“Our large experiments need to be concept-informed, and the concepts we’re talking about are the sets of capabilities and relationships that we think we’re going to need to win in the operating environments we are going to face in the future,” said Army Brig. Gen. Zachary Miller, who heads the Joint Modernization Command at Fort Bliss, Texas. “And the priority theater for the Department of Defense is the Pacific.”

The joint force has simulated Pacific scenarios in the United States during previous iterations of the exercise, which began as an Army-only event in 2020 at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. But the experimentation campaign has never been held forward in relevant theaters aside from some peripheral activities at the Army Pacific headquarters level earlier this year, Miller said.

Project Pacific

The vast majority of the experimentation at Project Convergence is now slated to take place in Hawaii and Guam, then all the way out along the first island chain from Japan to the Philippines, and down under in Australia over the month of April.

“We are 100% taking what you saw in a bunch of tents next to each other at Camp Pendleton last year and putting it in the Pacific across both sides of the international date line in the headquarters of all the actual operational units,” Miller said.

Japan’s Ground Self Defense Force will be a full participant as well as Australia and the rest of the Five Eyes partners — Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The Philippines will be considered an observer for this round.

The Army’s 3rd Multidomain Task Force will be in Australia for the event, and the 1st MDTF will be in the Philippines. This summer, Australian officers embedded with the 3rd MDTF, and the 1st MDTF has already participated in exercises in the Philippines, including Balikatan in May.

The campaign is expected to more closely align the Army and the other services with the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment concept and to work closely with the air service’s Battle Network, Miller said. “We want to bridge air and space with the land and the sea.”

The Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment doctrine prescribes that formations of planes and drones must be prepared to take off and land from dispersed, less-than-ideal runways during a future conflict, especially one involving China. The efforts grew from the expectation that enemies will first target large U.S. air bases hosting concentrated air power if war breaks out, thereby decimating the strategic advantage of aerial overmatch.

At the spring event, the U.S. military services and international partners will try to bring their massive array of sensors across all the different domains into one picture. “We’ve made a lot of strides in that, we want to push forward on how we quickly turn that information into action,” Miller noted.

Going back to Cali

While Project Convergence will feature a complex scenario in the Pacific, officials will still conduct another scenario at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. That vignette is focused on the land domain, but with joint and international participation as well. Other U.S. locations include the Nevada Test and Training Range and San Clemente Island off the shores of Camp Pendleton, California.

“We will have live aircraft doing sensing, shooting live fires,” Miller said, and the Army will have every echelon of the 18th Airborne Corps participating.

A fair amount of experimentation will bleed over into what the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George is calling “transforming in contact.” The initiative gives up-and-coming capabilities to brigade-size units at scale to gauge their expected impact in the field.

Portions of the Army’s initiative to fix the current network and command-and-control capabilities to better fit into a next-generation C2 framework will also be under evaluation.

And the Army will build off its first major attempt in early 2024 to examine how humans and robots will fight together on the battlefield — an effort known as human-machine integration, according to Miller. The experimentation event will use the Army’s Next-Generation C2 capabilities — a pilot program based on a new battlefield network and C2 architecture — to coordinate it all.

Guided by Next-Gen C2 features, the human-machine integration event “is going to lead off with a breaching of a complex obstacle, meaning that’s going to have mines, it’s going to have wire, it’s going to have fires on it from the enemy and it will be done completely autonomously,” Miller said. “Normally you think about people having to drive vehicles up to explosively destroy things or cut wire or whatever and that will be done completely with some pretty novel approaches to it.”

The Army will also focus on bringing in launched effects that can be fired from a wide variety of platforms like helicopters, drones, high-altitude balloons or from the ground, according to Miller. “The air will be contested and congested,” he said. “It will be very hard to distinguish whose thing is there in the air, and it’s going to be hard to control that airspace.”

The Army will also increase its experimentation on maneuvering in the electromagnetic spectrum. As the service crafts its next warfighting concepts, Miller said, one of the emerging ideas calls for effective maneuvering in the electromagnetic spectrum just like the Army conducts ground maneuver. “It is a sea change in how we would operate because we can’t see the electromagnetic spectrum, but we have to protect ourselves. We have to attack the enemy in it. We have to identify, we have to deceive the enemy.”

A battalion out of the 11th Airborne Division based in Alaska conducted the airborne assault operation amid a variety of other operations taking place throughout Indonesia that were mostly centered in Java.

“We definitely expanded our reach. For me to go and command and control the airborne operation, that took me four hours of flying to get up to the operation,” Brig. Gen. Kevin Williams, the Army’s 25th Infantry Division’s commanding general for operations, told Defense News in a recent interview. “You’re talking about inter-theater operational reach, which was pretty amazing.”

In previous iterations of Super Garuda Shield, the participating forces would focus on one area at a time, Williams explained, such as Java or Sumatra, “but we’ve expanded that to test how we command and control this as a joint force and with a partner.”

Japanese and Indonesians participated in the airborne assault to test joint entry operations as well, according to Williams.

The exercise also expanded in overall participation this year, Williams said. In 2015, 200 Indonesian soldiers participated along with just 300 U.S. soldiers. Williams was one of them.

Garuda Shield now has over 2,500 U.S. participants from the joint force. Partner nation participation nearly doubled that.

“That is a huge increase in the complexity and scale of what we’re doing,” Williams said.

The multinational element has greatly expanded, with eight full participating nations not including the U.S. and Indonesia – Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Twelve other nations provided observers who also participated in a staff exercise.

Also new this year, with the Air Force bringing in assets like C-130 aircraft and the 25th ID bringing a Combat Aviation Brigade with two CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters, the exercise had a fully combined Aviation Task Force that helped in critical operations like pushing the logistics tail in the archipelago.

A large emphasis was placed on forming a Combined Task Force Operations Center to build interoperable operational command and control, Williams noted.

And the 25th ID brought the Army’s new Integrated Tactical Network and more mission command nodes across the joint force, which helped set conditions to see a common operating picture.

The exercise allowed participants to test logistics capabilities, over-the-horizon communications infrastructure and the ability to tie together assets.

Garuda Shield included a joint strike exercise in Java where the U.S. Army brought in its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, the Marine Corps brought its attack aviation, and partner nations flew F-16 fighter jets and incorporated other missile systems to evaluate the ability to use any sensor or shooter across air, sea, and ground platforms to take out a series of targets, Williams described.

The Marine Corps, along with Indonesia, Japan and Singapore, conducted an amphibious assault using three different platforms including an assault craft from Singapore and the amphibious transport dock Green Bay.

“We were able to demonstrate our ability to combine doing an amphibious assault on a beachhead with reconnaissance, utilize long-range fires to set those conditions and then also conduct another air assault operation using the [Marine Corps V-22] Osprey [tiltrotor aircraft] to get the forces on the ground with the partners and then exfil[trate],” Williams said.

Williams said prior to the culminating event, the Army would conduct a combined arms live fire operation in a “pretty complex scenario using ground maneuver with the partners.”

Garuda Shield is just one example of many exercises within the Army’s Operation Pathways series in the Indo-Pacific that has seen significant expansion in recent years as the service focuses on building its relationships with nations in the theater while also ensuring the ability for countries to rapidly come together to conduct complex operations seamlessly in a potential conflict.

“It goes back to building this readiness and interoperability, this realistic training and really these repetitions that we’ve done during Super Garuda Shield and across all our Operation Pathways [exercises],” Williams said, “It really just provides capable, ready land forces that allow us to be positioned throughout the Indo-Pacific. It does bolster our allies and partners with that trust and it really just ensures we and Indonesia are prepared for any contingency or conflict or disaster that comes along.”

“It is a tremendous opportunity to train on the ground side by side with our Philippines partners, a tremendous opportunity for our aviation assets to fly and to land on unfamiliar terrain, an opportunity for them to work through the different environmental conditions,” Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, the Army’s commander of the 25th Infantry Division based in Hawaii, recently told reporters.

At the soldier level, the two countries were able to “coordinate and integrate protection assets, fires assets and sustainment assets,” Evans added. “Likewise, at the division level, we were able to establish a joint operations center that integrated both the [Philippines] 7th Infantry Division staff as well as the 25th Infantry Division staff to support the overall training.”

The 25th ID ran the JPMRC X training event at Fort Magsaysay in central Luzon from late May to June as the second part of Salaknib, a bilateral exercise with the U.S. Army, marking the first time the JPMRC X had been taken west of the International Date Line.

Defense News was on the ground at Fort Magsaysay before the start of the training exercise as the unit was busy setting up for the event meant to help the Philippines Armed Forces expand its concept of operations into territorial defense.

Evans told Defense News in advance of the exercise that it was bringing its full suite of instrumentation capabilities as part of the JPMRC X event in the Philippines.

“As an example, we’re going to be able to monitor our forces as well as the Philippines Armed Forces as they are executing operations that simulate a combat environment,” he said. “We will be able to assess indirect fires employment, we will be able to assess how quickly they are able to treat their casualties, how quickly they are able to move and sustain the force, what their water consumption is, what their power generation capability is, how effective they are with using their mission command.”

Challenging climate

The biggest challenge the forces faced during the first JPMRC X rotation in the Philippines was sustainment.

“The team was operating at a higher elevation, they were operating in 95-plus-degree temperatures with five hours of rain in the afternoon, which contributed about 100% humidity,” Evans said. “The water consumption was very high and there was an increased requirement to be able to resupply both forces; a lesson learned is how do you now plan for that preposition of water supplies, work around environmental factors that preclude the use of our helicopters to be able to resupply.”

Mitigating a soldiers’ load and being able to ensure it is accounted for in logistics planning is another effort now underway after the JPMRC X rotation, Evans noted.

“For survivability, we learned from our Filipino partners, carrying less on the march is far better for success,” the 25th ID’s Command Sgt. Maj. Shaun Curry told reporters in the same briefing.

For example, the time of day to move throughout terrain is “slightly different” from moving through the terrain inside of Hawaii where the JPMRC rotations take place regularly, Curry said.

U.S. soldiers carry roughly 72 hours worth of water, food, ammunition and personal resupply.

“How do you get them that equipment further, faster, deeper into the jungle?”

New solutions on the way

The 25th ID plans to test out ways to lighten the load for soldiers in its full JPMRC rotation in Hawaii this fall.

