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12 Feb 22. More U.S. Troops to Deploy to Europe, Guardsmen Reassigned Out of Ukraine. Another 3,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division will move to Europe in the coming days, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III is temporarily repositioning 160 troops training Ukraine’s military out of the country. The moves come in the face of further signs of Russian escalation on its borders with Ukraine, said Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor. Sullivan spoke at the White House, yesterday.
“As we’ve said before, we are in the window when an invasion could begin at any time should Vladimir Putin decide to order it,” the national security advisor said. Sullivan said this new invasion of Ukraine — Russia invaded the country in 2014 and illegally annexed Crimea — could come at any time.”
Sullivan said the United States is ready no matter which decision Putin makes. The United States will negotiate if the Russian leader so chooses, or “we are also ready to respond decisively, alongside those allies and partners, should Russia choose to take military action,” he said.
The response to a Russian invasion would include severe economic sanctions, with similar packages imposed by the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries, Sullivan said. “It would also include changes to NATO and American force posture along the eastern flank of NATO, and it would include continued support to Ukraine,” he said.
A total of 160 members of the Florida National Guard have been deployed to Ukraine since late November training and advising and mentoring Ukrainian armed forces. The troops, assigned to the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, are part of the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine.
“They are departing Ukraine and will reposition elsewhere in Europe,” Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said in a written statement Saturday. “The secretary made this decision out of an abundance of caution — with the safety and security of our personnel foremost in mind — and informed by the State Department’s guidance on U.S. personnel in Ukraine.”
Yesterday, a senior defense official confirmed that another 3,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will deploy to Europe. “This second tranche of airborne soldiers will join in Poland the first tranche of 1,700 soldiers and key enablers that Secretary Austin ordered there on February 2nd,” said the senior defense official speaking on background. “Nearly two-thirds of this first tranche has already arrived. They are commanded by Army Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue.”
Deployment of 300 members of the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters element to Germany has been completed, the official said. That element is led by Army Lt. Gen. Michael Kurilla.
“All told, these 5,000 additional personnel comprise a highly mobile and flexible force, capable of multiple missions,” the official said. “They are being deployed to reassure our NATO allies, deter any potential aggression against NATO’s eastern flank, train with host-nation forces and contribute to a wide range of contingencies. They will report to Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, the commander of U.S. European Command.”
There are more than 80,000 American service members in Europe.
Diplomacy continues. Biden spoke with Putin this morning. A White House release said Biden spoke very plainly about the costs of another Russian invasion of Ukraine. “President Biden was clear that, if Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia,” the report said. “President Biden reiterated that a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing. President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios.”
Yesterday Biden participated in a conference with the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Poland, Romania, the Secretary General of NATO and the Presidents of the European Union. “We have achieved a remarkable level of unity and common purpose — from the broad strategy, down to technical details,” Sullivan said. “Whatever happens next, the West is more united than it’s been in years. NATO has been strengthened. The alliance is more cohesive, more purposeful, more dynamic than at in any time in recent memory.” (Source: US DoD)
10 Feb 22. GOP senator blocks Russia pro from joining Pentagon, drawing fiery rebuke. A key Russia expert and two other defense experts are being blocked from joining the Pentagon by GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, as the Biden administration struggles to solve the deepening Russia-Ukraine crisis and deploys thousands of U.S. troops to bolster European allies. Hawley’s move on Thursday drags out the confirmation process for the National Security Council’s former Russia director and former U.S. Russia Foundation CEO Celeste Wallander, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. Hawley’s objection to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s request to confirm Wallander sparked Senate floor drama, as Shaheen hammered Hawley’s tactics for “making us less secure.” The delay for Wallander leaves a key Pentagon role unfilled amid heightened alarm about the prospect of Russia, which has amassed 100,000 troops near Ukraine, launching an invasion. A tripwire force of roughly 3,000 American troops is deploying to NATO countries to reassure allies, with another 8,500 on high alert to deploy if NATO’s 40,000-person response force is activated. There’s been bipartisan criticism over Hawley blocking swaths of Biden’s foreign policy picks in recent months. After saying for weeks his blockade is aimed at pressing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other top officials to resign over the administration’s chaotic Afghanistan exit last year, Hawley said Thursday he would relent if there are further public hearings on the withdrawal.
