The MITR half-mask and goggle system is designed to protect wearers from dangerous chemicals and toxic substances in the atmosphere, including lead powder from gunfire, ballistics and poisonous substances like fentanyl.

Casey Galligan, Avon’s senior director for the U.S. Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, told Defense News that fentanyl and chemicals found in drug labs are now part of a wide array of hazards that special warfare operators must guard against, in addition to biological weapons and other breathing hazards.

“Precursor drug chemicals now are a huge issue that are just as dangerous as a chemical hazard,” Galligan said. “As an operator, every day you’re doing something quasi-dangerous, particularly those at the frontline doing maneuver. This is not meant to replace a full-face respirator. A split system gives you options.”

The half-mask system walks the line between an N-95 disposable mask and a heavy, full-face respirator. The goggles and half-mask can be worn linked together or separated, giving operators a lightweight option that will give them eye and breathing protection as needed without requiring them to carry heavy full-face respirator masks.

The MITR features positive pressure-sealed goggles to stop hazardous chemicals from getting in around its edges. The system features sweat drainage outlets inside the goggles and blows cool air into them from both sides, preventing lens fogging.

A former U.S. Army Green Beret, Galligan said the system provides safety against toxic materials while allowing wearers to breathe easier — literally.

“If you don’t always want to be wearing a full-face respirator, and you’re worried about different levels of threats, this is a half-pound and easy to put on. You can wear it with a head harness or with helmet attachments,” he explained.

Half-mask systems are not new, but the MITR system has evolved constantly to incorporate new evolutions in technology to reach its current capabilities.

“We’ve been going through iterations and continuing to improve it,” said Galligan, adding that the U.S. is joining Canada and another FVEY nation in purchasing the system.

Elite warfare units of U.S. Special Operations are already wearing the new half-mask and goggles in the field, he disclosed.

“We’ve fielded it to units already. Some are en route right now, being delivered,” Galligan said. “The feedback I get talking with end users is pretty amazing.”

The Defense Department’s decision to equip SOCOM operators with improved breathing equipment follows a November 2025 report, called the SOF Cancer Study, which revealed that SOF operators face an 18% higher risk of cancer than non-SOF personnel due to hazardous materials in their environments that they are exposed to constantly in the line of duty.

Shifting to a half-mask system could mark the dawn of a new era in how military service members approach facial protection overall.

“When you see the tip of the spear using it, it’s going to make it a lot more acceptable,” Galligan said.

“I could not be prouder of the men and women that stand before us today and those that came before us to inactivate the unit,” Col. Robert Cusick, the group’s commanding officer, said. “8th PSYOP Group introduced new concepts that will remain for years to come.”

8th POG, nicknamed the “Phantom Knights,” was formally activated on Nov. 16, 2013, after operating provisionally for two years. It was one of four Army PSYOP groups, including the active-duty 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) and the Army Reserve’s 2nd and 7th Psychological Operations Groups.

The term “inactivation” signifies that the group is being decommissioned for an indeterminate period during some form of restructuring and reorganization — not necessarily that it is being deactivated or dissolved.

The 8th POG included the 3rd PSYOP Battalion (Airborne) and the 9th PSYOP Battalion (Airborne). The 3rd POB influences print, radio and broadcast information operations around the world, while the 9th POB is typically involved in operations like dropping leaflets and cultivating local communities where Special Forces may be operating.

The Information Warfare Center, organized in 2020, was also under the aegis of the 8th PG. The IWC combines intelligence operations and information warfare specifically for Army Special Forces.

The inactivation comes just two months after the Army activated Delta Company, 7th Psychological Operations Battalion. The 7th was previously assigned to the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) but is now under the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne). That group is focused on psychological operations primarily under U.S. Africa Command’s purview.

Some military officials and analysts have argued that the U.S. needs to overhaul its approach to psychological operations and information warfare groups — hence the Delta Company activation and the retirement of the 8th POG.

“What is most concerning is not simply that adversaries invest in information warfare, but that they can often employ it faster and more coherently than we can respond,” Maj. Ryan Walters, an active-duty U.S. Army Psychological Operations officer, wrote in Small Wars Journal in January. “In practice, adversaries win by compressing the time between sensing, shaping, and exploiting, while U.S. forces remain constrained by approval latency, fragmented execution, and inconsistent assessment. The result is a temporal mismatch in which effects arrive after decisions are already made.”

