News Story: No Safe Place In Next War - The Army’s Expanded Battlefield

Bradley M2A3 IFVs are unloaded at Busan port RoK (File Photo)

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

What if the next war starts, not with a gunshot, but with a tweet? As tensions rise, US troops discover their families’ names, faces, and home addresses have been posted on social media as they prepare to deploy, along with exhortations to kill the fascists/imperialists/infidels (pick one). Trolls call them late at night with death threats, a mentally ill lone wolf runs over a soldier’s children, fake news claims the military is covering up more deaths, and official social media accounts are hacked to post falsehoods. The whole force is distracted and demoralized.

Meanwhile, defense contractors discover the networks they use to deliver supplies to the military have been penetrated. Vital spare parts go missing without ever leaving the warehouse because the serial number saying which crate they’re in has been scrambled in the database. As railways and seaports prepare to transport heavy equipment, they discover key railroad switches, loading cranes, and other equipment – civilian-owned but vital to the military operation – now malfunction unpredictably, forcing prolonged safety inspections.

US forces finally cut through this cyber thicket and begin to deploy abroad by air and sea – but now the shooting starts. A thousand miles from enemy territory, submarines sink transport ships with torpedoes, cruise missiles and covertly laid mines. A few hundred miles out, long-range anti-aircraft missiles blunt the US air offensive. While stealth fighters can penetrate the defenses, the lumbering fuel tankers that let them cover long distances cannot. Transport planes must unload the troops at airfields well outside the danger zone, while transport ships must unload at distant ports.

US forces face a long road march just to reach the ally they’re supposed to be defending. The whole way, they must fight through attacks by everything from surface-to-surface missiles to local malcontents stirred up by social media. By the time the Americans arrive, their ally’s territory is not only occupied but thoroughly defended by dug-in enemies.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Story: Build Bare-Bones Network & Small Satellites For Multi-Domain Battle

US Army HiMARS Truck based missile launcher

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

WASHINGTON: The Navy wants the Army’s help win a future Multi-Domain Battle with China, a senior defense official told me last week, but to get it, the two services have to connect through a simple, robust network using small and rapidly-launched satellites.

We don’t need massive bandwidth to handle video teleconferences, full motion video from drones, PowerPoint briefings, and all the digital tools of “micromanagement,” the official believes. We just need a regional command-and-control network for voice commands and bare-bones-data – I’m here, the enemy’s there, shoot them not me – that can run off a single small satellite.

“It doesn’t have to be a big network,” he told me. “You could have one satellite…a temporary small satellite that you’ve popped up.”

This is in keeping with the early Concept of Operation developed for the Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space program (although the official didn’t mention ORS by name). ORS seeks to end the US military’s dependence on highly capable, highly complex and highly expensive satellites. These multi-billion-dollar masterpieces would take months or years to replace if an adversary shot them down— as China demonstrated it could in 2007.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Story: From Concept To Combat - Making Multi-Domain Battle Real

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR

WASHINGTON: The concept called Multi-Domain Battle – a single seamless offensive across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace – may seem futuristic, but the Army wants to start implementing at least parts of it right now. In wargames, doctrine, and interservice dialogue, “it’s actually becoming reality,” said Gen. David Perkins.

As one of the fathers of Multi-Domain Battle and head of the Army’s powerful Training and Doctrine Command, Perkins laid out three main efforts in a roundtable with reporters yesterday:

• Wargames: The Army and Marines are jointly creating an experimental unit, the Multi-Domain Task Force. The roughly 1,500-strong formation will join in ongoing multi-domain exercises sponsored by Adm. Harry Harris, head of Pacific Command and the Navy’s most vocal advocate of the Army’s Multi-Domain Battle concept.
• Collaboration: Army leaders are consulting with the other services and foreign militaries. One prominent example is a February conference among leaders of the Army’s Training & Doctrine Command, the Air Force’s Air Combat Command (ACC), Navy Fleet Forces Command, and NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, all conveniently close together in coastal Virginia. Perkins and ACC commander Gen. James Holmes are co-writing a paper on the concept.
• Doctrine: This fall, TRADOC will issue a new edition of its pivotal Field Manual 3-0, Operations, that will incorporate Multi-Domain Battle. The Air Force, Navy, and Marines have all had input on the document, Perkins said. A new manual may seem a modest step, but for the first time, Multi-Domain Battle evolves from a broad concept about future operations into specific doctrine the Army can execute here and now.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

USA: Exercise Talisman Saber 17 Commences in Australia

Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr (Image: Wiki Commons)

By Terri Moon Cronk 

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2017 — Talisman Saber is a realistic and challenging exercise that provides opportunities for the United States and Australia to innovatively prepare for regional and global security challenges, Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said today.

