ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Long-range precision rockets, missiles and munitions provide key capabilities for the U.S. joint force in competition, crisis and conflict, according to a new Association of the U.S. Army Spotlight report.

It was written by retired Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, a former I Corps commanding general who was involved in regionally aligned forces supporting the Indo-Pacific region, and retired Col. Daniel Roper, a career artilleryman who is AUSA’s director of national security studies.

Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, and Army astronaut Col. Andrew Morgan will speak May 4 at a webinar hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army.

Karbler, who has been in command since December 2019, and Morgan will participate in The AUSA Noon Report series.

Pentagon discussions are underway about what capabilities, if any, the Army may be asked to contribute to the new Air Force-controlled U.S. Space Force.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said the division of assets could be complicated. “This is a task that hasn’t been done since 1947,” he said, referring to when the Army Air Corps became the Air Force.

The big question, he said, is “what are the things that need to stay organic to the Army?” That isn’t simple, he said, noting the Army has watercraft and helicopters, things that might logically go in the Navy and Air Force.

The U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office utilized the AUSA 2019 Warriors Corner to provide an update on the introduction of new hypersonic and directed energy technologies to the force.

The “deep dive” cuts made to dozens of programs in the Army’s march toward modernization have resulted in funding for priority air and missile defense capabilities to be fielded over the next five years.

Lt. Gen. James F. Pasquarette, deputy chief of staff, G-8, who heads Army resources and planning, said the Army’s reprioritization of funds is in line with the National Defense Strategy, and is aimed at re-establishing “overmatch against China and Russia in areas where we lost it or will soon lose it if we don’t get after it now.”

The Army is taking big steps toward having critical new air and missile defense capabilities, with an eye on a collection of interconnected systems that provide scalable, mobile and revolutionary protection against current and future threats.

No single system will be able to accomplish what the Army and the nation need, the commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command said March 12 during a one-day event hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare. 

A lack of missile defense and anti-aircraft capabilities could put Army units and installations at risk in a future large-scale conflict, experts say.

Recent war games show the U.S. “usually fails to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary,” RAND Corp. analyst David Ochmanek said during a March 7 panel discussion at the Center for a New American Security.

President Donald Trump hinted Jan. 17 that defense spending would not be cut in the 2020 budget request he’ll submit to Congress in early February.

Speaking at the Pentagon where he was greeted by applause, the commander in chief joked that the clapping was “because I gave you the biggest budget in our history, and I’ve now done it two times. And, I hate to tell the rest of the world, but I am about to do it three times.”

The 2019 defense budget was about $719 billion but now is expected to be $733 billion to $750 billion.