That’s where robotics could be worked into the equation, Curry said.

“Using small [unmanned aircraft systems], throwing it up in the air, looking to see what’s in front of you the next one to 300 meters allows the soldiers at the squad level to know that it’s clear and be able to move or find water or food if they need to.”

To help sustain the force at the JPMRC X rotation in the Philippines next year, the Army also plans to bring the GM Defense-made Infantry Squad Vehicle.

“We will have those during the next time we train in the Philippines,” Evans said, “so the ability to sustain the force increases because you got a mounted capability that has a smaller wheelbase that can maneuver around and in that more restricted terrain.”

While the 25th ID did not incorporate the ISV, Defense News observed on the ground at Balikatan — another exercise held in the Philippines in May — other U.S. Army units using the vehicles as far north as Basco, part of a chain of remote islands just south of Taiwan, where an ISV was quickly loaded from a seaside cliff into a CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopter and whisked off during an exfiltration operation.

Additionally, the Philippines Armed Forces wants to continue to enhance procedural interoperability between staff.

“They appreciate the opportunity to integrate at the staff level for the execution all the way down [to] the employment of fire assets, maneuver assets and sustainment assets and they would like to see that expanded in future JPMRC training events,” Evans said.

The 25th ID’s next JPMRC rotation in Hawaii will feature new capabilities for light formations such as small UAS and other robotics capabilities along with the new ISVs and the unit will take lessons learned from the event and apply them to not only future JPMRC X rotations but also in other exercises that are a part of Operation Pathways, a series of U.S. Army events throughout the Pacific meant to enhance relationships between allies and partners in the theater.

In the test involving both physical hardware and simulation, the Army’s Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, simulator provided threat tracking data, along with operational SM-6 engagement control software, to the service’s Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, developed by Northrop Grumman.

The successful test is the latest reflection of the Pentagon’s desire to see the services operate seamlessly in battle.

IBCS, the brains of the Army’s air and missile defense architecture, passed the data to initiate a launch command and guide the SM-6 to a “successful” intercept, according to the statement.

Raytheon said the test proves that Navy missiles can work within the Army’s integrated air and missile defense architecture.

Such a test also “confirms a viable option” for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Tom Laliberty, company president of land and air defense systems, said.

“LTAMDS matched with SM-6 adds an exceptional capability to defeat increasingly diverse and complex threats with a multi-mission missile that flies as far as the radar can see – providing for long range Army and Joint integrated air and missile defense,” Laliberty said.

The effort to integrate the Navy’s long-range, anti-air missile that has a surface mode with Army missile defense systems could further builds out a layered missile defense architecture.

The Army is also using the SM-6 and Raytheon-built Tomahawk missiles paired with a vertical launch system for its Mid-Range Capability, or MRC, weapon rapidly developed and deployed to fit in the Army’s fires portfolio between its Precision Strike Munition, designed to hit targets over 500 kilometers away, and its ground-launched hypersonic missiles.

The service deployed the MRC to the Philippines earlier this year as part of its annual Salaknib exercise with the island nation in April.

LTAMDS will serve as the radar in the Army’s future Integrated Air and Missile Defense system. The Army fielded a LTAMDS battalion of four sensors in December as required by Congress, but the sensor is still in prototyping phase as the service works to integrate a back-end array to give the sensor a 360-degree tracking capability – an upgrade from the current Patriot sensor’s ability to see all the way around.

The Army plans to conduct an operational assessment in the first quarter of FY25 that will lead to an Engineering and Manufacturing Development decision in FY25, a preliminary step toward eventual serial production.

The test of the systems together is also critical in ensuring the air and missile defense architecture planned for Guam will work. The Army’s MRC launchers, LTAMDS and IBCS will make up part of the architecture along with Aegis weapon systems equipped with SM-3 and SM-6 missiles.

In a statement Wednesday, American, Danish and Dutch leaders said the “transfer process” for the fourth-generation fighters is “underway.”

“Those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself from the Russian aggression,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a NATO event in Washington.

However, Justin Bronk, an air power analyst at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank, cautioned the statement may simply suggest a change of ownership rather than a state of combat readiness. The Ukrainian Air Forces may now go from training on jets held and operated by the Netherlands and Denmark to having custody of some.

“I highly doubt they would make a public statement about it” if the F-16s were immediately moving onto Ukrainian airfields, Bronk said.

The reason for that could be safety. In the last week, Bronk noted, Russia has targeted four Ukrainian airfields with ballistic missiles — guided by aerial drones that Ukrainian forces apparently lacked the interceptors to take down. It’s unclear how many actual planes, as opposed to decoys, Kyiv lost.

But the attacks are a reminder of a much larger challenge for Ukraine, Bronk said: Without enough air defense, its military can’t use F-16s anywhere near their full potential.

To wit, U.S. President Joe Biden opened the NATO summit on Tuesday by announcing an agreement with four other countries to send Ukraine more air defense batteries.

The U.S., the Netherlands and Denmark lead a group of countries that helps provide Ukraine with air power. The Danish and Dutch governments first agreed to send Ukraine the jets last year, and other countries, including Norway and Belgium, have since joined. The number thus far pledged to Ukraine is about 65.

Norwegian officials on Wednesday clarified that Oslo’s contribution would cover six F-16s. “We plan to start delivering the aircraft in the course of 2024,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in a statement.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said earlier this year his country would donate 30 planes. The Netherlands has promised 24.

It was at last year’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where countries initially agreed to start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the fighters. One of the most difficult challenges has been a language barrier, since the jargon used by pilots and crews is highly technical and there’s no time to clarify a word mid-flight.

According to the Pentagon, there are just over 12 Ukrainian pilots training to fly the jets between Denmark and the U.S. right now. While a handful graduated from the course in late May, the number in the pipeline is too small, some Ukrainian officials argue.

“If we’re expected to have up to 20 machines by the end of the year, we need pilots,” Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in an interview. “We are asking now [from] all of our partners for two things: to increase the number of places for training, because currently it is not enough, and secondly to optimize the period of training” — essentially speed it up.

One of the main issues with increasing that capacity is the long queue of countries already waiting for the U.S. Air Force to train their pilots. Yehor Cherniev, who leads Ukraine’s parliamentary delegation to NATO, told Defense News that he and other lawmakers asked Congress for a list of those nations so Ukraine can negotiate with them to swap spots.

American lawmakers didn’t agree to do so, he said.

The F-16s have long been a priority for Ukraine. Receiving them may help with morale and the country’s actual defense.

In the medium term, they could also pair well with two airborne surveillance planes Sweden pledged for Ukraine at the start of the summer. These can help the Ukrainian Air Forces with targeting as well as command-and-control, Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson said in an interview.

“That’s the difference between a third-generation fighter, which the Ukrainians are operating, and the fourth-generation fighter,” he said.

For his part, Bronk questions how Ukraine will train on and then operate these surveillance planes. They will need experienced Ukrainian crews and then must pair them with pilots who have expertise on the F-16 before there is a positive effect for the embattled country, Bronk said.

“Where are they going to fly from? Who’s going to maintain them? And are they going to fly and operate inside Ukraine, or are they going to fly around the borders?” he added.

The training event, dubbed Noble Exercise 2024, was scheduled to run from July 25 to Aug. 6, and normally takes place at Vaziani and Camp Norio Training Areas outside the capital city of Tbilisi. The Pentagon said the Georgian government has spread misinformation that the United States and other allies had pressured the country to open a second front on its border with Russia.

Officials in Georgia also accused U.S. officials of attempting two coups against the country’s ruling party.

“The United States government has determined that this is an inappropriate time to hold a large-scale military exercise in Georgia,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

In 2022 during a military exercise in Georgia, some 2,400 service members from the United States and 19 other nations participated. This year, a combination of approximately 3,000 U.S. and allied troops were scheduled to participate in the drills, U.S. Army Europe and Africa spokesman Terry Welch told Military Times in an email.

On May 30, the U.S. government announced a “comprehensive” review of its relationship with the small country in the South Caucasus.

The change of plans came as Georgia faced accusations that the country is trending toward authoritarianism and growing its relationship with Russia.

The country’s parliament passed a controversial “foreign agents” bill into law, overriding the president’s veto of the legislation. The legislation, which critics say mimics a similar law in Russia, requires media and other non-governmental organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from outside the country to register as a foreign agent, according to the Associated Press.

Critics said the legislation would impact Tbilisi’s efforts to join NATO and integrate with the European Union.

In April 2008, then-President George Bush tried to rally members of NATO to allow both Georgia and Ukraine to join the alliance at NATO’s yearly summit. Other members of the alliance, however, rejected the proposition.

While Noble Exercise 2024 has been postponed, the Pentagon said in the statement it looks forward to working with allies in the Agile Spirit 2025 military exercise, which traditionally takes place in both Turkey and Georgia.

Units from V Corps, as well as the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, the 4th Security Forces Assistance Brigade, Georgia Army National Guard, and the Navy’s Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11, were all slated to participate.

The Pitch Black exercise is the latest in a biennial series that began 43 years ago as a unilateral drill, before becoming a joint Australia-U.S. training event in 1983. Since then it has grown in step with the increasing geopolitical importance of the Indo-Pacific region.

The three-week exercise will run July 12-Aug. 2. This year, Pitch Black will see 20 nations taking part. Of these, 16 are contributing combat jets to the exercise, which will see more than 140 aircraft and over 4,000 personnel participate.

The actively participating nations this year are Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, Brunei, Canada, Fiji and New Zealand will have personnel embedded in the exercise.

Countries attending this series for the first time include Italy, Spain, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. And in a first for the exercise itself, an aircraft carrier will dedicate its time to the event, in the form of the Italian Navy’s ITS Cavour.

European presence

A pan-European force made up of the French, German and Spanish air forces is deploying first to Alaska under an overarching deployment effort, dubbed Pacific Skies, before making its way into the Pacific. Under that umbrella operation, those nations will participate in the Alaska-based exercise Arctic Defender, then continue into the Pacific where they will join the Rim of the Pacific drills off Hawaii, the exercise Nippon Skies in Japan, Pitch Black in Australia, and Tarang Shakti drills in India.

The strong European presence in the Indo-Pacific comes amid regional tension, as noted in the Australian government’s National Defence Strategy released in April.

