Department of War Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies told lawmakers the agency is undertaking a broad effort to transform the department's technology ecosystem and cybersecurity program into a warfighting advantage.
DOW CIO Kirsten Davies will be a keynote speaker at the Potomac Officers Club's 2026 Digital Transformation Summit on April 22. Sign up now to hear her and other government and industry leaders discuss modernization efforts involving legacy systems.
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What Is the War Department's Core Transformation Strategy?
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity on Tuesday, Davies said the War Department plans to consolidate enterprise IT and cyber programs under her authority to support warfighter readiness and digital advantage. The strategy aims to strengthen decision-making through better data to support active and future operations.
The approach is intended to reduce duplication, address technical debt, and align modernization across networks, data and applications. It also focuses on enhancing operating models, system design and use of commercial technologies.
How Will the Digital Foundation Be Modernized?
The department's digital transformation is built on the following four pillars:
Enduring Digital Foundation
The first pillar focuses on creating a high-availability infrastructure spanning undersea cables, 5G and advanced satellite systems. By pursuing extensive data center consolidation and leveraging the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, or JWCC, Next to access cloud tools, the department aims to provide combatant commands with streamlined access to critical data and artificial intelligence-enabled analytics. This foundation is designed to transition away from hardware-bound legacy bandwidth, ensuring that the global network remains resilient, hardened and capable of supporting a common operating picture at the tactical edge.
Agile Digital Capabilities
The second pillar represents a shift from slow, legacy software development to a modern delivery model aligned with industry best practices. This pillar emphasizes standardized, interoperable data architectures, ensuring that software and software-as-a-service models reach the warfighter at the “speed of relevance.” A central component of this effort is the Mission Partner Environment, or MPE, which replaces clunky, disparate networks with a persistent, secure platform for real-time intelligence sharing and collaboration with allies.
Cybersecurity Transformation
The third pillar marks a paradigm shift from static compliance checklists to a unified, risk-based approach centered on continuous monitoring. By adopting zero trust principles and advanced identity management, authentication and access controls, or ICAM, the department seeks to embed security into every layer of the technical ecosystem, including critical infrastructure and operational technology. Furthermore, this pillar prioritizes governance reform and supply chain security, treating the cyber defense of the industrial base as a vital component of overall operational readiness.
Workforce and Partnerships
The fourth pillar recognizes that people should retain the decisive edge in modern conflict, focusing on recruiting and retaining elite talent. Leveraging the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, the DOW is expanding the Cyber Excepted Service to add 500 highly skilled roles while introducing competitive pay structures and comprehensive upskilling programs in AI and cyber technology. This human-centric strategy is bolstered by deeper integration with the defense industrial base and international allies, ensuring a collective “Arsenal of Freedom” that is technologically prepared for tomorrow's battlefields.
“By adopting industry best practices in agile development, cloud computing, AI, and Zero Trust, by overhauling governance and embedding accountability and a bias for action, and by uplifting our holistic skills and vast partnerships, we are building a more effective, resilient, and powerful Arsenal of Freedom,” Davies said. “All these efforts connect at a single point: empowering and enabling our warfighters. The operational realization of their data superiority and decision dominance is the hallmark of the success of our strategic transformation journey – so this is what we will deliver.”
