In a ceremony Oct. 2 in Austin, Texas, the Army stood up U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command as part of its effort to create a leaner, more lethal force.

The command, also known as T2COM, merges U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and U.S. Army Futures Command. TRADOC was inactivated on Sept. 26 after more than 52 years, while the 7-year-old Futures Command was inactivated Oct. 2.

While T2COM will have its headquarters in Austin, elements of the former Training and Doctrine Command are expected to remain at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

T2COM is led by Gen. David Hodne, who received his fourth star and most recently was deputy commanding general of futures and concepts at Futures Command. He characterized the creation of T2COM as a “reset” rather than an “organizational shuffle.”

“Today marks more than the closing of these commands,” Hodne said. “It’s the deliberate blending of two proud traditions into something new, purpose built for the challenges that we as an Army face today.”

“To win the future fight,” he continued, “we must close the gaps between vision and victory.”

In merging the two commands, the Army has unified the functions of force design, force development and force generation, Hodne said, pointing out that technology alone has never transformed war. Rather, equipment such as tanks, airplanes and drones “required new tactics, new concepts and new organizations to integrate them into coherent warfighting systems,” he said.

Militaries that failed to align those elements, he said, failed on the battlefield. With rapid changes taking place now on battlefields such as those in the Middle East and Ukraine, it will be critical for the Army to adapt its institutions to keep pace with the challenges. T2COM, he said, is the Army’s answer.

“Our mission is clear. From vision to victory, we lead the Army’s continuous transformation, modernizing capabilities, developing leaders and advancing the profession to deliver decisive readiness,” Hodne said. “To achieve this, we just turn warfighting concepts into war-winning capabilities at speed and at scale.”

In a virtual appearance from the Pentagon, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said the establishment of T2COM “is a big change for our Army … but a natural next step as we continuously transform.”

The new command, George said, will change how the Army operates by reducing headquarters and streamlining authorities and responsibilities, cutting redundancy, reversing stagnation and pushing talent and leaders into fighting formations. T2COM also will “bring together the Army’s training, doctrine, leader development and future concepts under one headquarters and ensure that we are adapting at pace across the spectrum and establish unity of effort so we can bring the weight of the institutional Army against the challenges we face on the modern battlefield,” he said.

T2COM, George said, will build on what Futures Command and TRADOC have accomplished, ensuring that training and education remain modern and world-class at the Army’s combat training centers, centers of excellence, Army University and during home station training, and that state-of-the-art technology gets into soldiers’ hands quickly through continuous change.

He welcomed Hodne to Texas, as well as the new command’s senior enlisted adviser, Command Sgt. Maj. Raymond Harris, who most recently was senior enlisted adviser at TRADOC.

“You are a phenomenal warrior leader, and I’m looking forward to seeing all this new command will accomplish under you and Command Sgt. Maj. Ray Harris,” George said.