“Entrenched and increasing strategic competition between the United States (US) and China is a primary feature of our security environment,” the document stated. “It is being accompanied by an unprecedented conventional and non-conventional military build-up in our region, taking place without strategic reassurance or transparency.”

Commenting on the Pacific Skies deployment, the chief of staff of Germany’s air force, the Luftwaffe, said the goal is to increase operational capability, strengthen military cooperation with countries in the Indo-Pacific, and demonstrate air power and dedication to the region.

“By participating in Pacific Skies 24, we as Europeans are showing presence in a part of the world that is of great importance to us all,” Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz said.

Air Commodore Pete Robinson, who commands the Royal Australian Air Force’s Air Combat Group and will lead Pitch Black, told Defense News the events are an opportunity for the country’s NATO partners “to validate true global reach and build interoperability in the region.”

“The quality of training we can provide down here and the air space we have, the weapons ranges we have, and the engagements we have forged across multiple nations is a shining example of how we build interoperability amongst our air forces — and more importantly it’s how we build our partnerships across countries,” Robinson added. “Exercise Pitch Black demonstrates the value of sustaining stability across the region.”

The goals are similar to those of Asian air forces, with a spokesperson for the Japan Air-Self Defense Force saying its participation will contribute to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region.

“The purpose [of the Japan Air-Self Defense Force’s involvement) is to improve the tactical skills of participating units, enhance interoperability with the RAAF and U.S. forces, and deepen mutual understanding with the participating countries in [a] practical environment,” the spokesperson said.

While these supplies are traditionally delivered to Navy vessels via manned aircraft, such assets are expensive and facing manning shortages — causing delays that drones could remedy, according to Navy officials.

The Curtis Wilbur conducted flight tests using the Skyways V2.6 Unmanned Aerial System and PteroDynamics X-P4 Unmanned Aerial System, launching and recovering six drones between from June 19 to June 24 as part of the Just In Time Delivery logistics effort with the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division.

“The Navy continues to drive rapid experimentation and implementation of new technologies,” Cmdr. Yilei Liu, commanding officer of the Curtis Wilbur, said in a statement. “While easy to configure and ready to deploy, it is vital to evaluate these technologies in different environmental conditions to define and scope the operating envelopes of these highly capable platforms.”

Navy finalizes plans for next Rim of the Pacific exercise

In 2021, Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division awarded PteroDynamics a contract to deliver three vertical take-off and landing drone prototypes to the Navy to assist delivering repair cargo.

“Embedding autonomous platforms into our already-existing systems will define the nature of combat operations in the future,” Liu said. “Once tested, autonomous systems can provide independent defensive and offensive capabilities in a contested environment. These systems can perform potentially dangerous, high-risk evolutions with maximum efficiency and minimal risk to personnel.”

Exercise Rim of the Pacific, known as RIMPAC, is a biennial exercise held near the Hawaiian Islands and involves nearly 30 nations and more than 25,000 personnel.

The exercise concludes on Aug. 1.

The focus of the Ramstein Legacy drill, held June 3-14, was on developing the alliance’s integrated air and missile defense with an additional eye on combating Class 1 unmanned aerial system threats — a reference to small, mini and micro drones.

Participating units hailed from Romania, Germany, Portugal, Hungary, France, Turkey and Poland, supported by British and Finnish fighter jets. In addition, three companies were invited to introduce some of their counter-drone equipment, including the U.S.-based firm Echodyne, the French CS Group, and German electronics specialist Rohde & Schwarz.

“Class 1 UAS have become one of the most important threats we observe at the moment in military conflicts. Where for many years having air superiority was one of the pillars of the NATO doctrine, we have seen recently that’s no longer the case,” said Cristian Coman, chief scientist at the joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance center at NATO’s Communications and Information Agency (NCIA).

On the first day of the training, participants were asked to get familiar with the capabilities of the systems at the exercise, including electronic warfare equipment, radars, and command-and-control systems.

The following days were focused on practical exercises and hands-on training, with each scenario increasing in difficulty. Part of the personnel involved in this segment were officers from the Italian C-UAS Center of Excellence, who performed the job of the enemy.

“We are here acting in the role of the red team in this exercise, where we are the threat the trainees need to identify and counteract. We are flying the drones, which are common civilian ones,” Italian Navy Lt. Cmdr. Federico Fugazzotto told reporters.

Some of the models displayed included the American-made Parrot Disco first-person-view drone as well as two Chinese-made DJI types. Exercise participants were instructed to use their detection equipment for picking up the drones’ electronic signatures.

According to Fugazzotto, increasingly complex scenarios entailed flights of varying lengths, hiding the drones’ points of departure on the ground, and attacking with multiple systems at once.

Crimea mirage

As the training unfolded, experts with NCIA confirmed to Defense News that GPS spoofing was detected and affected some of the drones, though officials did not name the source. The interference method feeds false coordinates to drone navigation systems in an effort to crash or disorient them.

“When I had the hand-held device from the drone, where you basically have the controller, my hand device would ‘be’ on a foreign location in Crimea,” Mario Behn, the principal scientist at NCIA, told Defense News. “But the drone was still here, which of course is physically impossible, as it is a huge range,”

On both days of Ramstein Legacy, data provided by the website GPSJam showed a high level of GPS interference that encompassed all of Constanta.

Military personnel here were vague about anti-jamming techniques and equipment used to mitigate interference, citing security concerns in revealing Western countermeasures.

The extensive level of jamming was also apparent in the area surrounding the nearby Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, where Finnish F/A-18 fighter jets and British Eurofighters were deployed. The exercise marked Finland’s first foreign deployment for NATO since joining the alliance in April 2023.

When asked if he was used to flying amid this amount of jamming, Lt. Col. Rami Lindström, commander of the Finnish F/A-18 detachment in Romania, acknowledged the GPS interference but appeared unfazed about it affecting the equipment.

“We have a lot of reports in Finland about the same kind of jamming, so we are used to that. But the F-18 is a warhorse and is resistant against that,” Lindström told Defense News in an interview.

“You can say we know our neighbor and we like to share this knowledge with our allies,” the Finnish official added, referring to Russia.

Back to school

In 2019, NCIA established an academy in Oeiras, Portugal, to provide training on NATO systems devoted to communications, air command and control, and cybersecurity. With drones omnipresent in today’s military thinking, the school’s emphasis is about to change.

“Our idea would be to add a counter-UAS curriculum with educational courses followed by enhanced practical training, which would be very easy to integrate at the Portugal academy,” Behn said.

There are some hurdles to that end, however, especially when it comes to standardizing hands-on training.

For one, the drone arsenals of NATO countries are so diverse that finding cross-cutting training approaches will be tricky. That is in addition to the ceaseless cat-and-mouse game of buying improved drones and superior countermeasures.

“Procurement processes take years, except we don’t have years to defend against those small drone threats,” Coman said.

The two Marine crew of an AH-1Z Viper attached to the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 262 Reinforced with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit fired the missile Wednesday in training mission in the Philippine Sea in which another vessel towed the target.

Marines used the newly acquired AGM-179 joint air-to-ground missile for the first time in such a strike mission, according to a press release.

“The missile can be used to defend key maritime terrain against a wide range of targets from armored vehicles to maritime patrol craft during conflict,” wrote Capt. Pawel Puczko in the release.

Marine Corps is reviving a light attack helicopter unit it cut in 2022

As part of the training, a UH-1Y Huey helicopter accompanied the Viper on a forward arming and refueling, or FARP, which is how the Marines plan to resupply aircraft across the Pacific in any future conflict.

The missile replaces both the radar-guided Longbow missile and the laser-guided AGM-114, according to manufacturer Lockheed Martin. The missile can be fired from fighter jets, ground vehicles or helicopters.

It combines features of both the Longbow and AGM-114, according to Lockheed Martin.

The missile weighs about 114 pounds, is nearly six feet long and 7 inches in diameter, according to the company’s website. It uses a solid rocket motor and can carry a multipurpose warhead with a shaped-charge package inside a fragmenting case, according to the U.S. Navy Air Systems Command.

The weapon can be used on combat vehicles, air defense equipment, launchers, buildings, bunkers, patrol craft and command and control nodes, according to the command.

In 2022 the company announced that it had doubled the range of the AGM-179, showcasing a 10 mile strike in testing at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, Marine Corps Times sister publication Defense News reported.

The Marine Corps did not provide distances or target speed of the recent target strike near Okinawa, Japan.

The company also added a tri-mode seeker that pairs a low-cost imaging sensor with the seeker’s semi-active laser and millimeter wave sensors.

Those capabilities allow the shooter to fire the weapon and fly away, increasing survivability and accuracy.

The sensors and range give users greater stand-off distances from enemy air defenses, Lockheed Martin program director for air-to-ground missile systems told Defense News at the time.

The Army also purchased the new missile to arm its Viper equivalent, the AH-64E Apache helicopter, Defense News reported.

A Viper crew with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 used the missile during Exercise Steel Knight off the California coast on Dec. 5, 2023, according to a I Marine Expeditionary Force release.

In that exercise, targets were marked with a laser designator from a U.S. Navy MH-60R Seahawk helicopter, used to guide the missile to the objective, according to the release.

Those core missions — combat readiness, careerlong training, acquisition and future force planning — will eventually fall under the purview of four major organizations, dubbed “institutional commands,” in charge of force-wide planning and policymaking, Air Force officials said in public remarks earlier this month.

US Air Force eyes deadline to launch new command

The plan aims to streamline the Air Force’s fragmented internal structure, which currently spreads those missions across nine major commands that oversee various types of aircraft and geographic regions, to become more effective and mirror other branches of the armed forces.

The four commands would include:

• Air Combat Command, which would expand its focus on fighter, intelligence and other units to instead manage readiness for the entire service;
• Airman Development Command, which would handle education and training over the course of a service member’s career;
• Air Force Materiel Command, which would run acquisition programs across the force; and
• Integrated Capabilities Command, which would handle long-term planning.

Those core commands would absorb some assets from current Air Force major commands, like Air Mobility Command and Air Force Global Strike Command, to give them the resources they need to manage troops and weapon systems across the force, Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said in a talk at the Air and Space Forces Association June 13 and in a roundtable with reporters at the Pentagon the following day.