At about 11:30 a.m., Shaheen, D-N.H., requested unanimous consent to confirm Wallander; Melissa Dalton, who is the nominee for assistant secretary for homeland defense and global security; and David Honey, the nominee for deputy undersecretary for research and engineering. Shaheen argued that Dalton’s confirmation would be key to fighting cyberattacks, while Honey would aid in the Pentagon’s technology race with China.
Hawley objected, pointing to a U.S. Army probe of the Afghanistan withdrawal, reported by The Washington Post, that found the White House and State Department were too late in reacting to the Taliban’s final offensive. He also criticized the Biden administration’s objections to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany as too weak.
“The answer is there’s been no accountability, no one has been relieved of duty, no one has been shown the door,” said Hawley, of Missouri. “Now this administration has bumbled to the brink of another foreign policy crisis that they have helped create, having denied Ukraine military aid, lethal aid when it asked for it last spring, having stuffed dollars in [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s pockets by greenlighting the Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline.”
Celeste Wallander, here as CEO of the U.S. Russia Foundation, talks during a seminar about the two countries. (Karl-Heinz Wedhorn/U.S. Defense Department)
In response, Shaheen accused Hawley, who is said to be eyeing a 2024 presidential bid, of “trying to use the Senate process for his own personal ambitions” and in the process, “making us less secure.” She objected to Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal plans and backed a commission to study the Afghanistan War, she said, but that was beside the point with the Ukraine crisis looming.
“He’s complaining about the problems we have with Russia-Ukraine, and he’s making it worse because he’s not willing to allow those nominees who can help with that problem to go forward,” she said. “He sits on the Armed Services Committee with me where he has access to the same information about our pressing national security challenges. And yet he’s holding up these nominees, he’s disregarding the threats that we face because he’d rather stand here and grandstand on Afghanistan.”
Hawley has supported sending U.S. aid to Ukraine but argued that focusing on Russia detracts from a more pressing challenge from China. After he called on the Biden administration to abandon support for Ukraine’s eventual admission to NATO, White House press secretary Jen Psaki last week accused him and likeminded conservatives of “parroting Russian talking points.”
Along similar lines, Shaheen said Hawley’s view that Russia poses more of a threat to Europe than the U.S. is “disturbing and shockingly uninformed” given Russia’s attempts to subvert democratic institutions in the U.S., and she said Hawley’s “stated sentiments are just what Vladimir Putin wants.” Shaheen also noted that America’s NATO allies came to its aid after Sept. 11, 2001.
“When the United States got attacked in 2001 ― and maybe he doesn’t remember 9/11 because he was too young ― the countries that came to our aid were our NATO allies,” Shaheen, who is 75, said of Hawley, who is 42.
There was some foreshadowing at Wallander’s Jan. 13 confirmation hearing, where Hawley voiced disagreement with her support for sending U.S. troops to bolster NATO’s eastern border and her support for Ukraine’s eventual NATO membership. To Hawley’s suggestion that cutting U.S. force levels in Europe would spur NATO allies to invest more in their own defense, Wallander seemed skeptical.
“As we face a heightened threat from Russia, this would not be the moment to put a reduction in American commitment to NATO on the table,” Wallander said at the time. “What I would favor, if confirmed, is looking at how the United States can provide some of its advantages in enablers and weapons systems in security cooperation with allies to ensure that we are properly resourcing the requirements in the Indo-Pacific, as you rightly point to, and yet sustaining defense and deterrence against Russia.”
