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11 May 22. Within FY23 Budget Request, Three Approaches Help DOD Meet Defense Strategy. This year’s $773bn presidential budget request for the Defense Department uses three approaches to support the nation’s defense strategy, which was transmitted to Congress in March, said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks, during a keynote address Friday at the Reagan Institute.
Those three approaches include integrated deterrence, campaigning and building an enduring advantage.
Integrated deterrence has been a main talking point for Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III since he took office in January 2021. Integration means all domains, including conventional, nuclear, cyber, space and the information domain. Integrated deterrence also includes the use of all instruments of national power — not just the military — as well as leaning on partnerships with American allies and partners.
“We seek to network our efforts across domains, theaters and the spectrum of conflict to ensure that the U.S. military, in close cooperation with the rest of the U.S. government and our allies and partners, makes the folly and costs of aggression very clear,” said Hicks. “The combat credibility of the U.S. military to fight and win is the cornerstone of integrated deterrence — that is why our top-line request for includes $276bn for procurement and for research, development, test and evaluation.”
The second approach to pursing the objectives of the National Defense Strategy is campaigning, where the United States will operate forces, synchronize broader Department efforts and align Department activities with other instruments of national power, to undermine competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations, and develop U.S. warfighting capabilities together with allies and partners.
“Readiness for the threats of today is central to campaigning,” Hicks said. “Which is why we invest almost $135 bn in military readiness. And while we maintain the ability to respond across the globe, our campaigning efforts will be focused on the Indo-Pacific and Europe.”
As part of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and other regionally focused efforts, Hicks said, the Department will continue to make investments that support the U.S. comparative military advantage and bolster its posture and logistics in the Indo-Pacific region.
Regarding Europe, the FY 2023 budget request supports the European Deterrence Initiative, U.S. European command, and the U.S. commitment to NATO.
“America’s ongoing support to the people of Ukraine exemplifies these priorities in Europe,” Hicks said.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the U.S. has delivered over $3 bn in aid to Ukraine. The president has asked for an additional $33 bn of assistance for Ukraine, $16 bn of which will be for the Department of Defense, Hicks said.
A third approach to pursing the objectives of the National Defense Strategy is the building of an enduring advantage for the joint force involves. That means undertaking reforms that accelerate force development, getting needed technology more quickly, and making investments in the Department’s most valuable resource — it’s people.
“This requires us to invest in our people, like providing the largest pay raise in 20 years to our military personnel, investing in affordable childcare and ensuring their food and housing security,” Hicks said.
Beyond people, building an enduring advantage for the joint force also means ensuring service members have the right tools — the best tools — to do their jobs, Hicks said. In the FY2023 budget, some $130 bn has been marked for RDT&E — which is the largest request ever.
“Our budget requests makes the critical investments we need to defend our nation,” Hicks said. “But our security depends on more than just dollars. We must outperform and out innovate would-be threats. This means making sure that at the Department we knock down barriers that stymie innovative thinking. Simultaneously, DOD faces external barriers to innovation, like delays in annual appropriations. Moving forward, both inside and outside the five sides of the Pentagon, we must work to find solutions to problems such as these to realize the concepts and capabilities that this century demands.” (Source: US DoD)
11 May 22. Austin Says 2023 Budget Built on New Defense Strategy.
The fiscal 2023 Defense Budget Request was built on the bones of the new National Defense Strategy, and the request is adequate for today’s military and ensures the military remains strong in the future, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee today.
That strategy sees China as the pacing challenge for the United States. Russia, with its unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine, is also a threat that must be taken seriously. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who testified alongside Austin, said this is the most uncertain time he has seen in almost 43 years in uniform.
Spotlight: Support for Ukraine
“We are now facing two global powers, China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities, both who intend to fundamentally change the current rules-based order,” Milley said. “We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable, and the potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing, not decreasing.”
The rules-based order came into place at the end of the last great power war — World War II. That war killed between 70 m and 85 m people worldwide.
“We built this budget based upon our national defense strategy, … we were very diligent and careful to make sure that we went after the capabilities that we needed to support that strategy,” Austin said. ” I’m confident that we were successful in doing that.”
At $773bn, the request funds the initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region and in Europe. “This is a very healthy budget and provides a significant capability,” Austin said.
Still, inflation has caused problems. “When we built the budget, we had to snap a chalk line at some point in time, as you always do when you build a budget,” he said.
Austin said the department had to “snap the chalk line” in 2021 — a time when gross domestic product inflation was around 2% and rising.
“We saw that that was increasing, and we doubled it basically to … 3.9% for ’22 … and going forward,” said Mike McCord, DOD’s comptroller/chief financial officer. “If you look at the last six months of data — which we did not have then but have now — that number is now 5.3%. So, we are a little under, but as secretary said, we did the best we could with the information we had. We recognize that things have changed a little since then.”
The department had to snap the chalk line in 2021 when the assumption showed the gross domestic product inflation was around 2%. “We saw that that was increasing, and we doubled it basically to … 3.9% for ’22 … and going forward,” said Mike McCord, DOD’s comptroller/chief financial officer. “If you look at the last six months of data — which we did not have then but have now — that number is now 5.3%. So, we are a little under, but as the secretary said, we did the best we could with the information we had. We recognize that things have changed a little since then.”
The defense leaders were asked about Ukraine and U.S. support of the embattled democracy. Austin listed the systems and supplies the United States is providing Ukraine including artillery pieces, anti-tank and anti-air weapons. He spoke about the deployment of U.S. troops to the frontline states within NATO, and the U.S. vow to defend every inch of NATO territory.
Austin thanked the House members for passing a $40 bn aid package for Ukraine yesterday and urged the Senate to speedily pass the legislation.
He also spoke of how important it is that the NATO nations stick together in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unnecessary war. Intelligence sharing has been a part of that solidarity. “What we did, in terms of sharing intelligence with our allies and partners, was very, very helpful to demonstrate that we wanted to be transparent and this is a tribute or credit to ,” Austin said. “It was his decision to move forward and make sure that we shared as much information as possible. That created trust amongst our allies in a more meaningful way. That trust allowed us to create greater unity.” (Source: US DoD)
10 May 22. Why the Army CIO wants data upgrades now. The sophisticated threats Russia and China pose are a radical departure from those faced for years in the Middle East and underline the need to rapidly upgrade military networks and information sharing capabilities, the U.S. Army’s chief information officer said.