Air Force unveils command changes, wing plans in bid to outpace China

In practice, it could look much like the Army, which since 2018 has spread those missions across Army Training and Doctrine Command, Army Forces Command, Army Materiel Command and Army Futures Command.

It’s unclear how the other current major commands will interact with the four overarching organizations, or whether the service will look to add more subordinate commands as well.

The Air Force would also turn each of its service components into standalone organizations that supply forces to higher combatant commands around the globe. Right now, some service components, like Air Forces Cyber, fall under Air Combat Command’s purview, while others like Pacific Air Forces and U.S. Air Forces in Europe, don’t report to a higher Air Force command and have more control over their own planning.

“We adapted to the time that we were in. ... But when you think about the things that the environment asked of us, it drove us to be a little bit more diffuse and distributed,” Allvin said. “We didn’t have a clear existential threat like we had in the Cold War.”

The reorganization is the latest piece of a sweeping effort launched in February to realign the Air Force to outpace China and other advanced militaries after decades of fighting in the Middle East, when the Air Force responded piecemeal through siloed commands that focused on a single type of air mission, like bombers or tankers. Now the service wants a more holistic approach to lending those air packages to the joint force.

Here’s how the Air Force’s new task forces will reshape deployments

Some pieces of the plan, including standing up the new Integrated Capabilities Command and turning Air Education and Training Command into the new Airman Development Command, were unveiled by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in February.

Now, additional parts of the puzzle are beginning to emerge.

Air Forces Northern, Air Forces Southern and Air Forces Central — which supply forces to commanders in North and South America and the Middle East — would move out from under Air Combat Command to instead sit on par with the other service components like U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa and Pacific Air Forces.

With less to watch over, ACC would work with “other institutional commands to generate the readiness, the exercises, have the inspections to ensure that we’re mission-ready, not just task-ready,” Allvin said.

“ACC is transitioning into a different type of a command,” he said.

That would include ensuring the Air Force’s combat wings are prepared to fight, including the attack assets that fall under so-called “deployable combat wings” or the wings that will supplement them with airlift and other assets, referred to as “combat generation wings.” They’ll leave behind separate units tasked with keeping Air Force bases running at home during deployments, as well as wings that perform their mission from home station, like intercontinental ballistic missile units.

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain, the service’s deputy chief of staff for operations, said the Air Force predicts it will be eventually be able to resource 24 deployable combat wings, 16 of which would be active duty and the remainder from the reserves. Those wings are expected to dispatch teams of airmen from the same bases who have already trained together, rather than filling empty jobs overseas as needed from different squadrons.

Their precursor units, referred to as air task forces, are spinning up this summer at six bases across the country in preparation for deployments to the Middle East and the Pacific in October 2025. Another three are slated to replace them overseas in 2026.

ACC will need to work with the other commands to ensure airmen across the force are getting the training they need, beyond the fighter units it has traditionally managed.

“There’s going to be this relationship in building the exercises, building the training mechanism for the whole force that deploys not just what has traditionally been the fighter force,” Allvin said. “That’s where ACC is going to be really accountable and responsible for the readiness of the whole force. That’s a big mission.”

If executed well, the revamp could benefit the service, said Clint Hinote, who worked on the reorganization before retiring from the Air Force as its three-star strategy boss in 2023. He cautioned that it could encounter opposition if the service opts to move the three- and four-star leadership positions that currently govern those commands. But he argues failing to evolve would be a mistake.

“I think they do it wrong by not changing,” Hinote said.

Troops with the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team fired the next-gen weapon systems, the XM7 rifle and the XM250 automatic rifle, on June 6 at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. The XM7 and XM250 are set to replace the M4 carbine and the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, respectively.

The Guard’s field test comes after the 101st Airborne Division became the first active duty Army unit to receive the new armaments.

And while soldiers had already been testing the Army’s newest rifle and automatic rifle, they are now officially being distributed across the service’s components, marking the first time in decades that the branch has fielded such equipment, which includes a fire control system and a new caliber family of ammunition.

“Weapon advancements such as the NGSW ensures that units under our command have the best weapons possible,” said Col. Paul Hollenack, the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team commander. “The fielding of the XM7 and XM250 is a step in making sure that we are doing just that.”

Soldiers assigned to 4th Battalion, 118th Infantry Regiment, 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, South Carolina Army National Guard also received the new weapons. They conducted an integrated training weapons strategy qualification table with the rifles during a week-long training event that culminated June 23, according to another Army release.

“The XM7 is a great rifle. We are training and practicing target shots,” said Cpl. Joseph Negron, a cavalry scout assigned to that unit. “My favorite thing about the XM7 is how the weapon can be easily used by righthanded and lefthanded shooters.”

“The XM7, compared to the M4, is definitely a step up,” he added. “The rifle is a little bit heavier, but it’s accuracy is definitely worth the extra weight.”

Ebbing Air National Guard Base will become the latest U.S.-based site dedicated to training foreign pilots across the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter enterprise, which now encompasses more than 3,500 jets in 18 countries.

US approves location for Singaporean F-16, F-35 training

The new hub will allow more instructor pilots from the U.S. — the largest member of the F-35 coalition at more than 2,400 jets — to share their expertise with a rotating cast of nations who have less operational experience with one of the world’s most advanced fighters or lack the resources to host a multinational school of their own.

Learning from the U.S. can make the international coalition sharper in combat, Col. David Skalicky, who oversees the project as commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base, told Air Force Times. Military officials argue that familiarity can prove crucial if the countries must go to war together.

“This is really about increasing the capability and capacity of our allies and partners,” he said.

Poland is slated to arrive as the first foreign F-35 user on campus in September, followed by Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Singapore in the years ahead.

They’ll learn from the new 85th Fighter Group and 57th Fighter Squadron, expected to open at Ebbing July 2, an Air Force spokesperson said.

F-35 pilots from Italy, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands already train at Arizona’s Luke Air Force Base; Belgium is slated to begin lessons there as well. But Luke lacks the resources and room to welcome students from more than a dozen other countries, spurring the international coalition to look for another site where foreign pilots can learn from the Americans.

The U.S. Air Force tapped Ebbing to host the foreign training mission in March 2023 after a fierce, yearslong lobbying effort by Michigan’s congressional delegation to bring the jets to Selfridge ANGB north of Detroit.

Typically, foreign militaries learn from U.S. pilots at bases that are already operating the same aircraft. Not so for Ebbing, at which F-35 training will become the only on-site flying mission.

The base will build new F-35 pilots from scratch, with students who have already qualified to fly fighters but are getting their first taste of the fifth-generation plane itself, Skalicky said.

As many as 36 jets will arrive on base, including 24 F-35s. Ebbing will also host up to 12 F-16s as part of a Singaporean training unit that is transferring from Luke, said Col. Adam Rice, an Air Education and Training Command official tasked with coordinating the project’s progress.

The Air Force expects about four pilots will graduate from Ebbing in 2025 before growing to about three dozen graduates each year through the end of the decade, Rice said.

Trainees will start their seven-month Joint Strike Fighter journey at Eglin — the Air Force’s closest active duty F-35 site — where they’ll be exposed to the F-35′s controls and tactics in classroom lessons and simulated sorties. The program will be split between Eglin and Ebbing until the new location finishes building a simulator facility of its own.

In Florida, they’ll jump from virtual takeoffs and landings to one-on-one aerial dogfights and multi-jet offensives, Skalicky said.

“We usually progress from that point into surface attack [and] suppression of enemy air defense, as well as some higher mission sets like offensive counter-air, escorting strikers … or being part of a strike package,” he said.

After about three months, students will trek more than 700 miles to Ebbing for the second half of the course, when they’ll take to the skies to practice what they’ve learned.

Rice said the project is working to expand the existing training airspace at Ebbing. The site may bring in low-cost threat emitters, or hardware that replicates surface-to-air missile systems so pilots can learn to evade enemy air defenses.

Air Education and Training Command boss Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson “has promised ‘first-class’ training, not ‘world-class’ training, at Ebbing,” Rice said. “It won’t be a training space like Nellis, for instance, but it will be good-quality training for the [foreign military sales] customers.”

Some who graduate will head back to their home countries, where they’ll join their first F-35 units. Others will return to Eglin for further training to become instructor pilots in order to build their own domestic training pipelines, Skalicky said.

To transform the Air National Guard base of about 1,000 troops and civilian employees and an MQ-9 drone wing into a top-tier training range for high-tech fighters, the Air Force is embarking on a $850 million project that is expected to finish by the end of 2028.

Because the clock is ticking for troops to arrive at Ebbing, the Air Force plans to first host classes in an array of trailers and tension-fabric shelters on base. Those temporary facilities will tide over the training enterprise for a few years as the service renovates existing spaces like maintenance shops, while building Joint Strike Fighter-specific facilities for simulators and storage.

Singapore, whose forces will be permanently stationed at Ebbing, is bringing the F-35B, the vertical takeoff-and-landing version of the jet also flown by the U.S. Marine Corps. Because the Air Force’s variant doesn’t have the same capability, the service has to find other instructor pilots to help the Singaporeans, and ensure the flightline is reinforced with special concrete that can withstand the jet’s forces, Rice said.

In September, airmen from Eglin will hold a training exercise at Ebbing to wring out any issues at the site before foreign countries begin arriving later that month, Skalicky said.

But there’s still plenty of work ahead for the complicated project, which requires Air Force officials to weave the wants and needs of multiple countries into a cohesive training ground while navigating erratic congressional funding and a volatile construction market.

“Post-COVID, we’ve had challenges with supply and demand, construction, laborers, you name it. We’re still experiencing that across the enterprise,” said Col. George Nichols, deputy director of facility engineering at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center.

“[I’ve] been doing this for 23 years, and this is one of the most complex beddowns that we’ve done,” he said.

On June 14, in cloudy conditions at the Capu Midia Training Range in the eastern part of Romania, the country’s Patriot fired a PAC-2 anti-tactical missile, successfully destroying an MQM-178 Firejet target drone.

The unmanned system, produced by the U.S.-based company Kratos Defense, went airborne using a pneumatic launcher and was propelled by two C81 turbojet engines “to simulate the flight characteristics of a cruise missile,” according to a representative of the Romanian military, who was narrating the exercise.