Despite the holds, the Senate has confirmed several otherwise noncontroversial Biden nominees to the Pentagon in recent days. On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Douglas Bush, a former lead House Armed Services Committee staffer, to be the Army’s acquisition chief; Sasha Baker, a former adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to be deputy undersecretary of defense for policy; and John Coffey to be the the Navy’s general counsel. A week earlier, the Senate confirmed Andrew Hunter, a former director of the Pentagon’s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, to be Air Force acquisition chief, and Gabriel Camarillo to be Army undersecretary. (Source: Defense News)
08 Feb 22. U.S. Needs More Icebreakers for Arctic. It’s true that ice is melting in the Arctic, but this doesn’t mean the U.S. no longer needs icebreaker ships to operate in the region. And right now, the U.S. needs more than what it currently has. The Navy doesn’t operate icebreakers, but the Coast Guard does. According to its website, the Coast Guard currently has only two operational icebreakers in its fleet.
“Strategically, icebreakers provide persistent presence in a way that’s not met by anything else in the maritime region,” Randy Kee, who serves as the executive director of the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, said. “Remember, the Arctic is a maritime region, and icebreaking provides you year-round access to be able to go in the region.”
With ice melting in the Arctic — but not entirely gone — routes of passage for shipping are opening up there in ways that have not existed before. Additionally, there are ample opportunities for commercial fishing and the mining of minerals. By some estimates, there is as much as 90 billion barrels of oil yet untapped in the Arctic.
U.S. access to the region will require that all nations operating in the Arctic play by internationally established rules. But unless the U.S. can operate freely there — which will surely require the use of icebreakers — it may not be able to participate in the opportunities opening up or protect its interests.
“You need icebreaking to be able to project year-round presence and when it’s your time and choosing,” Kee said during a virtual panel discussion today with the Atlantic Council.
Currently, six new polar icebreakers capable of operating in the Arctic are authorized for bolstering the Coast Guard’s icebreaking fleet, Kee said, adding that the Coast Guard has said they need all six of them. According to a Coast Guard spokesperson, there are no plans right now retire to either of the Coast Guard’s existing icebreakers.
Kee also addressed concerns about the Russian Federation’s own “vast number of icebreakers.”
He said that while the Russians do use some of those icebreakers to maintain a sovereign presence in the Arctic, others are necessary for running logistics operations in the region, where Russian communities dot the coast of the Arctic Ocean.
“They also use for logistics support to their northern communities, because they don’t have any other way to get the products to those communities,” he said. (Source: US DoD)
08 Feb 22. Artificial Intelligence, Autonomy Will Play Crucial Role in Warfare, General Says. The use of autonomy and artificial intelligence will play an increasingly vital role in military operations in such places as the Middle East, where U.S. forces no longer have a sizeable military presence, an Army general said. Lt. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, testified at a Senate Armed Services Committee nomination hearing today, considering his promotion to general and assignment to be commander, U.S. Central Command. The XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has been a leader in the adoption of AI, he said. The command has taken an approach to its adoption, that includes building a cultural mindset, data literacy, data governance and infrastructure that includes cloud computing, he said. Also, the corps uses AI in quarterly exercises for target detection. Those exercises include personnel from all six of the military services, he said. The most recent exercise culminated in a Marine Corps F-35 jet dropping a live, 1,000-pound bomb on an artificial intelligence-derived grid that was one meter off from the surveyed grid, he said.
“We do these exercises quarterly to improve the capability of the targeting ability of the Corps. I would look to take that if confirmed down to Centcom and expound upon that,” he said.
Kurilla explained how targeting can be improved with the aid of AI.
“We can take large pieces of terrain and rapidly identify hundreds of targets, prioritize them based on a high priority target list that determines which ones we should strike with the resources that we have. And then that goes back into our firing solutions. That happens in seconds versus what would take hours normally, or sometimes even days to be able to develop these targets. And it’s doing it in real time at the edge in our command posts and not being tied just back into a garrison computing environment.”
AI would offer tremendous capabilities for counterterrorism in that region as well, he mentioned.
