ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

A new report to Congress reveals why the U.S. Army is thinking so much about China as a near-peer competitor. 

The army part of the People’s Liberation Army has 915,000 active-duty troops in combat units, making it the world’s largest ground force and one that is fielding upgraded combat and communications systems and other technologies in a drive toward a “more modern, mobile and lethal ground force,” says the DoD report titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.” 

Army leaders recently connected with their counterparts in the Indo-Pacific region during a two-day virtual event that was organized amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Indo-Pacific Landpower Conference 2020 was held online by U.S. Army Pacific after the Association of the U.S. Army canceled its annual LANPAC event in Hawaii because of the pandemic.

Plans are already underway for LANPAC 2021, AUSA’s annual three-day international symposium and exhibition dedicated to land forces in the Indo-Pacific. The event is scheduled for May 18–20 in Honolulu.

North Korea remains a major national security challenge, Pentagon officials told Congress.

Testifying Jan. 28 before the House Armed Services Committee, John Rood, DoD’s undersecretary for policy, said North Korea “poses an ongoing, credible threat to the United States homeland, our allies in South Korea and Japan, in addition to undermining international arms control regimes and engaging in egregious human rights violations and abuses.”

“Predicting North Korea’s future behavior is always hazardous,” Rood said.

The Army’s Multi-Domain Operations concept “is the way forward” in the Indo-Pacific as the service competes in the increasingly contested environment, a senior leader said.

“We do not want to have conflict in the Indo-Pacific region,” Maj. Gen. John “Pete” Johnson, acting commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific, said Oct. 16 during the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition. “It would be catastrophic for the globe if we did that.”

After more than three years, Gen. Robert Brown is relinquishing command of U.S. Army Pacific.

Brown, who is retiring, has led Army Pacific, the Army’s largest service component command, since April 2016. He was scheduled to be recognized during a farewell ceremony Sept. 27 at Historic Palm Circle on Fort Shafter, Hawaii.

The U.S. may not have the sealift capacity to quickly move the Army overseas for a large-scale contingency operation because of aging ships, manning shortages and insufficient training, according to a recent report.

The RAND Corporation’s “Approaches to Strategic Sealift Readiness” found that while the sealift fleet has never failed to meet an operational tasking, the Navy systems intended to demonstrate readiness “were found to be ineffective in showing the readiness of the force required to meet larger-scale activations.”

A recent deployment to the Indo-Pacific region helped improve retention, morale and sense of purpose among soldiers, a senior leader said.

“This was a high-payoff operation,” Col. Leo Wyszynski, commander of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, known as the 1-2 SBCT, from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, said of the U.S. Army Pacific Command’s Pacific Pathways exercises. “We saw improved relationships with our partner nation military, and opportunities to expand future training in the Indo-Pacific region.”

The U.S. is a partner of choice when it comes to training and advising allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, an Army special operations leader said.

“We’re the partner of choice because the U.S. has extensive combat experience,” said Col. Owen Ray, commander of the 1st Special Forces Group.

The U.S. Army has an integral part in the Defense Department’s new Indo-Pacific strategy, according to a new Pentagon report.

With an aim of increasing the lethality, agility and resilience of operating forces, the Army will test multidomain task forces designed to “create temporary windows of superiority across multiple domains and allow the Joint Force to seize, retain and exploit the initiatives,” the June 1 “Indo-Pacific Strategy Report” says.

The 2019 LANPAC Symposium and Exposition, attended by more than 1,600 attendees and exhibitors, concluded May 23 with a reminder that the Indo-Pacific theater remains one of great challenge, but both the Army and industry have solutions.

This was the seventh consecutive year the Association of the U.S. Army has hosted the Pacific land forces event, which drew representatives from 24 nations in addition to U.S. military leaders from around the globe.