The MQM-178 flew over the area at a speed of roughly 200 meters per second and neared a distance of 60 kilometers (37 miles) in its attacker role against the Patriot.

Certifying the Patriot was a national objective identified by Romania’s Defence Ministry as part of the NATO-led Ramstein Legacy exercise that took place here this week. The U.S. State Department approved in 2017 the sale of seven Patriot systems and related equipment to Romania at an estimated cost of $3.9 billion.

The country has since established a dedicated Patriot unit within its army, with Romanian operators having undergone both individual and collective training in the U.S. and Romania respectively.

According to officers within this unit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the testing period for one Patriot system here is between four to six months, which includes the last step of going through a live-fire test.

One soldier told Defense News that the most challenging part wasn’t learning how to operate the Patriot, but rather maintaining the system to ensure it is operationally ready.

A number of Romanian military participants here noted the Patriot system is effective due to the significant size of the territory the forces are charged with defending. Indeed, Romania is one of the largest countries in Europe. It shares borders with Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine — the latter of which is fighting off a Russian invasion — and features a 245-kilometer coastline along the Black Sea.

The Corps’ first Training and Education annual report on Force Design published Wednesday ― and the 14-page document noted moves made and laid out deadlines in areas across the service for modernizing how Marines learn.

Lt. Gen. Kevin Iiams, head of Training and Education Command, said in a press release that the document was the command’s “strategic vision” to implement education that matches modernization in Force Design and new equipment and technologies entering the ranks.

“These initiatives collectively aim to equip the Marine Corps with the most modern, lethal, and capable Marines conceivable,” Iiams said. “Our efforts have been, and will continue to be, centered on two core pillars: Force Design and modernization. By driving innovation along these vectors, (Training and Education Command) is ensuring the development of a Marine Corps force primed not only to compete but to dominate in any theater of operation.”

Marines say no more 'death by PowerPoint' as Corps overhauls education

The Training and Education 2030 planning document released in January 2023, under then-Commandant Gen. David Berger, laid out gaps in doctrine for such skills as drone and cyber operations, and emphasized modernizing training simulators and other education technologies.

Changes in training could have a direct, early impact on Marines in fires or communications jobs and new officers.

Training command has undertaken a two-phased study with combat development and integration to examine the “quality spread” policy used at The Basic School when assigning new officer military occupational specialties.

The quality spread is used to ensure that top finishers and lower-ranking graduates are spread evenly across the various job fields to avoid bunching up lower performers in one job field.

In its first phase, the study evaluated if evidence supports whether the policy should continue. Those results are expected by the end of June.

If it is found deficient, then the second phase of the study will build an alternate assignment model. That phase is scheduled to conclude before October.

Using a series of recent studies, the Marines plan to determine if measures testing an individual’s resiliency to help “screen out those who may be more susceptible to stress or adverse behaviors” to help lower attrition rates.

The Corps launched a pilot program in April at Marine Detachment Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to build a course for field artillery officers, target acquisition officers and field artillery scout observer chiefs.

The course aims to give those fires Marines in fires and effects coordination centers or fleet maritime operations centers advanced training.

The communication training battalion at Training Command is assessing how to combine critical skillsets from three communications job fields, 062X, 063X and 067X. That merging of those skills would make a more versatile communications Marine for multidisciplinary, “independent communications and information operators.”

As the Corps adopted its new training and education approach, it was evaluating how its instructors taught students and how the instructors themselves were selected and retained.

From that three-year evaluation has come an “outcomes-based learning” approach method. That method, while common in other education circles, has been less prevalent in military education. The approach puts more emphasis on having instructors guide students who learn both individually and in groups, completing tasks and problem-solving.

This is a break from the lecture model with an expert rattling off information at the front of a classroom for students to repeat on a test or quiz before moving to the next assignment.

The outcomes-based learning model will spread across the Corps, as the service has updated its formal school policy directives to include these methods.

“Instead of teaching them what to think, we’re teaching them how to think,” Col. Karl Arbogast, director of the policy and standards division at Training and Education Command, told Marine Corps Times in a previous interview.

But to teach this way requires training the instructors as well.

That’s resulted in two new exceptional military occupational specialty codes: 0951 and 0952. These are in addition to a Marine’s primary job but allow them to learn how to instruct.

The basic instructor course will be available to Marines by the end of fiscal year 2024 with the intermediate and master courses ready by fiscal year 2026, according to this week’s report.

Training Command is assessing both selection and retention of such qualified instructors, according to the report, and analyzing current and future incentive options to retain high-performing instructors.

On the technology side, the Corps has migrated its legacy information management system to a hybrid cloud system. The service expects to have a new, cloud-based version of the system fully operational by fiscal year 2028.

Tech moves are expanding war-gaming access through cloud services and expect to have war-gaming featured in all formal schools and primary military education by fiscal year 2025 and across the fleet by fiscal year 2026.

Also in the tech vein, the service will have deployed live, virtual, constructed training simulators to Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, Camp Pendleton, California and Marine Corps Bases Hawaii and Okinawa, Japan, before October.

At the same time, each Marine expeditionary force and the Marine air-ground task force training command will receive one battalion-capable Marine Corps Tactical Instrumentation System by summer.

The training command is preparing to field electromagnetic spectrum simulators at Twentynine Palms, California, that can replicate adversary electronic warfare capabilities in training.

The Marines plan to use simulators to cut down on injuries as well.

They have a project underway to identify ground training events that have a high rate of injury, mishap or casualty. They’ll then include simulator training prior to live execution of those types of training events, starting with the motor transport tasks before October.

Lastly, to cut down on Marines awaiting training for schools, the new policy will identify Marines prior to recruit training graduation who will wait longer than 10 days between Marine Combat Training and their follow-on school and assign them to the Permissive Recruiter Assistance Support Program.

Also, Marines in lengthy awaiting training periods will be offered a voluntary reclassification to a job that is experiencing shortfalls and an immediate school ship date.

Romanian Defence Minister Angel Tîlvăr announced the move June 11 during a ceremony at the Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base, located less than 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The project to extend the military base, which has housed U.S. capabilities and forces since 1999, was approved prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“The reason why Romania decided to extend our capabilities here is the result of when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and later on in 2014 in Crimea [when Russia annexed the peninsula]. Our plans have been approved since 2018 for this,” Romanian Air Force Col. Nicolae Cretu, the base commander, told Defense News during the NATO-led exercise Ramstein Legacy held here.

The work will in part involve the construction of a new runway, a guard tower, and additional hangars to protect existing and forthcoming military assets purchased by the Eastern European country. The official estimated the cost associated with the expansion will come to €2.5 billion (U.S. $2.7 billion).

Romania has several ongoing acquisition programs, primarily focused on short-range and very-short-range air defense systems, on which it plans to spend up to $2.1 billion.

It also received two additional Patriot batteries last year, now totaling four, and is partaking in the joint procurement of up to 1,000 Patriot PAC-2 GEM-T missiles under the European Sky Shield Initiative.

The air base’s location has proved highly strategic in recent years, both for Romania and its NATO allies. As an example, the Romanian officer cited the base’s value during the Iraq war, as it was used by allies “to project force outside of their territories and over long distances.”

Romanian media reported the modernization effort involves the construction of a military installation similarly sized to that of Ramstein Air Base in Germany, although the official did not confirm this aspiration.

Given its direct access to the Black Sea and close proximity to Russian territory, the air base has hosted several NATO-run Enhanced Air Policing missions, including this year’s edition, which welcomed the first-ever deployment of Finnish F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets.

While the Army has experimented a great deal with RCV surrogates and prototypes in recent years, including a major event that evaluated how humans and machines will fight together on a future battlefield, the opportunity to evaluate how the service will fight an opposing force with similar robotic capability has been limited until now.

Norman told Defense News in an interview that there will be two National Training Center rotations this summer. A unit out of Fort Stewart in Georgia will go up against an RCV platoon. The next unit out of Fort Riley in Kansas will take the same RCV platoon and attach it to blue force.

“That’s going to be really exciting to do another round of learning and experimentation at the premier training event for those units,” Norman said.

Also this summer, the Army will receive two prototypes each from four teams competing to build the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program-of-record platform. The service will then kick off a competition and “pick the best of breed,” Norman said.

The prototypes will undergo automotive testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, beginning in August.

“The government can choose one or more of those prototypes to go forward into phase two of the program of record effort,” Norman said. “The downselect decision to one or more happens in the springtime,” of next year, he added.

The Army selected last year McQ, Textron Systems, General Dynamics Land Systems and Oshkosh Defense to build the light RCV prototypes.

The service is aiming to field to the first unit in fiscal 2028 following a production decision slated for FY27.

The Army is also trying to get one platoon set of RCVs to an Army Forces Command unit to continue more experimentation, but it is currently still working on resourcing the effort. “We’re hopeful that materializes but that’s an open issue that we’re working through,” Norman said.

At the same time, Norman’s team is working closely with the armor commandant’s office, the Maneuver Capability Development and Integration Directorate at Fort Moore, Georgia, to refine the organizational designs for what an RCV platoon might look like and what other equipment it might have.

“They’ve taken the RCV playbook that we’ve developed at a couple of different experiments and they’re now taking that to work on some initial doctrine or probably standing operating procedure, to standardize some of the tactics, techniques and procedures that robotic autonomous systems operators need,” Norman said.

The Army is also working prototyping control vehicles for the RCVs using an Armored Multipurpose Vehicle and a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The service has already developed a Stryker control vehicle prototype, according to Norman. The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle will also be configured as a control vehicle; that prototyping will follow work on the AMPV and Bradley.

“Key to that will be soldier touch points to get their feedback because that’s been essential to get it right up to this point,” Norman said.

“Ramstein 1v1″ pitted pilots from the U.S., United Kingdom, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany, against each other in a daylong competition of basic fighter maneuvers, or “dogfighting,” in which rapid decisions and sharp response to an adversary can mean life or death. It featured a mishmash of aircraft, including F-35A Lightning IIs, F-16 Fighting Falcons, Eurofighter Typhoons, French Rafales, F/A-18 Hornets and A-4 Skyhawks.

Air Force revives air-to-air battle competition, with a Pacific twist

The exercise was a first for U.S. Air Forces in Europe, and turned Ramstein, a military airlift hub, into a fighter base for a day.