As Washington shifts its attention toward the Western Hemisphere, a reinvigorated jungle school is just one part of the evolving U.S. military presence in Panama.

More than 20 years after the U.S. turned over its bases to the Central American country, the partnership offers a glimpse of what the Pentagon’s renewed focus on its own hemisphere could mean on the ground.

“The Western Hemisphere is now the priority hemisphere,” Col. Jacob White, deputy commander of Joint Security Cooperation Group-Panama (JSCG-P), said in an interview from the unit’s Panamanian headquarters. “We want to move faster and be more present down in this hemisphere.”

Decades after the U.S. launched a deeply polarizing invasion to topple Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, the disparate missions are part of the U.S.’s increasingly prioritized relationship with the country that hosts the only land bridge connecting the two American continents and the only waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific.

The Trump administration, and thus the Pentagon, has elevated “defense of the U.S. Homeland” to the highest national security priority, downgrading China — which previously took the top spot — as a threat.

In April 2025, the U.S. and Panama announced an agreement to counter Chinese influence in the region and secure the Panama Canal, laying the foundation for other joint activities.

According to Henry Ziemer, a fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Panama never stopped being important to the U.S. military.

It has the strategically important Panama Canal and Darién Gap, and the country sits at the intersection of some of the Trump administration’s major priorities: canal security, migration and drug trafficking.

Over the last year, Ziemer said, Panama’s importance has increased “as we’ve seen supply chain disruptions at other critical waterways like the Strait of Hormuz.”

Roughly 5% to 6% of global trade passes through the waterway, with approximately 70% of that traffic passing to or from the United States.

“For many subsequent administrations and decades, I think the United States took [its] eye off this neighborhood, off the Western Hemisphere,” said Kevin Marino Cabrera, the U.S. Ambassador to Panama, emphasizing that developments in the region have direct impacts for the U.S.

“You can’t talk about migration without talking about Panama,” he said, referring to the Darién Gap, which at its peak saw more than half a million migrant crossings per year. Panamanian service members also report drug smuggling through the narrow strip of land.

From the U.S.’s perspective, the “border begins in Panama,” Ziemer said, adding “it’s a lot easier to secure the Isthmus of Panama than it is to secure the whole Southwest land border, right?”

Cabrera said the partnership was mutually beneficial, though, as Panama also deals with cartels, drug trafficking and migration issues — though differently than the U.S.

“Our plan is to defeat the cartels, to maintain the Darién closed, so that we can secure the U.S. Southern border and keep our communities safe,” he said, adding, “we’re working together with Panama because they have many of the same goals.”

Though the gritty terrain of jungle school makes it a highlight of the partnership, the U.S. military’s inroads in Panama extend well beyond the boundaries of Aeronaval Base Cristóbal Colón, where course is housed.

Typically a country may host a U.S. Army Civil Affairs team or two — the Army’s special operations forces contingent that connects military forces with civilian populations — but Panama is home to an entire U.S. Civil Affairs company, White said, that works in virtually every district.

Those teams, he said, identify gaps in civilian infrastructure, such as dilapidated schools or unsafe bridges. The U.S. has military salvage dive teams operating around the canal and cross-training with Panamanian forces. Engineer soldiers rotate through the country, building out structures for jungle students.

Military doctors work alongside Panamanian medical professionals to assist local populations, performing colonoscopies and cataract surgeries. Dentists and optometrists — even veterinarians — rotate through rural parts of the country.

White said one of the lessons the U.S. learned during its decades-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was that the military cannot quickly create trust.

“In a crisis, you simply can’t surge trust,” he said. “And so, being here — present — doing things on the regular with SENAFRONT and SENAN, with the government of Panama — and with their permission to do it — it helps build that trust.” Though Panama does not have a standing Army, SENAFRONT and SENAN are two branches of the Panamanian Public Forces.

On a tactical level, Panamanian instructors at the jungle school say the course, which includes Panamanian and U.S. soldiers, makes them feel that, in an emergency, U.S. soldiers would at least grasp how challenging it is to operate in a jungle environment.

