DOD to shrink its workforce by 50,000; Pentagon turns its focus to 6G

The Pentagon is currently placing more than 20,000 employees on administrative leave and a path to full termination, following staff approval for voluntary participation in the Trump administration’s Elon Musk-inspired “fork in the road” initiative, according to top officials involved in the major workforce reduction plans. In an off-camera press briefing Tuesday, two senior defense officials provided new information (on the condition of anonymity) regarding the Defense Department’s unfolding effort to shrink its massive civilian employee pool using three main mechanisms. An official stressed to DefenseScoop that this is a very active process and things are fluid as the department’s leadership engages with services and components. At the start of his second administration, President Donald Trump immediately directed federal agencies to drastically reduce their workforces and review existing contracts as part of a broader move to ultimately cut back on what his team views as wasteful spending and inefficiencies. Inside the DOD, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a “strategic reduction” of 5-8% of civilian personnel — with a sharp focus on “promoting the department’s lethality, readiness and warfighting ability” while meeting Trump’s mandate, a senior defense official noted.

As the Defense Department anticipates the wireless networks of the future for warfighting missions, it has shifted its focus for research and development primarily to 6G wireless technologies, Marlan Macklin, deputy principal director for the Pentagon’s FutureG Office, said Wednesday. The DOD is looking to the next-generation wireless tech to further build on the improved speeds, latency and capacity it gained with 5G and support the U.S. military’s use of new capabilities at the edge. With that, Macklin said the Pentagon is beginning to experiment with 6G in a variety of ways. As an example, the FutureG Office has been experimenting with a concept called Integrated Sensing and Communication, which uses radio frequencies of all objects — including those not actively transmitting data — connected to a network to create situational awareness of the surrounding environment, according to Macklin. One way in which the U.S. military could apply this emerging concept is to improve awareness and management of drones in a given environment, Macklin said.

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