“The future battlefield is going to be very different from the last 20 years. The last 20 years have been, essentially, us fighting against insurgents, terrorists, ISIS, Taliban. And we’ve done tremendous efforts and we’ve had great progress and great impact,” CIO Raj Iyer said May 9 at a technical forum hosted by the service’s network modernization office. “But the next 10 years, or the next 20 years, is going to be against a near-peer adversary that’s technologically savvy.”
That shift away from small-scale precision counterterrorism and toward large-scale standoffs or confrontations with advanced foes means the U.S. cannot tarry.
“We’re not waiting for the Army of 2030,” Iyer said. “We’re not waiting to go build out some sophisticated, elaborate JADC2 solution or system. It’s all about operationalizing data now, today, for today’s fight.”
Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, represents the Department of Defense’s pursuit of a wholly interconnected military, where systems across the services are no longer incompatible and information can be shared widely, accurately and without delay. Officials say JADC2 is critical to win the fight of tomorrow, likely in an environment where communications are contested.
“You could have the world’s best weapon systems, you could have the world’s best army,” Iyer said. “But our advantage in the future is going to be how well and how quickly we’re able to synthesize large volumes of data and get it into the hands of the warfighter at all echelons.”
Achieving JADC2, however, will take time, money and serious problem-solving skills. Through major exercises and experimentation, like the annual Project Convergence, the Army hopes to get there.
“Moving into PC ‘22, there’s a heavy emphasis on data” and integration of platforms, Iyer said. “How well do they work together? How are we able to condense the kill chain?”
Like Iyer, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has emphasized the need to embrace data, and quickly.
In a February message, Wormuth said the path to success “requires a commitment to innovation” and trying “new ways of operating.” The work done at Project Convergence, she continued, “is the kind of innovative approach we need to win the future fight.”
More than 100 pieces of cutting-edge tech were studied at PC ‘21, which featured nearly 1,500 participants from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Space Force. The Project Convergence scheduled later this year will incorporate allies and will focus on larger fights in both the Indo-Pacific and European theaters. (Source: Defense News)
10 May 22. Army looks to take Stryker vehicles out of Alaska. Reestablishing the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska could entail cutting Stryker vehicles from a brigade there and adding personnel to create an operational headquarters.
But the changes are expected to be cost-neutral in the immediate future and even the manpower added to the upgraded headquarters would come out of the cannibalized Stryker brigade, should that plan move forward, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday.
“We will be looking at basically having that division headquarters have sort of the same types of capabilities that you see in the 173rd in Italy, for example,” Wormuth said.
The 173rd Airborne Brigade is a strategic response force for U.S. European Command, hinting at the kind of roles Alaska-based soldiers could eventually play in their own region.
Army officials said last week that they’re planning to reflag U.S. Army Alaska as the 11th Airborne Division, a storied unit that fought in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II before it was deactivated in 1965.
The change could breathe new life into two brigade combat teams currently based in Alaska, one of which is an airborne unit and the other a mechanized unit manning the eight-wheeled Stryker armored vehicles.
“We are looking at potentially taking the Strykers out of Alaska,” Wormuth said. “We have not made a final decision about that, but if we do that, we will basically take them and look at the ones that we can reuse elsewhere or basically use for parts.”
Because a Stryker brigade has more personnel assigned to it than a typical brigade, the extra billets could be added to the new operational headquarters, according to Wormuth. The headquarters is currently set up for administrative tasks.
“There won’t be cost immediately associated with that particular step,” she added. “We won’t need to do new military construction, for example, to house people at this time. So, I don’t think that these changes are going to have large price tags, but we will be continuing to put money in the budget for things like the CATV [Cold-Weather, All-Terrain Vehicles].”
CATV prototypes underwent testing in Alaska late last year and are intended to replace the Small Unit Support Vehicle, which is 1960s-era technology that was purchased by the Army in the 1980s. New vehicles are part of a slew of changes being made to Army units in Alaska after the service rolled out its Arctic strategy in 2021.
Like many Arctic strategy documents produced by government agencies in recent years, the Army’s plans warn of a region where climate change is expected to open new shipping lanes and offer access to energy and mineral resources. (Source: Defense News)
10 May 22. Top Intelligence Chiefs Testify on Global Threats to Senate Committee. Two top U.S. intelligence officials testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee today on global threats to the United States and its allies emanating from China, Russia and Iran as well as terrorist organizations.
Army Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Avril D. Haines, director of national intelligence, spoke to the committee on the U.S. intelligence community’s 2022 assessment of worldwide threats.
“The invasion has demonstrated Russia’s intent to overturn the U.S.-led, rules-based, post-Cold War international order, expand its control over the former Soviet Union and reclaim what it regards as its rightful position on the world stage,” Berrier said.
Russian military capabilities have been used to violate the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, and they pose an existential threat to U.S. national security and that of our allies, the general told the committee.
“In response to stiff resistance, Russia has resorted to more indiscriminate and brutal methods that are destroying cities infrastructure and increasing civilian deaths. Negotiations remain stalled as both sides focus on the outcome of the battle in the Donbas , while partnership with Ukraine and warning of potential escalation remain key priorities for DIA,” Berrier said.
China also remains a pacing threat and a major security challenge to the United States and its allies, he said. “Beijing has long viewed the United States as a strategic competitor, China is capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”
China’s People’s Liberation Army, which has already fielded sophisticated weapons and instituted major organizational reforms to enhance joint operations, is nearing the status of global competitor to the United States, its allies and partners, and is a credible, peer competitor in the Indo-Pacific region, Berrier noted. “China’s current nuclear force expansion is historic,” he said.
“The United States faces military and intelligence threats from competitors, particularly Russia and China, who have, and are developing, new capabilities intended to contest, limit or exceed U.S. military advantage,” Berrier said. “State and non-state actors are selectively putting these capabilities into play globally and regionally. These capabilities also span all warfighting domains — maritime, land, air, electronic warfare, cyberspace information and space.”
Russia’s and China’s capabilities include more lethal, ballistic and cruise missiles, the general told the committee. China is growing nuclear stockpiles of modernized conventional forces and a range of gray-zone measures, such as the use of ambiguous unconventional forces, foreign proxies, information manipulation, cyber-attacks and economic coercion, he said.