Kurilla also touched on a wide variety of other topics central to Centcom. He identified Iran as the number one malign influence in the region. He also noted that China has made inroads to many U.S. partners in the region, expressing his concerns for those agreements.
As for Afghanistan, Kurilla said the Taliban and the U.S. agree that ISIS-K is an enemy. However, he said he wished that the Taliban would also renounce al Qaeda. He also said he hoped that the U.S. could help Afghanistan, perhaps through the United Nation’s World Food Program, to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.
The topic then turned to Pakistan. The U.S. and Pakistan have not always seen eye-to-eye, but Kurilla said the two nations share an interest in regional stability and countering violent extremist organizations.
Israel was also mentioned. Kurilla said he’s particularly encouraged by the increase of cooperation between Israel and its Arab partners in the region. “Israel brings some very unique capabilities in terms of their military component that they believe they can share with their Arab partners in the region. The air and missile defense is a big area, based on the threat from Iran.” (Source: US DoD)
08 Feb 22. Strengthening, Empowering the Acquisition Workforce Through Modernization. As the Defense Department embraces a paradigm shift in current and future work environments, Pentagon leaders remain focused on cultivating human capital through new approaches to training, talent development and recruitment.
Recognizing people as DOD’s most critical asset and the key to driving competitive advantage, the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment is strengthening the Defense Acquisition Workforce by building modern learning resources and ensuring requirement and retention strategies fully provide for diversity and inclusion of talents.
“Today, our workforce faces challenges unknown to our predecessors — and we need a new approach to training and development in order to meet those challenges,” Gregory M. Kausner, an official with the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said.
Leading department wide efforts to implement a 21st century talent management framework, acquisition and sustainment — through Defense Acquisition University — is implementing the most significant update to acquisition certification since the 1990 Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act.
The initiative to update implementation of DAWIA is often referred to as “Back-to-Basics” and the new certification framework took effect Feb. 1. It streamlines the acquisition career fields into core functional areas and helps DOD refocus resources for the 185,000 members of the Defense Acquisition Workforce who develop, acquire and sustain operational capability.
For more than 30 years, training requirements reflected a one-size-fits-all approach and were met early in an individual’s career. The new framework encourages lifelong learning by reducing required training hours up front so acquisition professionals can spend more time gaining experience on the job and then choosing the additional training they need when they need it.
Elective learning is key to this transformation — empowering workforce members to choose assignment-specific, job-relevant training for professional growth. Through the Defense Acquisition Credential Program, DOD has introduced additional opportunities to develop skills in specialty or emerging areas to meet evolving needs.
“We are engaging with every major DOD acquisition organization to build a department wide understanding of how to make lifelong learning work effectively,” DAU President Jim Woolsey said. “By transforming from a traditional schoolhouse focused on classroom training to a modern learning platform, we are connecting the acquisition workforce to the tools, resources, and knowledge they need to succeed in the moment.”
Together, A&S and DAU also continue building a diverse workforce by scaling the Department’s Public-Private Talent Exchange and other existing efforts, while exploring new ventures such as the creation of a Defense Civilian Training Corps. By establishing an ROTC-like program for civilians at universities across the country, the program aims to strengthen the pipeline of acquisition professionals, particularly in STEM curricula, and incentivize DOD service after graduation.
“This new approach will make our workforce more successful in delivering preeminent capabilities to our warfighters now and into the future,” Kausner said. “Now, we are counting on our acquisition professionals to make the most of these opportunities.”
To learn more about the new DAWIA certification framework, visit https://www.dau.edu/back-to-basics/ or contact DAU Public Affairs at . (Source: US DoD)
08 Feb 22. Documents detail U.S. military’s frustration with White House, diplomats over Afghanistan evacuation. Senior White House and State Department officials failed to grasp the Taliban’s steady advance on Afghanistan’s capital and resisted efforts by U.S. military leaders to prepare the evacuation of embassy personnel and Afghan allies weeks before Kabul’s fall, placing American troops ordered to carry out the withdrawal in greater danger, according to sworn testimony from multiple commanders involved in the operation.
