AUSA: How do you coordinate foot soldiers moving four miles per hour with fighter jets moving 1,500 mph?  To address the differences in speed and range, the Army’s Training & Doctrine Command is already revising its new “battlefield framework” – which was first circulated just in July – to open up the Army’s traditional geographic zones… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Army is creating an experimental combat unit to develop new tactics for lethally fast-paced future battlefields. The Multi-Domain Task Force will be “a relatively small organization…1,500 or so troops,” the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told the Future of Warfare conference here this morning. While small, it will have capabilities not found in… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: The US Army isn’t counting on airpower in the next war. Without that cover, there won’t be supply drops, recon drones or medevac helicopters picking up your casualties — and you will have casualties. “Land-based forces now are going to have to penetrate denied areas to facilitate air and naval forces. This is the exact… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: Harry Harris has to be the Army’s favorite admiral. The chief of Pacific Command has called for Army-owned anti-ship missiles. He has enthused over the Army’s new warfare concept, and now he is planning a major inter-service exercise to work out what that Multi-Domain Battle concept means in practice. “We are starting to put… Keep reading →

Days before the biggest defense conference of the year, one of the Army’s top thinkers is unveiling the service’s new push to expand its role beyond its traditional domain — land — to air, sea, space, and cyberspace. Even as the US defense budget shrinks, the Army is prioritizing new investments in downing drones, hacking networks, jamming… Keep reading →

WILLIAMSBURG, Va.: The next time the Army holds a conference on how to improve its relations with industry, it should actually let industry into the most important session, Maj. Gen. Bo Dyess told his four-star superiors at the Army Innovation Summit here. It just has to get around its own lawyers. This week’s conference — the third… Keep reading →

WILLIAMSBURG, Va.: The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, Frank Kendall, warned today that the US might hobble itself in future warfare by insisting on human control of thinking weapons if our adversaries just let their robots pull the trigger. Kendall even worries that Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work is being too optimistic when Work says humans and machines working together will beat… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: After two decades of largely ignoring the danger, the Army is seriously training for a scary scenario: What if GPS, our satellite communications and our wireless networks go down? It’s hardly a hypothetical threat. Russian electronic warfare units locate Ukrainian troops by their transmissions and jam their radios so they can’t call for help, setting them… Keep reading →

AUSA: “Russia has used political, economic, and military tools to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of neighboring countries, flouted international legal norms, and destabilized the European security order by attempting to annex Crimea and continuing to fuel further violence in eastern Ukraine.” With those words, Defense Secretary Ash Carter captured the enormous shift in… Keep reading →