With terrain different from the U.S.’s Hawaii jungle course, Panama’s environment replicates other jungle biomes where the U.S. may find itself in conflict. The Western Hemisphere, White said, abounds with jungle landscape.

But as the U.S. hones its focus on Central and South America, expanded U.S. activity inevitably raises questions about sovereignty. Decrepit military quarters line roads in and out of Aeronaval Base Cristóbal Colón, which the U.S. called Fort Sherman when it occupied it. Most sit abandoned, used only as shady hideaways for jungle instructors between missions.

Officials have been adamant that the future does not hold permanent military basing for U.S. troops. White said the U.S. contingent works to uphold the Neutrality Treaty of 1977 — which guarantees the Panama Canal remains neutral and open for ships of all nations to transit peacefully. To do that, he said, the U.S. military is operating “by, with and through the Panamanians.”

Sydney-based Breaker Industries, founded three years ago, is working with Rheinmetall Defence Australia to perfect the Avalon human-machine interface that will make a Boxer commander’s duties less onerous in the heat of combat.

The two firms signed a teaming agreement on Oct. 6, the opening day of the Land Forces 2026 exhibition in Perth. Work will now continue for twelve months to mature the Avalon system for the Boxer, including trials slated for mid-2027.

Michael Irwin, co-founder of Breaker, demonstrated to Defense News how simple voice commands – using the same type of language for directing soldiers – can control drones and get them to perform various tasks.

With uncrewed systems proliferating on battlefields, Irwin said, “The goal is to allow an armored vehicle crew to easily work with teams of those autonomous systems like they were working with another crew member.”

Indeed, he described the software stack as simply a “digital crew member.” Instead of having several extra soldiers dedicated to drone operation taking up space in the rear of the Boxer, this software helps the commander marshal all the assets in the proverbial toolbox.

The Australian Army is acquiring 211 Boxers, with production currently underway at Rheinmetall’s facility near Brisbane. These vehicles are used by cavalry units, so the smooth integration of drones could help enhance the soldiers’ ability to see around the next corner or over the next hill.

Rheinmetall described the software as enabling a “step change in armored vehicle operations capability.”

This system was demonstrated within six months of the project being launched. That demonstration involved a soldier with less than 30 minutes of training controlling a swarm of drones through the Boxer’s standard headset and microphone. They did so while performing normal crew commander functions.

Breaker chose the Boxer as the launch platform because of its digitized backbone, and the Australian Army is “very keen to see it developed,” according to company representatives.

Irwin believes the system is applicable to other vehicles in the Australian Army too, including Hanwha’s AS21 Redback infantry fighting vehicle, due to enter service soon.

Nathan Poyner, managing director of Rheinmetall Defence Australia, said there is “most definitely” an opportunity to add this Avalon system to other Boxer users in Europe.

Irwin believes one day a Boxer or other armored vehicle itself could be controlled by voice. For example, the turret could be asked to keep watch on a particular arc.

“It’s technically feasible, but there’s a whole lot of cultural barriers to get through” before this level of autonomy can happen, Irwin said.

Notably, Rheinmetall Australia is manufacturing Boxers fitted with a Lance turret and 30 mm cannon for the German Army. The company won a contract to deliver these heavy weapon carriers to Germany, with the Bundeswehr following the same configuration selected by the Australian Army.

Australia received the first 25 Boxer Block 1 vehicles from Rheinmetall Germany, but the remaining Block 2 vehicles were designed and are being manufactured in Australia.

There are six unique Boxer variants destined to join the Australian Army, and Poyner said five have completed their development so far.

He added that more than 50% of the Boxer’s content is manufactured in Australia, an indication of the depth of the supply chain that Rheinmetall has achieved Down Under.

Poyner added that he is in talks with the Australian military about additional variants of the Boxer, with a counter-drone and air-defense variant armed with a Skyranger 30 turret, made by Rheinmetall’s Switzerland offshoot, considered the most suitable.

Speaking at the Association of the United Army’s annual meeting here, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) C5ISR Center Director Beth Perry said this kind of sensing tech had been the subject of recent “innovation sprints” within the center.