“Basic fighter maneuvering … is a foundational skill set for fighter pilots,” Lt. Col. Michael Loringer, USAFE’s chief of weapons and tactics, said in a statement. “It tests a pilot’s reaction time, physical stamina and situational awareness. … There is no better way to build trust in a pilot’s aircraft or a pilot’s skills than to engage” one-on-one.

The event comes as Russia gains ground in Ukraine in the third year of the war on NATO’s doorstep. The U.S. military and its allies have turned their attention to bolstering aerial combat skills as they prepare for the possibility that tensions with Russia and China might spill into armed conflict, pitting advanced air forces against each other for the first time in decades.

As part of that prep work, the Air Force last September brought back its famed “William Tell” aerial shooter competition after sidelining it for nearly two decades because of high operations tempo in the Middle East. Air Combat Command told Air Force Times Tuesday that a 2025 William Tell competition is tentatively in the works, though a date has not yet been set.

USAFE Commander Gen. James Hecker said last year that NATO pilots will also put freshly honed offensive and defensive maneuvers to the test at a major new training exercise, Ramstein Flag, in Greece at the end of 2024.

“We don’t want to go to war with Russia, and I don’t think they want to go to war with us either,” he told Air Force Times last July. “But we need to make sure that we have the forces capable of deterring them, so that nothing bad will happen.”

During last week’s exercise, U.S. airmen from RAF Lakenheath, England, pitched in to service the Royal Norwegian Air Force’s F-35s. The 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein handled installation support and flight line operations.

The exercise focused on readiness and building trust, with some friendly competition built in. After a day of flying, a piano was burned in memory of fighter pilots killed in action — a World War II tradition that lives on.

“We are not just NATO allies, but a community bound by genuine friendship and respect,” Loringer said. “I emphasize this point because successful military operations require exceptional teamwork, often critical to survival. And as a pilot, it boils down to trust. It’s crucial to trust your wingman.”

France is building a coalition with other countries to provide the jets, similar to the coalition by several other European countries to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighters, Macron said in an interview with broadcasters TF1 and France 2. The French president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were in Normandy for D-Day commemorations.

“We’ll be launching a new cooperation program and announcing the transfer of Mirage 2000-5s — French fighter jets that will enable Ukraine to protect its soil and airspace,” Macron said. “From tomorrow, we’re going to launch a pilot training program, followed by the transfer of these aircraft.”

Dassault Aviation produced about 600 Mirage 2000 jets, of which half were exported to eight countries including Greece, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan. The Mirage 2000-5 is an updated air defense variant with improved radar. It’s compatible with the Mica air-to-air missile as well as the Scalp cruise missiles that France has supplied to Ukraine, which is fighting off a Russian invasion.

Macron declined to say how many jets France will provide, noting details will follow on Friday when Zelenskyy is in Paris.

“The key factor is pilot training time, and so we’re going to propose to President Zelenskyy that pilots be trained as early as this summer — it normally takes five to six months — so that by the end of the year they’ll be able to fly these aircraft,” Macron said, adding that the Ukrainian pilots will be trained in France.

The Dutch and Danish governments last year announced they would provide F-16 jets to Ukraine, with Norway and Belgium joining the coalition. Training of pilots for the aircraft has been ongoing in several European countries.

France will also propose to train and equip a brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers, according to Macron. He said France and allies are considering training soldiers on Ukrainian soil in response to a request by the embattled country.

“Is this something that is an escalation factor? The answer is no,” Macron said. “Going to train someone in the western zone, which is a free area of Ukraine, is not aggressive towards Russia.”

Macron said Ukraine can use French arms to attack locations in Russia from where the country is being targeted, and restricting such use would be equal to not allowing Ukrainians to defend themselves against being bombed.

“The limit is set by what the Russians do,” Macron said. “We’re not the ones who decide now that we’re going to change our methods and attack Ukraine from Russian soil.”

Zelenskyy will meet with French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu in Paris on Friday. He’ll also meet with defense firms KNDS, Thales, MBDA, Dassault Aviation and Arquus, as well as attend the signing of a letter of intent with KNDS to create a unit in Ukraine, according to the Armed Forces Ministry.

The tests, which involved the Air Force and Space Force, took place June 4 and June 6 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, Air Force Global Strike Command noted in its news releases. That command is tasked with handling two legs of the United States’ nuclear triad, which is made up of land-, submarine- and bomber-launched nuclear weapons.

A spokesperson for the command told Defense News both tests were “successful.”

“The U.S. nuclear enterprise is the cornerstone of security for our allies and partners across the globe,” Col. Chris Cruise, the head of the 377th Test and Evaluation Group, said in the June 4 announcement. “Today’s test launch is just one example of how our nation’s ICBMs, and the professional Airmen who maintain and operate them, demonstrate the readiness and reliability of the weapon system. It showcases our commitment to deterrence as we stand on continuous alert, 24/7/365.”

The reentry vehicle of each missile traveled approximately 4,200 miles to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Reentry vehicles are the top part of the ICBM that carry the nuclear warhead. They are designed to detach from the missile, arc in space and then reenter Earth’s atmosphere to hit their intended target.

The Minuteman III ICBM system first became operational in the 1970s and was expected to be in service for a decade. But now, about 50 years later, the weapons are still in use and will be until the 2030s, according to a November statement by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who chairs the House Armed Service Committee.

The military had intentionally destroyed an unarmed ICBM earlier in the month during a test due to an anomaly, the Air Force said at the time.

“We must modernize our aging nuclear deterrent and replace the Minuteman III missile — as well as the rest of our nuclear enterprise — with modern systems,” Rogers said in response to the aborted test.

Indeed, the Air Force intends to field its next ICBM, dubbed Sentinel, though the program is behind schedule and its cost has grown beyond what was anticipated. After a delay, the missile’s first test flight is expected to take place in February 2026, according to the Air Force’s budget documents.

In a joint March news release, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. John Garamendi of California noted inconsistencies in the Air Force’s timeline for replacing the Minuteman III.

“The Sentinel program would replace the Minuteman III program ICBM, which had been deemed viable until the mid-2030s by Air Force leaders with no potential extension of its service life. However, this timeline is inconsistent with the Air Force’s plans to continue to maintain the Minuteman III program for the next 15 to 20 years while the Sentinel program is rolled out in stages,” the two Democrats said. “Even assuming the Air Force is able to meet its intended timeline, the Air Force must rely on the Minuteman III until at least 2036.”

This story was updated June 7, 2024, at 1:08 p.m. ET with a statement from Air Force Global Strike Command.

Dedicated on Friday during a ceremony at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, the General Robert B. Neller Center for Wargaming and Analysis was named for the 37th commandant, who first announced plans for its creation in 2017.

In 2017, Marine officials said that the center would at least double their wargaming capacity ― giving them the ability to conduct 20 wargames annually, including two large-scale, 250-participant exercises.

The former commandant spoke at the dedication ceremony Friday.

“The Marine Corps has a long history of wargaming from the development of amphibious doctrine up to today when we’ve looked at wargaming to test op plans, force generation, force structure. It’s always been part of what we do,” Neller said.

Marine wargames offer a look at the future and fuel dissent

The main mission of the center is to help develop capabilities through rigorous analysis and current intelligence.

Marines also will include science and technology experts to advise on current and future enemy capabilities in scenarios so that wargamers get a clearer picture of how they’ll fight.

The center aims for a more immersive experience than traditional tabletop exercises with advanced graphics, simulation and modeling so players can employ platforms, tactics and concepts and see whether their approaches succeed or fail.

“Time on rehearsal is seldom wasted, and a wargame is a rehearsal,” Neller said. “It’s a test. And you hope you put enough rigor in the test so you can challenge whatever plans or assumptions you’ve made.”

“You never want to just show up. Wargaming will hopefully keep you from just showing up and not being prepared for whatever you might face in the future.”

The $79 million center is the largest of its kind in the Washington, D.C.-area, according to a Marine press release. The center’s combined military and civilian staff of 183 personnel will build five cross-functional wargame teams that will conduct four wargames apiece each year, according to the release.

The center is expected to reach full capability by 2025, officials said.

Gen. Christopher Mahoney, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, said during his speech at the dedication, “In a security environment that has become less certain by the day, (the center) buys us a higher level of certainty. It buys us the chance to make mistakes in an environment where the cost isn’t paid in blood by our Marines.”

The facility will contain technology that can integrate joint and coalition assets and teams, running multiple wargames simultaneously at various classification levels.

Those features help provide analysts and planners with more realistic scenarios.

The analysis from such wargames informs how the Corps decides to adjust its manning, structure its formations and acquire or divest various technologies.

Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, deputy commandant, Combat Development and Integration, said, “This is about an enhanced capability that allows our warfighters the opportunity to hash out the challenges of a multi-domain battlefield and become more competent more quickly before going to the training area or actual combat.”

Wargaming featured heavily in a multitude of changes to the Marine Corps under Neller’s successor, former Commandant Gen. David Berger.

The Force Design changes, which eliminated tanks, military police and cut back on certain conventional artillery and air assets, also shifted the size of infantry battalions and resulted in the creation of a new formation: the Marine littoral regiment.

In the 2022 Force Design update, authors cited “extensive wargaming,” specifically Expeditionary Warrior 21 informed the service’s distributed maritime logistical operations concept then under development with the Navy. Another wargame called “Enigma” tested concepts for information operations below the level of armed conflict. That same data was used, in part, for the subsequent Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 8 “Information.”

“Hopefully this center will allow Marines to do more in a sophisticated, more technically advanced setting, and we will be able to learn more about our plans and our ideas and also about each other,” Neller said.

But on May 28, two stealth bombers assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, took on a unique mission: fly to Offutt AFB, Nebraska, where a single pilot from each aircraft would jump out and refuel the plane — alone.

B-2 stealth bombers to return to flight after 5-month delay

“This is a new concept for pilots, generally speaking, to refuel their own aircraft, and do it in a timely manner,” Maj. Bo Bateman, a B-2 instructor pilot with the squadron, told Air Force Times.