An Army investigative report, numbering 2,000 pages and released to The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, details the life-or-death decisions made daily by U.S. soldiers and Marines sent to secure Hamid Karzai International Airport as thousands converged on the airfield in a frantic bid to escape.
Beyond the bleak, blunt assessments of top military commanders, the documents contain previously unreported disclosures about the violence American personnel experienced, including one exchange of gunfire that left two Taliban fighters dead after they allegedly menaced a group of U.S. Marines and Afghan civilians, and a separate incident in which U.S. troops killed a member of an elite Afghan strike unit and wounded six others after they fired on the Americans.
Kabul airport attack involved a single bomb with ‘disturbing lethality,’ Pentagon inquiry finds
The investigation was launched in response to an Aug. 26 suicide bombing just outside the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members. But it is much broader, providing perhaps the fullest official account yet of the evacuation operation, which spanned 17 nightmarish days and has become one of the Biden administration’s defining moments — drawing scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats for the haphazard nature in which the United States ended its longest war.
Military personnel would have been “much better prepared to conduct a more orderly” evacuation, Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top U.S. commander on the ground during the operation, told Army investigators, “if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground.” He did not identify any administration officials by name, but said inattention to the Taliban’s determination to complete a swift and total military takeover undermined commanders’ ability to ready their forces.
Vasely could not be reached for comment.
The report includes witness statements from dozens of people interviewed after an Islamic State-Khorasan operative detonated a suicide vest at the airport’s Abbey Gate. Senior defense officials announced Friday that the investigation had determined that a single bomb packed with ball bearings caused “disturbing lethality” in the tightly packed outdoor corridor leading to the airfield.
The operation evacuated 124,000 people before concluding about midnight Aug. 31. It required U.S. commanders to strike an unusual security pact with the Taliban and rapidly deploy nearly 6,000 troops to assist a skeleton force of about 600 left behind under Vasely’s command to protect U.S. Embassy personnel. U.S. officials have lauded the effort, but critics have said that although U.S. troops performed heroically, the evacuation was flawed and incomplete, leaving behind hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who supported the war effort and were promised a way out.
Inside the Afghanistan airlift: Split-second decisions, relentless chaos drove historic military mission
John Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in response to questions about the report that while the airlift was a “historic achievement,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has acknowledged it was “not perfect.”
“We are committed to, and are intensely engaged in, an ongoing review of our efforts during the evacuation, the assessments and strategy during the conflict, and the planning in the months before the end of the war,” Kirby said. “We will take those lessons learned, and apply them, as we always do, clearly and professionally.”
Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, chief of U.S. Central Command, said in an interview Tuesday that he was “not surprised” commanders had different opinions about how the evacuation could have gone better. “But remember,” he said, “what did happen is we came together and executed a plan. There are profound frustrations; commanders, particularly subordinate commanders, they see very clearly the advantages of other courses of action. However, we had a decision, and we had an allocation of forces. You proceed based on that.”
There “might have been other plans that we would have preferred,” the general added, “but when the president makes a decision, it’s time for us to execute the president’s decision.”
Military officials told investigators that although the evacuation was in many ways cobbled together on the fly, planning within the Defense Department began months earlier. Initial discussions presumed the possible use of Bagram air base, a sprawling U.S. military installation 30 miles north of Kabul, and assistance from Afghan government forces to help secure the path there, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell J. Sullivan, who was involved in planning and oversaw the Marines sent into the capital, told investigators. Those plans evolved from incorporating both airfields to “just HKIA,” the Marine general said, using the military’s shorthand for Hamid Karzai International Airport.
U.S. officials have said previously that the decision to turn over Bagram to the Afghan government was made because it was deemed too far outside Kabul, where the majority of evacuees were expected to be, and because it would have required a significant number of U.S. troops.
“Everyoneclearly saw some of the advantage of holding Bagram,” McKenzie said Tuesday, “but you cannot hold Bagram with the force level that was decided.” (Source: Washington Post)
08 Feb 22. With new climate strategy, Army aims to prepare soldiers for harsher environments. The U.S. Army plans to install a microgrid on all of its installations by 2035, field fully electric tactical vehicles by 2050 and ensure all operational and strategic exercises and simulations consider climate change risks and threats by 2028. These are just a few of the goals the service outlines in its new climate strategy, published Feb. 8.
“The climate strategy is important to address the changing climate and the threats that are coming from climate change — both how our forces operate in a climate-altered world, but what the Army can do to influence this and to mitigate our greenhouse gases and to reduce the effects of climate change,” Paul Farnan, the Army’s acting assistant secretary for installations energy and environment, told Defense News in a Feb. 7 interview.
“The Army’s mission remains the same to fight and win this nation’s wars, and this strategy is actually going to enhance that ability to do so by increasing the capability of the force,” he added.
The strategy recognizes the service will need to adapt to operate in and protect itself against harsher environments that could lead to increased global instability.
“For the foreseeable future, climate impacts will disrupt Army activities, displace individuals and communities, and increase the frequency of crisis deployments,” the strategy states. “The Army must prepare for potential consequences including energy and water scarcity; damage to installations and infrastructure; displacement of and disruptions to operations, supply chains, and logistics; and imperiled [s]oldier health through exposure to airborne irritants like smoke and dust, disease vectors, and temperature extremes.”
The strategy sets up three end-state goals meant to help the Army “be a resilient and sustainable” land force. The first is to reduce by 2030 the Army’s net greenhouse gas pollution by 50%, compared to 2005 levels. The second goal is to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The third is to take into account security implications of climate change in strategy, planning, acquisition, supply chain, programming and processes.
The Army details three lines of effort to achieve its climate strategy goals.
The first effort will adapt installations to be resilient and sustainable through infrastructure improvements and adaptation of natural environments, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
The second line of effort will focus on increasing operational capability while reducing sustainment needs and making the service more climate resilient within its acquisition and logistics enterprises.
The third line focuses on preparing a force ready to operate in a world where the climate has changed.
Installations
The Army has over 130 installations around the world. “Because of the systems and people they host, the communities they connect with, and the spaces they safeguard, installations anchor and guide some of the Army’s most consequential efforts to improve itself while responding to climate change,” the report states.
In addition to the Army planning to install a microgrid on every installation by 2035, it is also planning to achieve on-site carbon-pollution-free power generation for critical missions on all installations by 2040. Installations will have 100% carbon-pollution-free electricity by 2030.
The strategy also says the Army must have a resilient energy and water supply “under all conditions” and notes recent achievements, including upgrading a water treatment plant at Fort Irwin, California as well as setting up a 2.1-megawatt solar field at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and an 8.5-megawatt-hour lithium battery at Fort Carson, Colorado.
Already the Army has begun or completed 950 renewable energy projects supplying 480 megawatts of power to the Army and has 25 microgrid projects “scoped and planned” through 2024, according to the strategy.
While the service plans to achieve a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from all of its buildings by 2032, it is also working to attain net-zero greenhouse gas emissions on its installations by 2045.
On installations, the Army will field an all-electric light-duty non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2027 and an all-electric non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2035.
The Army has already increased its inventory of hybrid vehicles by almost 3,000 over the last three years, which it estimates has saved $50m in fleet costs and cut fossil fuel consumption by more than 13 million gallons per year and greenhouse gas emissions per mile by over 12%.
The Army will invest in over 470 charging stations this year, the strategy notes.
The service will include climate change mitigation in land management decisions and incorporate the latest climate and environmental science into stationing, construction and fielding decisions, the document adds.
Acquisition and logistics
The Army deploys with a long and large logistics tail, the strategy acknowledges.
The strategy aims to enhance operational capabilities, while minimizing the Army’s greenhouse gas emissions and reducing its effect on the climate.
“The Army can better position itself for future conflict by more effectively deploying and staging combat power across the globe, optimizing supply and distribution networks, and creating flexibility for the Defense Industrial Base,” the strategy argues.
The service plans to modernize its current platforms by adding mature electrification technologies and will field purpose-built hybrid-drive tactical vehicles by 2035, then move to fully electric tactical vehicles by 2050 to include charging capability to meet the all-electric fleet’s needs.
Much of the Army’s current sustainment demand comes from its tactical vehicle fleet, the strategy points out. The service has been working to reduce fossil fuel consumption and has demonstrated tactical vehicle electrification kits on some platforms, which resulted in a reduction of average fuel consumption by around 25% while boosting on-board electric output.
The Army is planning to develop an Electric Light Reconnaissance Vehicle prototype, expected to enter testing before September 2023, according to the strategy.
The service is also working to integrate hybrid electric technologies into future and existing platforms. Oshkosh, for instance, recently unveiled its hybrid electric version of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.
Army Futures Command, Army Materiel Command and industry are working within a Power Transfer Cohort to develop concepts and designs and prove out technology that could help the Army move to electric vehicles.
The service will use predictive logistics to make more “more precise and faster decisions” and establish policies that “standardize” contingency basing to reduce field requirements, the document says.
The strategy also says the Army wants to reduce operational energy and water use by 2035 and achieve carbon-pollution-free contingency basing by 2050.
“Electric service is a key component of contingency basing,” the strategy states, “but the heavy reliance on fossil fuels for electricity is hampering the Army while increasing risk and cost.”
The Army is working with industry on deployable power generation and storage, fielding the Advanced Medium Mobile Power Source (AMMPS) family of generators in 2013.
“To reach their full potential though, these generators need to be deployed as part of a microgrid system paired with battery storage,” the strategy says. “The necessary battery technology exists and is improving every year, and the Army will move to acquire, implement, and help advance this technology.”
When buying construction materials, the Army plans to “buy clean” and choose materials with lower embodied carbon emissions. The service will also analyze by 2025 all Tier 1 suppliers for climate change risks and vulnerabilities and will develop plans, policies and contracts by 2028 to ensure the supply chain is resilient, according to the strategy.
Army Materiel Command’s ongoing supply chain optimization analysis is one of several strategic-level initiatives meant to improve the supply chain’s resiliency and decrease vulnerability.
The service is also implementing a revised energy key performance parameter and pursuing net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from all procurements by 2050.
Training
“The Army must proactively train its people and prepare a force that is ready to operate in a climate-altered world while simultaneously maintaining the ability to win in combat,” the strategy says. “Such preparation requires shifts in what and how the Army trains its people, units, and headquarters.”
Beginning in 2024, the service will publish climate change lessons and best practices every two years and by 2028 update Army programs of instruction to include climate change topics, according to the strategy.
The Army wants to grow by 2035 the number of soldiers and civilians serving in strategic headquarters that have advanced credentials on climate change issues. By 2028, all Army operational and strategic exercises and simulations will incorporate climate change risks and threat considerations.
By 2028, the Army plans to incorporate into all of its training efforts ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The service has begun “building climate literacy” into training, the document says. “This effort aims to provide an understanding of the Army’s influence on the climate and climate change’s influence on the planet.”
How to move forward
Farnan said the Army Climate Action Plan is coming soon. While the strategy lays out what will be done, he said, the action plan will detail implementation.
“This is a long-term strategy,” he said, “so we don’t have every detail mapped out yet, but we are building some room in the [five-year budget plan] for this. There’s going to be climate-specific initiatives, but I’d also say that just because they’re not tagged as climate doesn’t mean it’s not going to apply to it.”
Much of the Army’s ongoing modernization initiatives will have a direct affect on the climate strategy, he added.
The Army is finding additional ways to pay for the strategy. “We’re looking outside of appropriated funds too, looking for partnerships,” he said.
