmanned vehicles, will provide continuous surveillance and a rapid-reaction capability; our soldiers will therefore be less exposed.

In short, these technologies will provide greater security and an increased operational efficiency, redefining the missions and the required skills of the French soldiers in an increasingly technological operational context.

The French Army started to deploy Scorpion in 2021, one of the most ambitious modernization programs among Western land forces. What were the initial lessons learned, what challenges are being addressed and how has all this modified the way the service fights?

The Scorpion program is aimed at renewing and modernizing the contact combat capabilities of the Army with new platforms — such as the Griffon, Jaguar and Serval vehicles, as well as the MEPAC mounted mortar — and a single combat information system, known as SICS, over the 2020-2030 time frame. It ensures consistency between the capabilities of the combined arms battle group all the way to brigade level.

To achieve this, it federates and connects the platforms and combatants to promote collaborative combat, called “Scorpion combat,” consisting of understanding, deciding and acting more quickly than the enemy. The current development of Scorpion corresponds to a first level of collaborative combat, thanks to the modernization of the combat units around a command and information system bringing all the stakeholders of the combined arms battle group into a network.

Next, Scorpion will extend interconnection to all the players of the third dimension and to support units. A division-level experimentation exercise, Capstone 4, took place last March in the United States. It demonstrated our ability to implement “Scorpion combat” in an allied context. It highlighted the need to speed up our data transmissions at the joint level as well as with our allies.

Modern warfare is taking place across more domains — land, sea, air, space and cyberspace. How is the Army adapting to this multidomain battle space?

Modern warfare takes place in all the environments — land, air, sea, cyberspace and space — and fields —nonphysical and electromagnetic. We talk about multidomain, multi-field operations. In addition to the ground environment, the Army plays its part in the cyber domain and in the nonphysical fields.

To achieve that, in the framework of the Army transformation, I created the command for ground, digital and cyber support, known as CATNC, in January 2024. This command ensures the coherence of the organization as well as the overall functioning, operational deployment and evolution of the digital and cyber support fields in the defensive information technology warfare domain.

The Army also plays a crucial role in the information domain. Without the capacity to convince and to counter adverse influence, any military engagement can fail. The emergence of social networks has reinforced this notion and has significantly accelerated the dissemination of information, whether true or false, while increasing its volume, reach and resonance.

France has played a leading role in strengthening NATO’s eastern flank. What have you learned regarding the mobility and readiness of the French forces? Where is there room for improvement?

In response to the war in Ukraine and at the request of the allies, the armed forces deployed on Feb. 28, 2022, just four days after the Russian invasion, as the “spearhead” battalion of the NATO rapid reaction force to Romania. This rapid deployment made it possible to mobilize more than 500 French Army soldiers in a few days.

Since May 1, 2022, the deployed force has evolved into a multinational battalion, of which France is the framework nation. The French Armed Forces have also deployed a Mamba air defense detachment since May 16, 2022, a national support element, and a brigade forward command element. In total, more than 1,000 French soldiers are present in Romania.

These successive deployments show the reactivity and preparedness of our troops. The difficulties in the administrative, customs, interoperability and training domains have been overcome. We’re drawing the lessons with our European partners.

In an interview, its new director said the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, nicknamed America’s gatekeeper, is better known for conducting 95% of background investigations for federal workers and military personnel, but less so for its role protecting the nation’s industrial base.

David Cattler, who took the reins in March, wants to change that.

In an effort to centralize the government’s sprawling personnel security system, Congress sought to move this responsibility to DCSA from the Office of Personnel Management, which was finalized via an executive order in 2019. Now, Cattler said he’s in the midst of a “90-day approach” as the leader of an organization that should be at full performance in five years.

Background investigations move to their new home at the Pentagon

The White House has said small businesses are “the engines of the economy,” and it has told agencies like DCSA to ensure their participation in government contracts. Last year, they spent a record $178 billion on small businesses. DoD alone increased its spend by 8%.