As the Air Force focuses on how it might win a protracted and widespread conflict in the Pacific, part of its strategy is learning to be leaner. Under the “agile combat employment“ concept, a small team of multiskilled airmen should be able to quickly deploy to a new, potentially austere, airfield where they’d have to assemble their own operation with little to no additional support.

That flexibility can come in handy for the B-2 fleet, whose ability to carry conventional and nuclear weapons between continents make it a central piece of the Air Force’s strategy to deter conflict with other nuclear powers.

“This exercise is another fine example of bombers executing agile combat employment. It is the first time that the 393rd Bomb Squadron has executed B-2 ‘cold-pit’ refueling operations without the help of our maintenance professionals on the ground,” Col. Geoffrey Steeves, 509th Operations Group commander, which oversees the 393rd Bomb Squadron, told Air Force Times in a statement.

“Cold-pit” refueling is the Air Force’s term for gassing up a plane with its engine turned off.

“Ultimately, we are posturing the B-2 to meet the challenges of the ‘great power competition’ head-on,” Steeves added.

'Have bombs, will travel': How agile deployments are reshaping combat in the Middle East

To prepare for the trip to Offutt, the squadron compiled multiple checklists used by maintainers and pilots to create a comprehensive flight-prep to-do list from the cockpit to the ground.

The pilots also spent a couple of hours in the classroom at Whiteman — the Air Force’s sole B-2 base — brushing up on how to service an aircraft. That training is already an annual requirement, Bateman said.

“Then we had two specific trips to the aircraft to work with maintenance personnel to run through the checklist and actually practice flipping the switches for the fuels and running the checklist and hooking up the fuel receptacle to the aircraft,” he added.

Planning for the operation meant the aircraft had to carry gear, like wheel chocks, a ladder, oil and hydraulic fluid, that it wouldn’t typically need because maintainers already have those supplies on hand, said Capt. Andrew Dang, a B-2 pilot with the 393rd and an operational planner for the training run.

While a small recovery team was on hand at Offutt to resolve any maintenance issues that could have popped up, Bateman and Dang said the operation went off seamlessly.

Bateman, who previously flew the T-6 Texan II trainer as an instructor pilot, had never refueled his own plane before. After landing at Offutt, he jumped out of the bomber, secured the landing gear, chocked the wheels, and hooked himself up to the aircraft’s communications system, with the fuel truck waiting far in the distance.

“It was pretty surreal, hopping down from the cockpit,” Bateman said.

Then he returned to the cockpit and continued down the checklist with his co-pilot, including shutting down the aircraft.

With the engines off, Bateman then turned to refueling, a multistep process that included pulling various circuit breakers and covering up the sharp edges around landing-gear doors. After the fuel truck arrived, Bateman climbed a ladder to connect the fuel hose and signaled to start the flow of gas.

“That was challenging because it needs to be seated properly,” Bateman said of connecting the hose. “With one individual, you really have to get creative and maneuver the hose into the appropriate spot.”

The team met its goal to complete the entire refueling, from landing to takeoff, within two hours.

“Two hours was not easy,” Bateman said. “But going through the checklist smoothly allowed us to do it safely, and we showed that we can do it successfully.”

While the 393rd was the first active duty B-2 squadron to complete such a mission, it built off of the work of the 110th Bomb Squadron, a Missouri Air National Guard unit at Whiteman that completed a similar operation with a larger maintenance footprint on a trip to Forbes Field Air National Guard Base, Kansas, in March. Those pilots also completed cold-pit refueling on their own; the squadron will keep working with the 393rd as they move forward with agile combat operations.

“We iterated on [the Guard unit’s work] and went from a crawl phase, where we had, essentially, handholding through the process, to now saying, ‘Look, we developed this checklist we can do this, don’t need help,’” Dang said.

Now that they’ve shown it can be done, the goal is to streamline the operation and make it more efficient across the B-2 community, Bateman said. Their next steps include running the operation without maintainers standing by, adding the pilot-turned-maintainer option to the training curriculum, and perfecting a packing list so the aircraft can carry the right equipment to get the job done.

For instance, Bateman said he had to wrestle a 6-foot ladder in and out of the bomber when a step stool would have been sufficient.

The end goal, Dang said, is to reach the stage where pilots can land, refuel and take off again without shutting down the aircraft’s engines — or “hot-pit” refueling.

In a contested or unfamiliar environment, “I don’t want to be on the ground any longer than I have to be,” Dang said.

The incident, which took place April 30 during the Balikatan exercise with American and Philippine armed forces, is just one example of what has become a commonplace occurrence — Chinese aggression in areas the Philippines considers its territory. Although, notably, the two Asian nations are among several others asserting sovereignty over local geographic features.

Still, China’s military activities in the area are bringing the U.S. ever closer to the Philippines, America’s oldest ally in the Pacific region since 1951.

The U.S. is continuing to find ways to fortify defenses across the Pacific to deter China and counter its influence. The Philippines, a nation made up of more than 7,000 islands and islets, is situated in a prime location.

The U.S. and the Philippines have held Balikatan, a Tagalog word for “shoulder to shoulder,” almost annually for nearly 40 years. Yet the scope and size of the exercise has been relatively limited until the last few years. The exercise’s expansion is a direct reflection of the Philippines’ acknowledgment its territorial defenses are lacking.

“Exercises are like a second language that, as you are performing the exercise, you are also sending a message to both your adversaries, your likeminded partners and other stakeholders,” Col. Michael Logico, director of the joint and combined training center of the Philippines Armed Forces and the executive agent of Balikatan, told Defense News.

The exercise used to be confined to central military locations within the main island of Luzon, but now events are spread across the country from the most northern islands all the way to the southwestern island of Palawan.

The expansion of the exercise to places like Ilocos Norte, along the northwestern coast of Luzon island, “sends a message of confidence in our ability to protect as north as possible. It’s also a message of deterrence. So if any of our adversaries have any designs that involve the areas up north, we are saying that we are challenging your maritime and air presence in this area by our presence alone, or by our bilateral presence alone,” Logico said.

The exercise series, which typically focused on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as well as counterterrorism mission sets, is now centered around complex operations across domains.

While Balikatan was previously a bilateral event, the exercise now includes over a dozen more countries as observers or direct participants, and that number is expected to grow.

‘Comfortable with the discomfort’

Over the two weeks of Balikatan beginning in April and ending in May, 233 Chinese vessels were spotted in the West Philippine Sea — a term the Philippine government sometimes users in reference to its exclusive economic zone — according to a front-page story in the May 8 edition of The Manila Times.

The Philippines is “getting their teeth kicked in once a month by the Chinese in the Spratly [Islands],” Gregory Poling, an Asian maritime expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told Defense News.

Tension may be greatest in the Second Thomas Shoal, where there is a Philippine marine contingent aboard a World War II-era tank landing ship, the Sierra Madre. The ship has been on the reef since 1999, Poling said.

The Sierra Madre keeps Chinese forces off the strategic spot, but “in the next storm, it could be gone,” according to Mark Montgomery, an Asia-focused analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

“If that thing blows off, the Chinese will take over the Second Thomas Shoal. [It will] never have a Philippine footprint again,” he told Defense News.

China has been “getting wildly reckless” there in recent months, according to Poling, who said the country regularly sends at least 50 boats around the shoal every time the Philippines resupplies the Sierra Madre, harassing the crew with high-pressure water cannons, acoustic devices and military-grade lasers.

The previous president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, distanced his government from the U.S. and temporarily canceled a visiting forces agreement between the two nations. According to the Pentagon, the agreement’s activities “range from expert exchanges to ship visits to component exercises and major joint/combined training exercises.”

Duterte had also paused the Balikatan exercise in 2020 in an attempt to improve relations with China. However, the situation in the South China Sea did not improve.

The new president, Bongbong Marcos, has worked to rapidly strengthen relationships with the U.S. and some other countries in the Pacific since his election in 2022.

“The Philippine military is now focused on territorial defense operations, and that shift from counterinsurgency is in support of our allies and in support of our treaty allies. That defense matters,” Gen. Charles Flynn, the head of U.S. Army Pacific, said in May. “We help defend terrain, we help defend people, and ... we help them protect and defend their territorial integrity and national sovereignty.”

During Balikatan in 2023, the Philippine Army wanted to conduct a littoral live-fire drill in the Ilocos Norte province, but instead was instructed to move the event south to Zambales, where there is already a military installation, due to political reasons, Logico said.

“At the start of the planning conference [for 2024], I made it my personal goal to bring the exercise back to Ilocos Norte,” Logico said. Not only does it send a message that the Philippines can project military power, but “it is a way for us to be comfortable with the discomfort of the area.”

Previous instances of the exercise took place within military camps or naval training facilities, such as Fort Magsaysay located in central Luzon, Logico noted. “Some of them are a little bit restrictive,” he said. “It’s a controlled environment.”

Logico also had two more goals previously prohibited by the Duterte administration: to conduct live-fire drills and other exercises at sea beyond 12 nautical miles of the Philippines; and to train in the West Philippine Sea. (An exclusive economic zone typically extends 200 nautical miles beyond a country’s territorial sea.)

The Philippine military, along with its American and Australian partners, held a large, live-fire exercise that sank a ship off the coast of Ilocos Norte on May 8. And this year, Balikatan extended 300 nautical miles into the West Philippine Sea, Logico said.

American-style deterrence

While the Philippines is focused on its own defense, America is trying to strengthen its Pacific partnerships. It sees the archipelago nation as key to building a network of land forces that can deter those who would threaten regional stability, according to Flynn, the chief of U.S. Army Pacific.

Not only is the Philippines the United States’ oldest ally in the region, but it’s also positioned closely to Taiwan, an island China considers a rogue province and has threatened to take back by force.

Part of the U.S. Army’s strategy in the Pacific, Flynn said, is to build a strategic land power network. That network “must get in position to defend our sovereignty, to protect our people and to uphold their rights under international law,” he said in May at the Association of the U.S. Army’s LANPAC conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Army does not have the same type of setup in the Pacific region as it does in Europe when it comes to pre-positioned stock, and there is no NATO member from Asia. As a result, the U.S. aims to establish relationships with individual island nations in the Pacific so it can assume a stronger regional posture.

Balikatan and the Salaknib exercise, which took place in April and May, are part of that. This year saw U.S. military presence push deeper into the Philippines’ northern islands.