Speaking at the opening ceremony aboard the U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard at sea off the coast of eastern Australia, the admiral said Pacom is partnering in the biennial exercise with Australian allies for high-end warfighting scenarios for the seventh time. About 33,000 American and Australian service members are taking part.

“Exercises like Talisman Saber are precisely where we really learn how to take advantage of cutting-edge technology to outpace our adversaries,” Harris said. “It’s also a perfect place for our forces to operationalize a very important concept.”

The Pacom commander said he has challenged the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to execute multi-domain battle, “to find new ways to enable our joint and multinational combined forces to be faster, more precise, more cost-effective, and most importantly, more lethal.

USA: U.S. Soldiers Strengthen Alliance, Readiness With South Korean Partners

By David Vergun Army News Service

WASHINGTON, June 8, 2017 — The 8th U.S. Army is prepared for combat operations at any time, its commanding general, Lt. Gen. Thomas S. Vandal, said.

Stationed in the Asia-Pacific region, the 8th Army is especially ready to assist its partner, South Korea, in any combined endeavor, the general added.

Vandal, who also serves as the chief of staff for the South Korean-U.S. Combined Forces Command, offered these reassurances at a May 24 symposium on advancing joint and multinational integration of land forces in the Pacific sponsored by the Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare.

Combined Commands

The South Korean-U.S. team is much more than just a combined training effort, Vandal continued. Both armies are integrating members at the headquarters level to increase cooperation and compatibility, he noted. In fact, he said, the 8th Army's major subordinate command consists of the U.S. Army's only major combined fighting force, the 2nd Infantry Division/Republic of Korea-U.S. Combined Division, or RUCD.

Vandal recalled that he was part of the planning effort for the combined force in his previous assignment, when he commanded the 2nd Infantry Division. The combined division was activated in 2015, and Vandal spoke of the positive impact it has had on joint operations.

News Story: Breaking down China’s electronic warfare tactics

Y-9JB/GX-8 ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) aircraft

By: Mark Pomerleau

In the wake of Russia's demonstrations of advanced electromagnetic spectrum and communications jamming capabilities, most recently displayed in their incursion into Ukraine, China also is upping its game in this space, demonstrating similar capabilities in the Pacific. 

The U.S. Department of Defense, in an annual report to Congress on China’s military and security developments, assessed that the country is placing greater importance upon EW, on par with traditional domains of warfare such as air, ground and maritime.

“The [People’s Liberation Army] sees EW as an important force multiplier, and would likely employ it in support of all combat arms and services during a conflict,” the 2016 report asserts. “The PLA’s EW units have conducted jamming and anti-jamming operations, testing the military’s understanding of EW weapons, equipment, and performance. This helped improve the military’s confidence in conducting force-on-force, real-equipment confrontation operations in simulated EW environments.” 

According to the report, China’s EW weapons include “jamming equipment against multiple communication and radar systems and GPS satellite systems. EW systems are also being deployed with other sea- and air-based platforms intended for both offensive and defensive operations.” 

According to some outside experts, the Chinese merge cyber and electronic warfare into a singular discipline.

“Electronic warfare, which in our system, has tended to be hived off into thinking about jamming and various other aspects,” Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said during a March 20 event at the think tank. “But for the Chinese has long been characterized as integrated network and electronic warfare. That the two are two sides of the same coin; one focusing on the data, the other on the electronic equipment.” 

Read the full story at C4ISRnet

News Story: (US) Army Must Be Ready For Multi-Domain Battle In Pacific ‘Tomorrow’

Land-based missiles could form a virtual wall against
Chinese aggression (CSBA graphic)

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

WASHINGTON: With one eye on China and another on North Korea, US Army Pacific is injecting cyber warfare and new joint tactics into every wargame it can. At least 30 forthcoming exercises — culminating in the massive RIMPAC 2018 — will train troops on aspects of Multi-Domain Battle, the land Army’s effort to extend its reach into the other “domains” of air, sea, space, and cyberspace. Meanwhile, USARPAC simulations of the concept test near-future weapons such as ship-killer missiles and cruise missile-killing cannon.