The People’s Republic of China remains an unparalleled priority for the intelligence community, Haines said. The governments of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have all demonstrated the capability and intent to promote their interests in ways that cut against U.S. and allied interests, she noted.
The PRC is coming ever closer to being a peer competitor in areas of relevance to national security and is pushing to revise global norms and institutions to its advantage, Haines added. They are challenging the United States in multiple arenas — economically, militarily and technologically.
The more the conflict drags on, or if Russian President Vladimir Putin perceives Russia is losing in Ukraine, the most likely flashpoints for escalation in the coming weeks will involve increasing Russian attempts to interdict Western security assistance, retaliation for Western economic sanctions, or threats to the regime at home, she said.
“We believe that Moscow continues to use nuclear rhetoric to deter the United States and the West from increasing lethal aid to Ukraine and to respond to public comments that the U.S. and NATO allies … expanded Western goals in the conflict,” Haines said.
“And if Putin perceives that the United States is ignoring his threats, he may try to signal to Washington the heightened danger of its support to Ukraine by authorizing another large nuclear exercise, involving a major dispersal of mobile intercontinental missiles, heavy bombers strategic submarines,” she told the Senate committee. “We otherwise continue to believe President Putin would probably only authorize the use of nuclear weapons if he perceived an existential threat to the Russian state or regime.”
But, the United States will remain vigilant and monitor every aspect of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces,” Haines said. “With tensions this high, there is always an enhanced potential for miscalculation unintended escalation, which we hope our intelligence can help to mitigate,” she added.
Beyond its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow presents a serious cyber threat, a key space competitor one of the most serious foreign influence threats to the United States, Haines told the committee.
Using its intelligence services proxies’ wide-ranging influence tools, the Russian government seeks to not only pursue its own interests, but also to divide Western alliances, undermine U.S. global standing, amplify discord inside the United States, and influence U.S. voters and decision making, she said.
Additionally, ” Iranian regime continues to threaten U.S. interests as it tries to erode U.S. influence in the Middle East and trench its influence, … project power in neighboring states and minimize threats to regime stability,” Haines said.
“Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un continues to steadily expand and enhance Pyongyang’s nuclear and conventional capabilities, targeting the United States and its allies, periodically using aggressive potentially destabilizing actions to reshape the regional security environment in his favor, and to reinforce its status quo as a de facto nuclear power,” she said.
The intelligence community’s assessment continues to focus on a number of key global and transnational threats, Haines said, “including global health security, transnational organized crime, the rapid development of destabilizing technologies, climate, migration, and terrorism, … because they pose challenges of a fundamentally different nature to our national security than those posed by the actions of nation states — even powerful ones, like China and Russia.”
The United States sees the same complex mix of interlocking challenges stemming from the threat of climate change, which is exacerbating risks in U.S. national security interests across the board, but particularly as it intersects with environmental degradation and global health challenges, she added.
And terrorism remains a persistent threat to the people of the U.S. and interests at home and abroad, Haines said, adding, “but the implication of the problem evolving in Africa, for example, where terrorist groups are clearly gaining strength.”
In short, Haines said, “the interconnected global security environment is marked by the growing specter of great power competition and conflict, while transnational threats to all nations and actors compete not only for our attention, but also for finite resources.” (Source: US DoD)
09 May 22. USMC Design 2030 update refocuses on reconnaissance. The U.S. Marine Corps has updated its Force Design 2030 plans, putting a stronger emphasis on the reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance competition as foundational to lethality, the commandant said.
Gen. David Berger told reporters May 5 the original Force Design 2030 focused heavily on the lethality of small, distributed units of Marines — whether hauling ground-based anti-ship missiles around island chains, jamming or shooting down aircraft or even detecting and firing upon submarines going through chokepoints.
But, asked by Defense News what he’s more confident about now than a year ago, Berger said none of those lethal effects matter much if the Marines can’t effectively see and hide from the enemy.
“Although we began three years ago heavily focused on lethality, which remains important, now coming to the fore is the importance of the hider/finder, reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance, screening/counter-screening, whatever term you’d like to use — the importance of winning that upfront and always,” Berger said.
“It doesn’t diminish the importance of lethality, but you can’t use the lethality if you can’t find them. Or, said another way, if you’re so big and fat and immobile and vulnerable to their sensors, all the lethality in the world ain’t going to help you. So winning that first part, and staying on it,” has become an increasingly important aspect of Force Design 2030 modernization priorities as the service iterates.
In the Force Design 2030 update, released May 9, Berger wrote that the “security environment is characterized by proliferation of sophisticated sensors and precision weapons coupled with growing strategic competition.”
A new concept for stand-in forces “describes the ways Marines will intentionally disrupt the plans of these potential adversaries and defines Stand-in Forces (SIF) as small but lethal forces, designed to operate across the competition continuum within a contested area as the leading edge of a maritime defense-in-depth,” he continued. “The enduring function for SIF is to help the fleet and joint force win the reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance (RXR) battle at every point on the competition continuum.”
Berger first released a Commandant’s Planning Guidance in July 2019, paving the way for Force Design 2030, which was released in March 2020 and then updated in April 2021 and again this month.
In a May 6 roundtable with reporters, the leadership behind Force Design 2030 experimentation and development explained the new focus on sensing as a means of ensuring lethality.
Marine Corps Warfighting Lab Commanding General Maj. Gen. Benjamin Watson told Defense News “we’re not coming off the gas on lethality at all,” but “looking at the increasing range of weapons on not just the future battlefield but today, you’ve got to be able to sense the target before you can engage.”
The Marine Corps doesn’t want to be reliant on non-organic sensors — sensors from larger units elsewhere in the theater, Marine forces on U.S. Navy ships or even satellites or other sensors in the joint force — so the small distributed units the Marine Corps plans to deploy have to be able to see farther than they can shoot and incorporate non-organic sensing capabilities as a nice-to-have rather than something they’re dependent on.
The goal, Watson said, is to “develop a balanced portfolio of capabilities so that when we are trying to close kill chains against a modern, multi-domain adversary, we’ve got a complete tool kit.”
Maj. Gen. Eric Austin, director of the Capabilities Development Directorate at Marine Corps headquarters, told reporters the small, distributed units also need resilient communications pathways to use this targeting data, both for their own weapons and to share with the joint force.
Through the past few years of experimentation in support of Force Design 2030, “we’re finding that there is real value in our ability to sense and communicate what we’re coming up with to the broader force.”
Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for combat development and integration, noted signature management is the other side of the coin of the hider/finder fight with an adversary. He said unit commanders must practice operating with a reduced signature so the enemy has to work harder to spot and target them, despite sensors growing in capability and quantity.
The updated Force Design 2030 plans continue to make investments in lethality, too, with a particular emphasis on loitering munitions and other technology that can add range and precision to what the infantry and artillery communities use today.
Berger said the Marine Corps fundamentally revolves around its three Marine Expeditionary Forces that are each organized around their infantry — and that hasn’t changed under Force Design 2030. What has changed is the idea of how these forces can contribute to a 21st century combined arms fight, and the range of tools they’ll have to locate, close with and destroy enemy forces. (Source: glstrade.com/Defense News)
05 May 22. US Army Creating Second Paratrooper Division as Service Forges New Identity for Arctic Troops. Soldiers stationed in Alaska will soon ditch the 25th Infantry Division’s “Tropic Lightning” patch and be redesignated the 11th Airborne Division, in what could be an important step in the Army’s recent focus on Arctic warfare.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told lawmakers that the move will give units in the state a clear identity. Soldiers there currently fall under the command of U.S. Army Alaska and wear the 25th Infantry Division patch. But that division is mostly associated with units in Hawaii that train for combat in the jungle, the opposite of Alaska’s mission and something leaders and junior soldiers told Military.com has been a point of confusion.
U.S. Army Alaska will be redesignated as the 11th Airborne Division this summer and issued a new patch.
“It would be a new common sense of identity for the soldiers there,” Wormuth told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing Thursday.
Some rank-and-file troops and leaders in Alaska told Military.com they don’t have the proper equipment needed to be the service’s premier Arctic force. Some of that is due to its primary vehicle, the Stryker, being ineffective.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville and senior leaders in Alaska have told Military.com they are skeptical of the Stryker’s capabilities in Arctic climates, mostly due to the wheeled vehicles’ inability to maneuver effectively off road in the snow and not being built to operate in minus-65 degree Fahrenheit weather, the benchmark commanders in Alaska say is needed.
“We’re looking at the Arctic very differently. This would give the units the confidence all of this would come together,” McConville told lawmakers at Thursday’s Senate hearing.
But units there are starved of other critical resources, with some soldiers telling Military.com they can’t even get ripped uniforms replaced. More importantly, bases in the region have struggled to tackle a growing suicide crisis. That lack of resources has been partly blamed by some on Alaskan units not having a clear identity and thus often being forgotten about by Pentagon planners, something this change is meant to address.
The move would give the active-duty Army its third named airborne combat unit and its second paratrooper division.
The two existing airborne combat units are the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which falls under XVIII Airborne Corps, and the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Europe. The 101st Airborne in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is airborne in name only; it’s actually an air assault division. The Texas National Guard has the 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry Regiment, the only conventional airborne element of the component.
Two Alaska brigade combat teams would be most impacted by the redesignation — the 1st and 4th Brigade Combat Teams of the 25th infantry Division. The 4th is the region’s paratrooper element, while the 1st is a mechanized Stryker brigade.
Those brigades would be redesignated the 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams of the 11th Airborne Division. It is unclear whether the move would mean the mechanized troops would convert to paratroopers in the future.
“The Army is reviewing options to convert the [Stryker] brigade combat team at Fort Wainwright from a Stryker to an infantry unit,” Lt. Col. Randee Farrell, an Army spokesperson, told Military.com. “We are in the midst of consultation with our joint partners to ensure that any potential change enhances the ability of joint force commanders to achieve their mission.”
The changes are yet another move the force is making since the wind-down of the post-9/11 wars, with a shift to focus on conventional fighting and outpacing China and Russia.
Airborne capabilities haven’t been truly tested on a modern battlefield but are built to insert ground troops into enemy territory and to quickly seize critical terrain or infrastructure such as airfields.
Airborne units gained famed during the invasion of Nazi-occupied France with dangerous jumps that secured key terrain for the success of the allied invasion of Normandy. That legendary battle spurred paratroopers to be the Army’s elite force. While still a conventional unit, airborne troops are traditionally called upon first to deploy and are often on high-paced training schedules.
Yet those tactics were seldom part of modern wars, with the last major use of airborne capabilities being the U.S. invasion of Panama, commonly referred to as Operation Just Cause in 1989. However, there were limited uses of special operations jumps in Afghanistan and Iraq. The last — smaller — conventional airborne assault was in Iraq in 2003 when the 173rd Airborne Brigade seized Bashur Airfield with virtually no resistance.
The 11th Airborne Division’s legacy stems from its activation in 1943 during World War II. It fought in the Pacific Theater, where two of its soldiers, Pvts. Elmer Fryar and Manuel Perez Jr., earned the Medal of Honor. The formation was later used to occupy post-war Japan.
The 11th Airborne was transformed into a training formation at Fort Campbell in 1949. In the 1960s, the division was reorganized into three air assault brigades and designated the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) when the Army was in the early stages of developing tactics using helicopters on the battlefield. The unit was disbanded in 1965, transferring its equipment and personnel to the 1st Cavalry Division.
(Source: Military.com)
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12 May 22. Project Convergence 22 aims to have best-positioned force shoot first. The U.S. Army will pursue sophisticated data-sharing capabilities at this year’s Project Convergence demonstration that officials said will enable the best-positioned military asset to take immediate action, regardless national affiliation.
“We’re never going to fight as just a joint organization,” Brig. Gen. Jeth Rey, director of the Network Cross-Functional Team, said May 10 on the sidelines of a summit with contractors and potential suppliers. “We’re going to always have our coalition partners. So we want the effects to be: If they’re in the best area to shoot, we want them to shoot.”
Now in its third year, Project Convergence seeks to integrate artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomy to improve battlefield situational awareness, connect sensors with shooters and accelerate decision-making. For the first time this fall, it will involve international participation, with Australia and the U.K. actively taking part while Canada and others observe.
The international collaboration, which may also include New Zealand, comes as the Pentagon pursues what’s known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, the ability to exchange information across air, land, sea, cyber and space and tie together once-incompatible or siloed systems. The demonstration is a critical next-step, Rey said, and builds upon the successes of previous experimentation and analysis.
“So, we’re going to learn a lot of lessons here,” he said. “And it’s not only just data. We’re talking about sensor data off of our mission systems to ensure we can share it not only with our joint partners, but also share it with our coalition partners.”
Project Convergence is the Army’s contribution to JADC2, like the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System and the Navy’s Project Overmatch. This year’s tests will stretch across the U.S., including the National Training Center at Fort Irwin and the Navy’s Electronic Warfare Range at China Lake, both in California.
The upcoming demonstration of cutting-edge tech will focus on both the Indo-Pacific and European theaters. Russian and Chinese threats colored the exercises, Defense News reported in March. Russia began massing materiel on its border with Ukraine as Project Convergence 21 wrapped.
“You’ve got the right sensor through the right command-and-control node getting to the right shooter to be able to facilitate that kill chain, and you’re getting information to decision makers,” said Army Maj. Gen. Robert Collins, the program executive officer for command, control and communications-tactical, at the two-day summit.
A heavy emphasis on data and integration, beyond basic cooperation, already exists heading into Project Convergence 22, Army Chief Information Officer Raj Iyer said May 9.
“We know we have the best weapon system platforms in the world,” he said. “But, truly, for us to establish strategic deterrence in the future, and if we have to win decisively in large-scale combat operations, that’s going to only happen through decision dominance.“
“So for us to achieve decision dominance,” Iyer said, “it’s all about the data.” (Source: Defense News)
11 May 22. Within FY23 Budget Request, Three Approaches Help DOD Meet Defense Strategy. This year’s $773bn presidential budget request for the Defense Department uses three approaches to support the nation’s defense strategy, which was transmitted to Congress in March, said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks, during a keynote address Friday at the Reagan Institute.
Those three approaches include integrated deterrence, campaigning and building an enduring advantage.
Integrated deterrence has been a main talking point for Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III since he took office in January 2021. Integration means all domains, including conventional, nuclear, cyber, space and the information domain. Integrated deterrence also includes the use of all instruments of national power — not just the military — as well as leaning on partnerships with American allies and partners.
“We seek to network our efforts across domains, theaters and the spectrum of conflict to ensure that the U.S. military, in close cooperation with the rest of the U.S. government and our allies and partners, makes the folly and costs of aggression very clear,” said Hicks. “The combat credibility of the U.S. military to fight and win is the cornerstone of integrated deterrence — that is why our top-line request for includes $276bn for procurement and for research, development, test and evaluation.”
The second approach to pursing the objectives of the National Defense Strategy is campaigning, where the United States will operate forces, synchronize broader Department efforts and align Department activities with other instruments of national power, to undermine competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations, and develop U.S. warfighting capabilities together with allies and partners.
“Readiness for the threats of today is central to campaigning,” Hicks said. “Which is why we invest almost $135 bn in military readiness. And while we maintain the ability to respond across the globe, our campaigning efforts will be focused on the Indo-Pacific and Europe.”
As part of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and other regionally focused efforts, Hicks said, the Department will continue to make investments that support the U.S. comparative military advantage and bolster its posture and logistics in the Indo-Pacific region.
Regarding Europe, the FY 2023 budget request supports the European Deterrence Initiative, U.S. European command, and the U.S. commitment to NATO.
“America’s ongoing support to the people of Ukraine exemplifies these priorities in Europe,” Hicks said.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the U.S. has delivered over $3 bn in aid to Ukraine. The president has asked for an additional $33 bn of assistance for Ukraine, $16 bn of which will be for the Department of Defense, Hicks said.
A third approach to pursing the objectives of the National Defense Strategy is the building of an enduring advantage for the joint force involves. That means undertaking reforms that accelerate force development, getting needed technology more quickly, and making investments in the Department’s most valuable resource — it’s people.
“This requires us to invest in our people, like providing the largest pay raise in 20 years to our military personnel, investing in affordable childcare and ensuring their food and housing security,” Hicks said.
Beyond people, building an enduring advantage for the joint force also means ensuring service members have the right tools — the best tools — to do their jobs, Hicks said. In the FY2023 budget, some $130 bn has been marked for RDT&E — which is the largest request ever.
“Our budget requests makes the critical investments we need to defend our nation,” Hicks said. “But our security depends on more than just dollars. We must outperform and out innovate would-be threats. This means making sure that at the Department we knock down barriers that stymie innovative thinking. Simultaneously, DOD faces external barriers to innovation, like delays in annual appropriations. Moving forward, both inside and outside the five sides of the Pentagon, we must work to find solutions to problems such as these to realize the concepts and capabilities that this century demands.” (Source: US DoD)
11 May 22. Austin Says 2023 Budget Built on New Defense Strategy
The fiscal 2023 Defense Budget Request was built on the bones of the new National Defense Strategy, and the request is adequate for today’s military and ensures the military remains strong in the future, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee today.
That strategy sees China as the pacing challenge for the United States. Russia, with its unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine, is also a threat that must be taken seriously. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who testified alongside Austin, said this is the most uncertain time he has seen in almost 43 years in uniform.
Spotlight: Support for Ukraine
“We are now facing two global powers, China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities, both who intend to fundamentally change the current rules-based order,” Milley said. “We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable, and the potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing, not decreasing.”
The rules-based order came into place at the end of the last great power war — World War II. That war killed between 70 m and 85 m people worldwide.
“We built this budget based upon our national defense strategy, … we were very diligent and careful to make sure that we went after the capabilities that we needed to support that strategy,” Austin said. ” I’m confident that we were successful in doing that.”
At $773bn, the request funds the initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region and in Europe. “This is a very healthy budget and provides a significant capability,” Austin said.
Still, inflation has caused problems. “When we built the budget, we had to snap a chalk line at some point in time, as you always do when you build a budget,” he said.
Austin said the department had to “snap the chalk line” in 2021 — a time when gross domestic product inflation was around 2% and rising.
“We saw that that was increasing, and we doubled it basically to … 3.9% for ’22 … and going forward,” said Mike McCord, DOD’s comptroller/chief financial officer. “If you look at the last six months of data — which we did not have then but have now — that number is now 5.3%. So, we are a little under, but as secretary said, we did the best we could with the information we had. We recognize that things have changed a little since then.”
The department had to snap the chalk line in 2021 when the assumption showed the gross domestic product inflation was around 2%. “We saw that that was increasing, and we doubled it basically to … 3.9% for ’22 … and going forward,” said Mike McCord, DOD’s comptroller/chief financial officer. “If you look at the last six months of data — which we did not have then but have now — that number is now 5.3%. So, we are a little under, but as the secretary said, we did the best we could with the information we had. We recognize that things have changed a little since then.”
The defense leaders were asked about Ukraine and U.S. support of the embattled democracy. Austin listed the systems and supplies the United States is providing Ukraine including artillery pieces, anti-tank and anti-air weapons. He spoke about the deployment of U.S. troops to the frontline states within NATO, and the U.S. vow to defend every inch of NATO territory.
Austin thanked the House members for passing a $40 bn aid package for Ukraine yesterday and urged the Senate to speedily pass the legislation.
He also spoke of how important it is that the NATO nations stick together in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unnecessary war. Intelligence sharing has been a part of that solidarity. “What we did, in terms of sharing intelligence with our allies and partners, was very, very helpful to demonstrate that we wanted to be transparent and this is a tribute or credit to ,” Austin said. “It was his decision to move forward and make sure that we shared as much information as possible. That created trust amongst our allies in a more meaningful way. That trust allowed us to create greater unity.” (Source: US DoD)
10 May 22. Why the Army CIO wants data upgrades now. The sophisticated threats Russia and China pose are a radical departure from those faced for years in the Middle East and underline the need to rapidly upgrade military networks and information sharing capabilities, the U.S. Army’s chief information officer said.
“The future battlefield is going to be very different from the last 20 years. The last 20 years have been, essentially, us fighting against insurgents, terrorists, ISIS, Taliban. And we’ve done tremendous efforts and we’ve had great progress and great impact,” CIO Raj Iyer said May 9 at a technical forum hosted by the service’s network modernization office. “But the next 10 years, or the next 20 years, is going to be against a near-peer adversary that’s technologically savvy.”
That shift away from small-scale precision counterterrorism and toward large-scale standoffs or confrontations with advanced foes means the U.S. cannot tarry.
“We’re not waiting for the Army of 2030,” Iyer said. “We’re not waiting to go build out some sophisticated, elaborate JADC2 solution or system. It’s all about operationalizing data now, today, for today’s fight.”
Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, represents the Department of Defense’s pursuit of a wholly interconnected military, where systems across the services are no longer incompatible and information can be shared widely, accurately and without delay. Officials say JADC2 is critical to win the fight of tomorrow, likely in an environment where communications are contested.
“You could have the world’s best weapon systems, you could have the world’s best army,” Iyer said. “But our advantage in the future is going to be how well and how quickly we’re able to synthesize large volumes of data and get it into the hands of the warfighter at all echelons.”
Achieving JADC2, however, will take time, money and serious problem-solving skills. Through major exercises and experimentation, like the annual Project Convergence, the Army hopes to get there.
“Moving into PC ‘22, there’s a heavy emphasis on data” and integration of platforms, Iyer said. “How well do they work together? How are we able to condense the kill chain?”
Like Iyer, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has emphasized the need to embrace data, and quickly.
In a February message, Wormuth said the path to success “requires a commitment to innovation” and trying “new ways of operating.” The work done at Project Convergence, she continued, “is the kind of innovative approach we need to win the future fight.”
More than 100 pieces of cutting-edge tech were studied at PC ‘21, which featured nearly 1,500 participants from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Space Force. The Project Convergence scheduled later this year will incorporate allies and will focus on larger fights in both the Indo-Pacific and European theaters. (Source: Defense News)
10 May 22. Army looks to take Stryker vehicles out of Alaska. Reestablishing the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska could entail cutting Stryker vehicles from a brigade there and adding personnel to create an operational headquarters.
But the changes are expected to be cost-neutral in the immediate future and even the manpower added to the upgraded headquarters would come out of the cannibalized Stryker brigade, should that plan move forward, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday.
“We will be looking at basically having that division headquarters have sort of the same types of capabilities that you see in the 173rd in Italy, for example,” Wormuth said.
The 173rd Airborne Brigade is a strategic response force for U.S. European Command, hinting at the kind of roles Alaska-based soldiers could eventually play in their own region.
Army officials said last week that they’re planning to reflag U.S. Army Alaska as the 11th Airborne Division, a storied unit that fought in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II before it was deactivated in 1965.
The change could breathe new life into two brigade combat teams currently based in Alaska, one of which is an airborne unit and the other a mechanized unit manning the eight-wheeled Stryker armored vehicles.
“We are looking at potentially taking the Strykers out of Alaska,” Wormuth said. “We have not made a final decision about that, but if we do that, we will basically take them and look at the ones that we can reuse elsewhere or basically use for parts.”
Because a Stryker brigade has more personnel assigned to it than a typical brigade, the extra billets could be added to the new operational headquarters, according to Wormuth. The headquarters is currently set up for administrative tasks.
“There won’t be cost immediately associated with that particular step,” she added. “We won’t need to do new military construction, for example, to house people at this time. So, I don’t think that these changes are going to have large price tags, but we will be continuing to put money in the budget for things like the CATV [Cold-Weather, All-Terrain Vehicles].”
CATV prototypes underwent testing in Alaska late last year and are intended to replace the Small Unit Support Vehicle, which is 1960s-era technology that was purchased by the Army in the 1980s. New vehicles are part of a slew of changes being made to Army units in Alaska after the service rolled out its Arctic strategy in 2021.
Like many Arctic strategy documents produced by government agencies in recent years, the Army’s plans warn of a region where climate change is expected to open new shipping lanes and offer access to energy and mineral resources. (Source: Defense News)
10 May 22. Top Intelligence Chiefs Testify on Global Threats to Senate Committee. Two top U.S. intelligence officials testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee today on global threats to the United States and its allies emanating from China, Russia and Iran as well as terrorist organizations.
Army Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Avril D. Haines, director of national intelligence, spoke to the committee on the U.S. intelligence community’s 2022 assessment of worldwide threats.
“The invasion has demonstrated Russia’s intent to overturn the U.S.-led, rules-based, post-Cold War international order, expand its control over the former Soviet Union and reclaim what it regards as its rightful position on the world stage,” Berrier said.
Russian military capabilities have been used to violate the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, and they pose an existential threat to U.S. national security and that of our allies, the general told the committee.
“In response to stiff resistance, Russia has resorted to more indiscriminate and brutal methods that are destroying cities infrastructure and increasing civilian deaths. Negotiations remain stalled as both sides focus on the outcome of the battle in the Donbas , while partnership with Ukraine and warning of potential escalation remain key priorities for DIA,” Berrier said.
China also remains a pacing threat and a major security challenge to the United States and its allies, he said. “Beijing has long viewed the United States as a strategic competitor, China is capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”
China’s People’s Liberation Army, which has already fielded sophisticated weapons and instituted major organizational reforms to enhance joint operations, is nearing the status of global competitor to the United States, its allies and partners, and is a credible, peer competitor in the Indo-Pacific region, Berrier noted. “China’s current nuclear force expansion is historic,” he said.
“The United States faces military and intelligence threats from competitors, particularly Russia and China, who have, and are developing, new capabilities intended to contest, limit or exceed U.S. military advantage,” Berrier said. “State and non-state actors are selectively putting these capabilities into play globally and regionally. These capabilities also span all warfighting domains — maritime, land, air, electronic warfare, cyberspace information and space.”
Russia’s and China’s capabilities include more lethal, ballistic and cruise missiles, the general told the committee. China is growing nuclear stockpiles of modernized conventional forces and a range of gray-zone measures, such as the use of ambiguous unconventional forces, foreign proxies, information manipulation, cyber-attacks and economic coercion, he said.
The People’s Republic of China remains an unparalleled priority for the intelligence community, Haines said. The governments of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have all demonstrated the capability and intent to promote their interests in ways that cut against U.S. and allied interests, she noted.
The PRC is coming ever closer to being a peer competitor in areas of relevance to national security and is pushing to revise global norms and institutions to its advantage, Haines added. They are challenging the United States in multiple arenas — economically, militarily and technologically.
The more the conflict drags on, or if Russian President Vladimir Putin perceives Russia is losing in Ukraine, the most likely flashpoints for escalation in the coming weeks will involve increasing Russian attempts to interdict Western security assistance, retaliation for Western economic sanctions, or threats to the regime at home, she said.
“We believe that Moscow continues to use nuclear rhetoric to deter the United States and the West from increasing lethal aid to Ukraine and to respond to public comments that the U.S. and NATO allies … expanded Western goals in the conflict,” Haines said.
“And if Putin perceives that the United States is ignoring his threats, he may try to signal to Washington the heightened danger of its support to Ukraine by authorizing another large nuclear exercise, involving a major dispersal of mobile intercontinental missiles, heavy bombers strategic submarines,” she told the Senate committee. “We otherwise continue to believe President Putin would probably only authorize the use of nuclear weapons if he perceived an existential threat to the Russian state or regime.”
But, the United States will remain vigilant and monitor every aspect of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces,” Haines said. “With tensions this high, there is always an enhanced potential for miscalculation unintended escalation, which we hope our intelligence can help to mitigate,” she added.
Beyond its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow presents a serious cyber threat, a key space competitor one of the most serious foreign influence threats to the United States, Haines told the committee.
Using its intelligence services proxies’ wide-ranging influence tools, the Russian government seeks to not only pursue its own interests, but also to divide Western alliances, undermine U.S. global standing, amplify discord inside the United States, and influence U.S. voters and decision making, she said.
Additionally, ” Iranian regime continues to threaten U.S. interests as it tries to erode U.S. influence in the Middle East and trench its influence, … project power in neighboring states and minimize threats to regime stability,” Haines said.
“Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un continues to steadily expand and enhance Pyongyang’s nuclear and conventional capabilities, targeting the United States and its allies, periodically using aggressive potentially destabilizing actions to reshape the regional security environment in his favor, and to reinforce its status quo as a de facto nuclear power,” she said.
The intelligence community’s assessment continues to focus on a number of key global and transnational threats, Haines said, “including global health security, transnational organized crime, the rapid development of destabilizing technologies, climate, migration, and terrorism, … because they pose challenges of a fundamentally different nature to our national security than those posed by the actions of nation states — even powerful ones, like China and Russia.”
The United States sees the same complex mix of interlocking challenges stemming from the threat of climate change, which is exacerbating risks in U.S. national security interests across the board, but particularly as it intersects with environmental degradation and global health challenges, she added.
And terrorism remains a persistent threat to the people of the U.S. and interests at home and abroad, Haines said, adding, “but the implication of the problem evolving in Africa, for example, where terrorist groups are clearly gaining strength.”
In short, Haines said, “the interconnected global security environment is marked by the growing specter of great power competition and conflict, while transnational threats to all nations and actors compete not only for our attention, but also for finite resources.” (Source: US DoD)
09 May 22. USMC Design 2030 update refocuses on reconnaissance. The U.S. Marine Corps has updated its Force Design 2030 plans, putting a stronger emphasis on the reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance competition as foundational to lethality, the commandant said.
Gen. David Berger told reporters May 5 the original Force Design 2030 focused heavily on the lethality of small, distributed units of Marines — whether hauling ground-based anti-ship missiles around island chains, jamming or shooting down aircraft or even detecting and firing upon submarines going through chokepoints.
But, asked by Defense News what he’s more confident about now than a year ago, Berger said none of those lethal effects matter much if the Marines can’t effectively see and hide from the enemy.
“Although we began three years ago heavily focused on lethality, which remains important, now coming to the fore is the importance of the hider/finder, reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance, screening/counter-screening, whatever term you’d like to use — the importance of winning that upfront and always,” Berger said.
“It doesn’t diminish the importance of lethality, but you can’t use the lethality if you can’t find them. Or, said another way, if you’re so big and fat and immobile and vulnerable to their sensors, all the lethality in the world ain’t going to help you. So winning that first part, and staying on it,” has become an increasingly important aspect of Force Design 2030 modernization priorities as the service iterates.
In the Force Design 2030 update, released May 9, Berger wrote that the “security environment is characterized by proliferation of sophisticated sensors and precision weapons coupled with growing strategic competition.”
A new concept for stand-in forces “describes the ways Marines will intentionally disrupt the plans of these potential adversaries and defines Stand-in Forces (SIF) as small but lethal forces, designed to operate across the competition continuum within a contested area as the leading edge of a maritime defense-in-depth,” he continued. “The enduring function for SIF is to help the fleet and joint force win the reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance (RXR) battle at every point on the competition continuum.”
Berger first released a Commandant’s Planning Guidance in July 2019, paving the way for Force Design 2030, which was released in March 2020 and then updated in April 2021 and again this month.
In a May 6 roundtable with reporters, the leadership behind Force Design 2030 experimentation and development explained the new focus on sensing as a means of ensuring lethality.