For example, the U.S. Army’s 1st Multi-Domain Task Force set up a company command post in Basco, a small island in the northern island chain, to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. On a clear day, Taiwan is visible from points on the remote island.

Also on Basco, Army divers helped dredge a harbor area and construct a new pier capable of accommodating larger ships.

On Itbayat, Basco’s neighbor to the north, the service’s 8th Theater Sustainment Command was building a warehouse to support humanitarian assistance.

The Army also practiced the rapid deployment of its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System throughout the Philippines, from Palawan to La-Lo Airport on northern Luzon to Port Irene further north.

Meanwhile, the multidomain task force for the first time deployed its nascent Mid-Range Capability missile launcher. The weapon traveled to Laoag on the northwest coast of Luzon from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.

Three of the four sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement were used in varying forms during Balikatan. The agreement allows the U.S. to fund infrastructure improvement and construction efforts at existing Philippine military bases, among other locations, and to rotationally deploy troops. The deal was signed in 2014 and originally established six sites. In 2023, four more sites were added.

One of the largest undertakings is the U.S. Army’s deployment of an exportable version of its Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center. The Army brought the capability to Fort Magsaysay, one of the agreement’s sites, to conduct a training rotation with the Philippine military as the Pacific nation looks to establish its own high-level training capability akin to the center.

Shoulder to shoulder

In preparation for Balikatan, Maj. Gen. Leodevic Guinid, the Philippine Army’s vice commander, said he told participating forces to focus on being able to fight side by side and to consider whether “you think that we are ready, that we are interoperable.”

Indeed, this effort to ensure the nations’ forces can work together seamlessly is fresh, Guinid said, and there is room for improvement on, for example, tactics, data sharing and the distribution of certain capabilities.

But there’s been progress. For instance, during a live-fire drill as part of Salaknib, a U.S. fires team flew an unmanned aerial system that was taking full-motion video of targets on the range, while Filipino soldiers remained in a concealed position, according to Brig. Gen. David Zinn, the deputy commander of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division.

“That video was viewed from the U.S. battalion command post, and the Philippine company commander was at the U.S. command post looking at the video to see that intelligence,” Zinn told Defense News. The Filipino commander then used a U.S. radio to communicate to his fires team using Philippine radios to move forward and destroy targets.

Watching the demonstration looks simple, Zinn said, because it’s a radio call. “But having been part of working to gain technical interoperability with partners in the past, it was pretty significant what they did, and we only achieve that by working together and spending time doing it,” he noted.

Beginning during last year’s Balikatan drills in the northern part of Luzon, the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force helped develop a Combined Information and Effects Fusion Cell that would allow the U.S. and the Philippines to see the same information and coordinate actions, which previous iterations of the exercise lacked.

“One thing that we realized quickly was oftentimes we try to increase classification when we build these command-and-control nodes based off of sharing agreements,” Brig. Gen. Bernard Harrington, who commands the task force, told Defense News in an interview at LANPAC.

“We found that the best thing to do was to drive this down to an unclassified level,” Harrington said. “We have human interoperability by being in the same room together. We had technical interoperability to rebuild this network with the system, and then we have procedural interoperability.”

Harrington said they continued to improve the capability during this year’s Balikatan events and now want to provide it to other regional allies and partners.

Logico said still more can be done to benefit interoperability at future exercises, adding that they ought to focus on information warfare, the cyber domain, and low-tech solutions to high-tech problems.

“If we are slow to the learning curve, we would find ourselves being outmaneuvered, so this is something that we have to pay attention to now,” he said.

The practice scenario was among those discussed during African Lion, the United States’ largest annual joint military exercise on the continent, which concluded Friday in Morocco.

US Africa Command boss defends US counterterrorism strategy in Africa

Over the past two weeks, roughly 8,100 military forces from nearly three dozen countries maneuvered throughout Tunisia, Ghana, Senegal and Morocco as part of the war games held this year as militaries confront new challenges in increasingly volatile regions.

Generals from the United States and Morocco, which hosted the finale of the two-week event, celebrated African Lion’s 20-year anniversary and how partnerships between the U.S. and African militaries have expanded since it began.

“This exercise has grown over the years since 2004, not only have the number of multinational service members that we train with, but also the scope of the training as well, which has expanded to more than just security,” said Gen. Michael Langley, the head of the United States’ Africa Command.

But despite the spectacle of live-fire demonstrations and laudatory remarks about partnerships by Langley and Col. Maj. Fouad Gourani of Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces, parts of Africa are getting much more dangerous.

The United Nations earlier this year called Africa a “global epicenter for terrorism.” Fatalities linked to extremist groups have risen dramatically in the Sahel, the region that stretches from Mauritania to Chad.

Since 2020, military officers disillusioned with their governments’ records of stemming violence have overthrown democratically elected governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and began distancing themselves from Western powers.

From 2021 to 2024, militants killed more than 17,000 people across the three countries, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

The United States is holding steadfast to its strategy of coupling weapons assistance and intelligence sharing with initiatives designed to boost civilian populations and strengthen institutions.

But it faces new competition. Decades after the end of colonialism, Africa has once again become absorbed in fighting among Great Powers, with Western influence waning and countries accepting more economic and military support from Chinese firms and Russian contractors.

At African Lion, the U.S. military showcased part of what it offers countries facing instability inside and just beyond their borders. Besides tanks and bombers, the joint exercises included operations and practice in field hospitals, medical evacuations and humanitarian assistance.

The exercise emphasized a “whole of government” approach to addressing the root causes of instability, ranging from climate change to displacement, rather than solely focusing on military might.

“It’s important that we not only be associated with kicking down doors,” said Col. Kelley Togiola, a command surgeon who helped set up a field hospital alongside Moroccan doctors as part of the exercise. “In times of crises, those relationships matter.”

That strategy differs from what’s being offered by Africa Corps, the descendent of the Russian state-funded private military company Wagner, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died last year. Yet it’s come under scrutiny since military officers with a history of participating in training exercises have risen to positions of power after the ousters of democratically elected leaders in countries such as Guinea and Niger.

Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said regardless of how much the U.S. military broadens its efforts, its continued focus on counterterrorism will keep empowering military leaders throughout West Africa.

“The nature of security assistance is that it’s much more visible, impactful and manipulated by the recipient for ill,” Hudson said. “When we come in with training and toys, we reinforce within societies these power dynamics that in the long run are not helpful to the consolidation of civilian democratic rule.”

Despite training exercises like African Lion, U.S. military leaders face difficulties prolonging their partnerships in places they’ve long characterized as strategically critical. Countries such as Niger and Chad — which participated in African Lion — have embraced Russian trainers and paramilitaries and pushed for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

US departure from Niger ‘already underway’ ahead of September deadline

The U.S. military officials note their assessment of the threat of “malign” Russian and Chinese influence but say they can work in countries that accept assistance from geopolitical rivals.

To juggle curbing Russian influence while opposing the overthrow of democratically elected leaders hasn’t worked everywhere, especially as the U.S. military often attaches strings to how countries can implement training and weapons provided.

U.S. law makes governments deposed in military coups ineligible for large portions of assistance, despite the military’s talk of equal partnership and noninterference.

Rachid El Houdaigui, a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, said the growing youth populations in west African countries wanted to forge new political identities and were skeptical of the West after years of insecurity.

“African states consider variety favorable. It allows them to choose and gives them many possibilities,” he said of countries in the Sahel that have opened their doors to Russian and Chinese assistance.

Associated Press writer Arushi Gupta contributed from Los Angeles.

An amendment proposed by Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., and adopted by a voice vote Wednesday would increase the number of developmental test F-35s in the works from six to at least nine, tweaking a provision that was passed as part of the FY24 NDAA.

Wittman’s amendment to the annual defense policy bill would also require those test F-35s to come from the 18th lot of jets. That would be sooner than the schedule in the FY24 NDAA, which had its six test F-35s coming from the 19th lot.

Wittman’s amendment would also give the military more flexibility to decide which F-35 variants — the Air Force’s conventional takeoff-and-landing F-35A, the Marine Corps’ short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35B, and the Navy and Marine Corps’ F-35C that can land on carriers — will be used as developmental test jets.

The FY24 NDAA required the Pentagon use two of each variant as test jets, but the latest proposal would not set any such requirements.

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday advanced the proposed $883.7 billion bill to the full House after a 12-hour markup.

Wittman, who chairs the panel’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, has frequently spoken about what he considers a need to increase the number of test F-35s to perfect upgrades, such as Technology Refresh 3. The F-35 program is struggling to finish TR-3, its latest series of hardware and software improvements. The effort is now roughly a year behind.

TR-3 is facing software problems and delays in the production of key parts, and a Government Accountability Office report earlier this month said test officials reported the software remains unstable.

Since July, the Pentagon has refused to accept deliveries of the newest F-35s from Lockheed Martin over the TR-3 delays. An undisclosed number of those jets are stored at Lockheed facilities, particularly its factory in Fort Worth, Texas, but GAO warned in its May 16 report that the firm may start running out of room to park undelivered F-35s.

GAO also raised concerns about the F-35′s program’s testing capacity, which now has jets older than four decades that frequently break.

Four more F-35s are to receive modifications and become test jets by 2026, but GAO said testers would need to use workarounds and could not conduct all the external weapons tests some F-35s would need.

The proposed FY25 NDAA would cut the Pentagon’s planned F-35 purchase by 10, redirecting the roughly billion dollars in savings to expanding the jets’ testing capacity, including by buying more test aircraft.

Wittman told reporters this month, after the committee released its proposed bill, that the F-35 program’s testing capabilities sorely need improvement and are long overdue. He said failure to invest in sufficient testing infrastructure has directly resulted in problems, such as the TR-3 delays.

GAO also raised concerns in its report about the timetable for bringing on new developmental test F-35s. The six jets that were already in the works would have been unprepared to conduct test flights until 2029 at the earliest. And the plans to retire existing test F-35s, GAO said, would have left the F-35 program with no test jets in 2028 and part of 2029.

Lockheed Martin said testing of the latest version of TR-3 is underway and expects the jets will work well enough for deliveries to resume in the third quarter of 2024. But even if the military accepts delivery of those jets, they would likely only be able to fly training missions and would be unprepared to fly combat operations until 2025.