“We’ve got the energy savings performance contracts that we work with the energy service companies, where they invest in efficiencies on our base and we use the savings to pay that off,” he said. “We get these improvements without having to do upfront investments.”
The Army, for example, will take tracts of lands on bases and lease them to a local utility or energy service company so they can build something like a solar panel array, he said. That array would feed back into the grid, powering the base and the local community.
“It’s a win-win,” Farnan said. (Source: Defense News)
07 Feb 22. U.S. adds Chinese entities to red-flag export list, WuXi Bio shares plunge. The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it had added 33 Chinese entities to its so-called ‘unverified list’, which requires U.S. exporters to go through more procedures before shipping goods to the entities.
The department said it was taking the step as it was unable to verify the legitimacy and reliability of those entities in relation to their use of U.S. exports. The entities included listed companies, universities as well as aerospace and electronics suppliers.
China’s commerce ministry hit out at the U.S. decision, saying on Tuesday Washington should correct its “wrongdoings” and the United States should return to the track of cooperation and contribute more to the global economic recovery.
Stock in WuXi Biologics (2269.HK), whose units in Wuxi and Shanghai were added to the unverified list, plummeted more than 25% on Tuesday to wipe HK$77bn ($9.9bn) off its market value. Trade in shares of the company, which makes ingredients for vaccines including AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccine, was later halted.
WuXiBio said that while it had imported manufacturing equipment subject to U.S. export controls, Washington’s move would have no impact on its business or ongoing services to global partners.
CEO Chris Chen told an investor call on Tuesday that WuXi Bio was prevented by U.S. export controls from reselling or re-exporting items purchased from the United States but that the Commerce Department had been unable to conduct checks that WuXi Bio was in compliance due to the pandemic.
“Because of COVID-19, they have not been able to travel here in the last two years to verify us, so they have put us on this ‘unverified list’,” he said.
“The affected companies are only in Shanghai and Wuxi and our factories in Shanghai and Wuxi have already been built, so there is no longer any need to buy large amounts of hardware for bioreactors.”
The company’s lawyers plan to negotiate with the U.S. Commerce Department, he added.
Shares in Hymson (688559.SS), a manufacturer of laser and automation equipment, slid more than 7% after a unit was added to the list.
Hymson said in a statement that the addition would not have any significant or adverse effect on its operations or financial situation. It added that it would evaluate what impact the listing could have on the company’s future development. ($1 = 7.7947 Hong Kong dollars) (Source: glstrade.com/Reuters)
08 Feb 22. US defence experts outline potential cuts in FY 2023 budget. Several aviation, ground vehicle, and nuclear weapons programmes could be on the chopping block in the Biden administration’s upcoming fiscal year (FY) 2023 defence budget request, according to a panel of military experts. Aside from wanting to put its imprint on US defence policy, the administration will be under pressure to make cuts to offset rising inflation and a promised pay raise for troops, the experts said during a 7 February webinar hosted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The US Army’s new armed scout helicopter, the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), is vulnerable budget-wise because it is not seen as survivable in the kind of “high-end competition” that the United States is increasingly emphasising, said Todd Harrison, director of defence budget analysis at CSIS. “If it doesn’t get killed outright, I think it gets pushed out, slipped into the future, to pay bills,” Harrison said. (Source: Janes)
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Founded in 1987, Exensor Technology is a world leading supplier of Networked Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Systems providing tailored sensor solutions to customers all over the world. From our Headquarters in Lund Sweden, our centre of expertise in Network Communications at Communications Research Lab in Kalmar Sweden and our Production site outside of Basingstoke UK, we design, develop and produce latest state of the art rugged UGS solutions at the highest quality to meet the most stringent demands of our customers. Our systems are in operation and used in a wide number of Military as well as Homeland Security applications worldwide. The modular nature of the system ensures any external sensor can be integrated, providing the user with a fully meshed “silent” network capable of self-healing. Exensor Technology will continue to lead the field in UGS technology, provide our customers with excellent customer service and a bespoke package able to meet every need. A CNIM Group Company
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