There’s an imperative from government to extend a welcome to small businesses, and DoD has a growing portfolio of commercial technology and services that can diversify the industrial base. There’s also a need to ensure barriers to entry aren’t too high without compromising security. That’s where DCSA comes in.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been in this role for a little less than three months. What’s new to you? What’s your vision for the agency?

I’m a big “first 90 days” person. This is one of several organizations I’ve either joined or created or led over the course of my career that is new or beginning or had some big issues that needed to be addressed. And this one’s no exception.

As far as the “first 90 days” approach, I tend to see this as an organization that after five years should be in full performance. In a lot of ways it is because it builds off a pretty strong legacy, whether you were formerly with the Office of Personnel Management or the Defense Department. We’re talking decades of experience and structure and qualification in the workforce.

The first thing that struck me in this 90 days is that we’re not actually fully confident in every way we should be. We’re not fully mature. Some things have to be worked out. If you put it in commercial terms, we’ve gone through a five-year period of strategic merger and acquisition, and that can be tough because you do need to have a mindset of one culture, one team, one brand.

This is a purpose-built security agency that combines a lot of elements from the legacy Office of Personnel Management and its authorities and statutory responsibilities, along with a similar and impressive set of things from DoD. And the expectations for what DCSA will do span across the federal government.

DCSA is not just America’s gatekeeper; DCSA should be the nation’s premier provider of integrated security services. So the first task is not to assert that we are that, but to have other people see us in that way, and relatedly to have them see us as their preferred partner.

How does DCSA interface with the defense-industrial base and its security?

If you’re outside the national security community, especially the security part of the national security community, and if you’re outside of the defense-industrial base, do you know who we are? I don’t think so. And that’s a real shame because taxpayers are paying $2.8 billion for it this fiscal year. I take this very seriously. You’re paying 15,000 people to do the work.

We were created as a result of yet another inflection point: the OPM hack. We’ve accreted some of these additional responsibilities like the insider threat role, in no small part because of the series, conditions and departmental analysis after the Navy Yard active shooter [incident], Fort Hood, and related tragedies and real problems within the security community to anticipate, detect, characterize, intervene and mitigate those sorts of threats.

If you work for a company, if you want to start one or if you want to keep up business at a company that requires a facility clearance, the odds are pretty good you’re going to work with DCSA. If you have a cyber problem, if you have an insider threat problem or if you have a counterintelligence problem, the odds are pretty good you’re going to interact with DCSA. If you want to be certified to be a professional in a space, or if you want to get better as a professional inside and outside government, you’ll likely interact with DCSA.

What is the ideal relationship between the agency and industry?

Security can be viewed by some as an overhead cost. It’s a must-do, but I’m going to go to compliance. Some — many even — may go the extra mile.

I sent a letter to our key partners in government and in the private sector when I first arrived, saying: “Call me directly, anytime. Send me an email I want to meet you all. I really want to hear from you. If I can help you, I will.”

We’re going to expand CEO-level and C-suite engagement. I get that security can be viewed as overhead and as a cost, but we need to practice security by design, which means that security really should be baked in from the very beginning. Security is a required element to one’s approach to tackling a contract — the same as it is for us in government before we embark on anything.

Be reasonable, particularly on the cost of compliance. You need to be efficient and effective. You don’t have to build to the minimum; you can build in some additions so that there’s more resilience and maybe some fallbacks or spillover so that you’ve got overlapping capabilities.

I was a little surprised by how warmly welcomed I was by industry. We are on the same team. And to be clear, it’s not that they think they’re going to have an easier time in a compliance inspection; that’s not what it is. It’s that you don’t start in an adversarial way. We want industry to be proved to be secure. Nobody who works for DCSA is going out trying to have someone lose their security clearance or fail on a facility clearance review.

So the relationship with industry is critically important. It’s very, very close. And it is mutually respectful, hopeful and very supportive.

The federal government is trying to increase business with small companies. How do you ensure the barriers to entry aren’t too high without cutting corners on security?

A lot of this stuff becomes about balance. We want to trust you. We want you, as a small business, to be able to compete. For classified work, we want you to be able to sustain the facility so you can do the work and compete for more work or different work. But that’s also about trust and the right balance.

Now that the internal directives have been approved, we’re moving forward with Section 847 implementation, [a provision from the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that says DCSA will review Defense Department contracts that exceed $5 million for foreign ownership, control or influence in its supply chain]. The clock will soon start for that to be implemented. Put that human terms: Say I’m the CEO of a company that’s won a DOD contract of $5 million-plus. That’s just about everybody, right? We’re going to have to take a hard look at that coming in. We want 25 calendar days to complete our review.

That’s an inflection point in terms of responsibility, authority and accountability. There’s no one that works at DCSA that wants to be in a position to tell the CEO of a small business: “Sorry, that’s going to take 40 days, 80 days, 120 days.” We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we’re ready when the light turns green, to move forward and be able to satisfy that set of requirements.

That’s why we’ve asked again for more resources and proper authorities. Give us the guiding directives to get the policy framework built so that we know what we’re required to do.

If I put myself in the shoes of somebody in the private sector and ask myself, “Would I just spend money on security?” — maybe, maybe not.

But if the government came to me and explained — and we can and we do — the reason why we have changed this policy that will correspondingly increase cost is X, Y and Z, and we provide the expert that can give you the details, they get it.

Is that baseline trust there, or is DCSA in the rebuilding stage with industry and its stakeholders?

It’s there. The only thing that surprised me was how strongly positive these interactions have been. Industry is telling me: “Wouldn’t it be great if DCSA had more responsibility and authority?”

From a workforce perspective, DCSA conducts 95% of the federal government’s background clearances. How are you tackling the modernization of this system? What advice do you have for someone who’s looking to get cleared for the first time?

One bit of advice I would give to somebody that’s coming in from the outside is: Plan ahead and be realistic.

If you’ve never held a security clearance and you wish to pursue a government job that requires one, it could take some time. Hiring is one thing; onboarding is another.

The second thing I would say is: Be honest. When you open that eApp form and you start typing, fill it out completely and honestly. Don’t overthink it. Not to sound harsh or overly dramatic, but we’re going to find out about things because we’ve got awesome people and great databases, and we’re going to check you six ways to Sunday before we put you in a position of trust. So be honest. A mistake that you made that you’ve picked yourself up from and recovered and moved on from — that’s perfectly understandable. Nobody’s perfect.

The next thing I would stress to people coming in from the outside is: If you’ve had a security clearance and it’s fairly recent, and you are enrolled in [continuous vetting], you can actually be re-onboarded, re-adjudicated and authorized for onboarding very quickly. And that’s another element of Trusted Workforce, [a whole-of-government approach to reforming the personnel security process].

Reciprocity is also a piece of this. If you come into the DOD, I’m proud to say that the DCSA team can get that done for your employer in less than one day. Reciprocity going in other directions can be more of a challenge.

What’s the latest on timelines for security clearances?

When we talk about the timelines that are in Trusted Workforce — and where we are with the inventory and the goals — what we’re tracking right now is the toughest 10% of cases.

So in 90% of the cases, you’re going to move quite quickly through because you probably haven’t had a brush with the law or you haven’t traveled extensively.

Many of the things we’re looking for in terms of potential indicators where — it’s not a bar to your clearance or a bar to your re-clearance, it’s just something that gets flagged for investigation and adjudication, and we have to take a deeper look. That deeper look can take time. And that time can aggregate.

Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to do interviews remotely, but we also do a great number of interviews and investigations in person. It can be challenging. People are working from home, sometimes in remote areas. They’re working odd schedules. Your references need to be checked, and they’re working from home, they’re working on schedules, they’re traveling. That all takes time to get through.