Even with Australia, one of our closest allies, it can be hard to share data. And the Army’s future war plans require seamless network coordination with the other US services and foreign allies.

But modernizing the Army will take decades and tough decisions about everything from online propaganda to the National Guard.

Hate updating the software on your smart phone? Then have compassion for the Army, which is trying to standardize its computer systems across more than 400 units in the next 28 months. The objective is a “single software baseline,” where every unit has the same set of information technologies. Such standardization should simplify everything from… Keep reading →

ARMY WAR COLLEGE: The brutal ground war in Iraq holds vital lessons for sophisticated future operations in the Pacific, Australian Maj. Gen. Roger Noble said today. Military pundits often draw a sharp distinction between what they consider low-tech warfare against irregular forces, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and high-tech war against states like China… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership just two days ago, but this morning, multiple experts and one four-star general agreed that America’s Pacific alliances — except perhaps the Philippines — would survive and even thrive. A few hours later, aptly enough, the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary James Mattis, the new administration’s most outspoken… Keep reading →

Tiny drones, no bigger than your palm, were the big stars of an Army experiment in Hawaii, participants told Breaking Defense. Larger ground robots, however, struggled in the jungle. Staff Sergeant James Roe told me he was “blown away” by the PD-100 Black Hornet, a commercially available mini-drone used in PACMAN-I (Pacific Manned-Unmanned Initiative, part of… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: US and Chinese ships and aircraft are increasingly facing off in the disputed waters of the Pacific. On land, however, the US Army and its PLA counterparts are actually building a stronger relationship. “While it’s very clear we have a competitive relationship also, especially in the air and maritime services, we have a cooperative… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: From hunting jungle animals to communicating across the ocean, US Army soldiers learned much in the first Pacific Pathways wargames that Iraq and Afghanistan never taught them. Those exercises are part of the service’s effort to reinvent itself as it shrinks, heading from a wartime peak of 570,000 to 450,000 or below. Instead of prolonged, large-scale… Keep reading →