Marine Corps Warfighting Lab Commanding General Maj. Gen. Benjamin Watson told Defense News “we’re not coming off the gas on lethality at all,” but “looking at the increasing range of weapons on not just the future battlefield but today, you’ve got to be able to sense the target before you can engage.”
The Marine Corps doesn’t want to be reliant on non-organic sensors — sensors from larger units elsewhere in the theater, Marine forces on U.S. Navy ships or even satellites or other sensors in the joint force — so the small distributed units the Marine Corps plans to deploy have to be able to see farther than they can shoot and incorporate non-organic sensing capabilities as a nice-to-have rather than something they’re dependent on.
The goal, Watson said, is to “develop a balanced portfolio of capabilities so that when we are trying to close kill chains against a modern, multi-domain adversary, we’ve got a complete tool kit.”
Maj. Gen. Eric Austin, director of the Capabilities Development Directorate at Marine Corps headquarters, told reporters the small, distributed units also need resilient communications pathways to use this targeting data, both for their own weapons and to share with the joint force.
Through the past few years of experimentation in support of Force Design 2030, “we’re finding that there is real value in our ability to sense and communicate what we’re coming up with to the broader force.”
Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for combat development and integration, noted signature management is the other side of the coin of the hider/finder fight with an adversary. He said unit commanders must practice operating with a reduced signature so the enemy has to work harder to spot and target them, despite sensors growing in capability and quantity.
The updated Force Design 2030 plans continue to make investments in lethality, too, with a particular emphasis on loitering munitions and other technology that can add range and precision to what the infantry and artillery communities use today.
Berger said the Marine Corps fundamentally revolves around its three Marine Expeditionary Forces that are each organized around their infantry — and that hasn’t changed under Force Design 2030. What has changed is the idea of how these forces can contribute to a 21st century combined arms fight, and the range of tools they’ll have to locate, close with and destroy enemy forces. (Source: glstrade.com/Defense News)
05 May 22. US Army Creating Second Paratrooper Division as Service Forges New Identity for Arctic Troops. Soldiers stationed in Alaska will soon ditch the 25th Infantry Division’s “Tropic Lightning” patch and be redesignated the 11th Airborne Division, in what could be an important step in the Army’s recent focus on Arctic warfare.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told lawmakers that the move will give units in the state a clear identity. Soldiers there currently fall under the command of U.S. Army Alaska and wear the 25th Infantry Division patch. But that division is mostly associated with units in Hawaii that train for combat in the jungle, the opposite of Alaska’s mission and something leaders and junior soldiers told Military.com has been a point of confusion.
U.S. Army Alaska will be redesignated as the 11th Airborne Division this summer and issued a new patch.
“It would be a new common sense of identity for the soldiers there,” Wormuth told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing Thursday.
Some rank-and-file troops and leaders in Alaska told Military.com they don’t have the proper equipment needed to be the service’s premier Arctic force. Some of that is due to its primary vehicle, the Stryker, being ineffective.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville and senior leaders in Alaska have told Military.com they are skeptical of the Stryker’s capabilities in Arctic climates, mostly due to the wheeled vehicles’ inability to maneuver effectively off road in the snow and not being built to operate in minus-65 degree Fahrenheit weather, the benchmark commanders in Alaska say is needed.
“We’re looking at the Arctic very differently. This would give the units the confidence all of this would come together,” McConville told lawmakers at Thursday’s Senate hearing.
But units there are starved of other critical resources, with some soldiers telling Military.com they can’t even get ripped uniforms replaced. More importantly, bases in the region have struggled to tackle a growing suicide crisis. That lack of resources has been partly blamed by some on Alaskan units not having a clear identity and thus often being forgotten about by Pentagon planners, something this change is meant to address.
The move would give the active-duty Army its third named airborne combat unit and its second paratrooper division.
The two existing airborne combat units are the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which falls under XVIII Airborne Corps, and the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Europe. The 101st Airborne in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is airborne in name only; it’s actually an air assault division. The Texas National Guard has the 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry Regiment, the only conventional airborne element of the component.
Two Alaska brigade combat teams would be most impacted by the redesignation — the 1st and 4th Brigade Combat Teams of the 25th infantry Division. The 4th is the region’s paratrooper element, while the 1st is a mechanized Stryker brigade.
Those brigades would be redesignated the 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams of the 11th Airborne Division. It is unclear whether the move would mean the mechanized troops would convert to paratroopers in the future.
“The Army is reviewing options to convert the [Stryker] brigade combat team at Fort Wainwright from a Stryker to an infantry unit,” Lt. Col. Randee Farrell, an Army spokesperson, told Military.com. “We are in the midst of consultation with our joint partners to ensure that any potential change enhances the ability of joint force commanders to achieve their mission.”
The changes are yet another move the force is making since the wind-down of the post-9/11 wars, with a shift to focus on conventional fighting and outpacing China and Russia.
Airborne capabilities haven’t been truly tested on a modern battlefield but are built to insert ground troops into enemy territory and to quickly seize critical terrain or infrastructure such as airfields.
Airborne units gained famed during the invasion of Nazi-occupied France with dangerous jumps that secured key terrain for the success of the allied invasion of Normandy. That legendary battle spurred paratroopers to be the Army’s elite force. While still a conventional unit, airborne troops are traditionally called upon first to deploy and are often on high-paced training schedules.
Yet those tactics were seldom part of modern wars, with the last major use of airborne capabilities being the U.S. invasion of Panama, commonly referred to as Operation Just Cause in 1989. However, there were limited uses of special operations jumps in Afghanistan and Iraq. The last — smaller — conventional airborne assault was in Iraq in 2003 when the 173rd Airborne Brigade seized Bashur Airfield with virtually no resistance.
The 11th Airborne Division’s legacy stems from its activation in 1943 during World War II. It fought in the Pacific Theater, where two of its soldiers, Pvts. Elmer Fryar and Manuel Perez Jr., earned the Medal of Honor. The formation was later used to occupy post-war Japan.
The 11th Airborne was transformed into a training formation at Fort Campbell in 1949. In the 1960s, the division was reorganized into three air assault brigades and designated the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) when the Army was in the early stages of developing tactics using helicopters on the battlefield. The unit was disbanded in 1965, transferring its equipment and personnel to the 1st Cavalry Division. (Source: Military.com)
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