The United States needs to prepare for a potential future conflict bearing little resemblance to "the old wars" that have long consumed the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday in his first significant policy speech.

Austin called for harnessing technological advances and better integrating military operations globally to "understand faster, decide faster and act faster."

"The way we fight the next major war is going to look very different from the way we fought the last ones," Austin said during a trip to the Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Command.