“The big advantage we have in the Pacific is we’ve got a boss that is pushing us,” said Gen. Robert Brown, the USARPAC commander, during a visit to Washingtonlast week. That’s Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris, a fan of Multi-Domain Battle. Harris has got PACOM’s components — Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine — working together as Brown has never seen before, the general said.

There’s a real sense of urgency on Multi-Domain Battle in the Pacific, too Brown told the Center for a New American Security. “This isn’t something 10 years from now,” he said. “If Kim Jong-un goes south tomorrow, I will need some of this tomorrow.”

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Story: A Bridgehead Too Far? CSBA’s Aggressive, Risky Strategy For Marines

Land-based missiles could form a virtual wall against Chinese
aggression (CSBA graphic - Click Image to Enlarge)

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

UPDATED with Brig. Gen. Turner remarks on the report WASHINGTON: Marines are famously aggressive, but a new battle plan from a leading thinktank makes Iwo Jima look low-risk. The Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments’ proposed concept of operations is imaginative, exciting and more than a little scary:

In a future war, rather than say far out at sea until long-range strikes whittle down massed Russian or Chinese missile batteries, the Marine Corps should push ahead into the teeth of the defenses and establish outposts within enemy missile range. Trusting in camouflage, dispersal, and short-range missile defenses to survive, these Expeditionary Advance Bases would refuel raiding F-35B fighters and launch land-based missiles to take the adversary’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) zone down from the inside.

CSBA’s idea is in line with the military’s increasing desire to blitzkrieg through weak points in A2/AD defenses, rather than laboriously bombard them from long range while our allies are overrun. (The Army calls this Multi-Domain Battle). But it’s far more aggressive and risky than any other such concept I’ve seen, because it calls for setting up static outposts inside the danger zone, rather than infiltrating mobile forces that stay constantly on the move. As Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley, never one to mince words, puts it: “On the future battlefield, if you stay in one place longer than two or three hours, you will be dead.”

So how does a stationary Expeditionary Advance Base survive not for hours but days?

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Story: US Pacific Commitments Will Survive Duterte, Trump: Adm. Harris

Adm. Harry Harris (Image: Wiki Commons)

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

WASHINGTON: Neither President Trump’s transition in DC nor President Duterte’s eruptions in Manila will derail America’s 70-year military commitment to the Pacific, Adm. Harry Harris said today. US-Philippine cooperation continues unabated despite Duterte’s denunciation of the alliance, the head of Pacific Command said. (The senior State Department official for the Pacific, Daniel Russel, recently dismissed Duterte’s statements as “a lot of noise” and noted nothing had actually changed despite the Philippine president’s public comments). Despite the turbulence of domestic politics, “America never has a lame duck commander in chief,” Harris said. “I’ll continue to serve President Obama until January 20th, at which point I’ll serve President Trump.

“I want to ease any concerns from our partners and our potential adversaries,” Harris said. “It would be inappropriate for me to speculate on potential policy initiatives of the next administration, (but) that said, I have no doubt we’ll continue our steadfast commitment to our allies and partners in the Indo-Asia-Pacific.”

If foreign partners aren’t reassured, it’s not through any lack of trying on Harris’s part. He’s just sent the USS Sampson to help New Zealand after an earthquake and his personal travel is enough to kill a lesser man. “I was in Vietnam a few weeks ago; Mongolia; Japan; we cohosted the Chiefs of Defense conference in Manila,” Harris said. “I’ll be in Canada…then heading out back to Manila… I’ll go on to Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and Australia.

It’s no accident that the Philippines show up twice. Harris is heading back there Sunday for a major meeting Tuesday to determine US-Philippine joint exercises in 2017. Those exercisesmight be reduced, he said: “I’ll know more on Tuesday…but I’m optimistic about it.’

So far, “I’m not seeing any slowdown in the Philippines,” Harris said. “What I’ve seen is some statements that, I’ll be frank with you, are concerning to us, to me, coming from the new president there in the Philippines, but despite what he has said there’s been no change in anything with the Philippines, with one exception.” The meeting he’ll attend Tuesday was originally scheduled for last month.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense