Last Thursday, the U.S. Army announced it would cancel its next-generation Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) helicopter program after having invested some $2.4 billion into its development since 2018. This makes FARA the third canceled effort to field a replacement for the Army’s already-retired OH-58 Kiowa Warrior Scout helicopter, which departed service in 2019.

The decision to cancel FARA was announced alongside plans to retire the Army’s standing fleets of RQ-7 Shadow and hand-launched RQ-11 Raven UAVs, and to terminate production of the UH-60V Black Hawk meant to replace the UH-60L. (The Army has selected Bell’s tilt-rotor V-280 Valor, which will enter service in the 2030s, to replace the Black Hawk.) These changes and others suggest the Army is shifting away from the “divest to invest” approach to procurement – whereby older platforms and systems are phased out in favor of funding the development of new ones – for a more hedged-bet approach that attempts to balance the needs of the Army in the next decade against the potential for conflict in this one.

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