“As we categorize the threat in the [counter-unmanned aerial systems] space, in the drone space, and we understand all of the different platforms, they all have different acoustic signatures,” Petty said. “And so being able to do some [work] on the soldier-based, very lightweight sensing technology that will pick up, hey, you know, there’s a drone following you … that’s a very early innovation project.”

Perry said such a sensor might integrate with software to provide identification, which would then allow the soldier or unit to take action.

The work comes after a fear soldiers are expressing over developing a level of comfort in a battlespace where they might be unknowingly observed or targeted at any time, said Jami Davis, assistant director for Soldier and Platform Mission Equipment.

“I think one of the overarching things we’ve heard from our user community this year is very basic things,” Davis said. “Their priority is the soldier knowing he’s being observed by a UAS, right? Like it’s very basic things that we can provide to help kind of even give our soldiers situational awareness.”

Being able to provide that awareness without giving the soldier another thing to carry has been a priority," Davis added.

“Our technology is always pushing for … lighter, smaller, more integrated to reduce the soldier load and improve the capability,” she said. “So definitely, you know there are industry solutions out there. Our objective really is just to try and make those better, smaller, lighter, more integrated, so that a tactical soldier doesn’t have to carry more unique, threat-unique equipment.”

Multiple defense contractors have offered variants of drone-sensing solutions that integrate with other gear, like radios, or stand alone as a wearable device that detects through RF or acoustic detection.

Earlier this year, Stars and Stripes reported that an Army sergeant in Germany had also improvised his own RF-based personal drone-sensing device that could fit in a pocket or a pouch and be assembled in an hour for about $120.

Perry said she couldn’t yet talk about the form factor of the device the C5ISR center started developing or the way forward for the effort.

“It’s still things that we’re doing in the lab that we see as a way for us to provide a low [size, weight and power] solution for a known threat, but not something that we’ve tested yet,” she said. “You know, we work on the large technology spectrum, things that are very early to things that are closer to the field, and that one in particular is very early.”

Thales Australia says it has built just such a robot.

The company unveiled its BladeHaul extra-large, heavy-duty UGV on Oct. 6, the opening day of the Land Forces 2026 exhibition being held in Perth, Western Australia.

Looking something akin to an aircraft tug, the BladeHaul relies on the chassis and driveline of Thales Australia’s popular Bushmaster 4x4 protected mobility vehicle that is in widespread Australian Army use.

According to its designer, this uncrewed vehicle “is engineered to outperform all existing and planned counterparts in payload capacity and operational flexibility.”

Official specs list a payload capacity of 10-plus tons for this cargo UGV, and a driving range comparable to that of the Bushmaster’s 600-plus kilometers.

The Bushmaster’s original mechanicals have been replaced by a hybrid energy and battery storage solution from 3ME Technology, Thales Australia’s partner in the effort.

3ME Technology has extensive experience in the mining sector, and it previously developed a hybrid-engined Bushmaster vehicle.

For the BladeHaul the company has assembled a 660V power system that offers 110kWh of power.

Justin Bain, CEO of 3ME Technology, said: “Working with Thales Australia brings together the best of Australian innovation, combining 3ME Technology’s systems engineering and platform development capabilities with the Bushmaster’s proven performance and established manufacturing base. Together we’re delivering an entirely new XL-UGV at a time when demand for contested logistics and remote power solutions for littoral environments is present and growing.”

Thales Australia envisages three potential use cases for the BladeHaul: as a cargo mover in zones of contested logistics; as a mobile and enduring power source for other equipment; and as a highly mobile platform for sensors and effectors.

The vehicle could therefore find utility in tasks such as carrying coastal anti-ship missiles, as a counter-drone system, mounting an air surveillance radar, reloading munitions or detecting mines. For the latter mission, it could have a mine plow or rollers mounted on the front.

The manufacturer says the vehicle’s applications are limited only by the imagination of the user. For example, it could carry containerized missile systems or launch drone swarms, one official told Defense News.

Alternatively, it could generate and supply power for a field hospital, a command post or simply act as a standalone generator. It offers a 1MW of power. To put that in perspective, 1MW could simultaneously power 1,000 homes.

To add to its versatility, the BladeHaul 4x4 UGV can fit in transport aircraft like the C-130 and A400M.

The BladeHaul is not yet ready for action, however. Work on the project began 18 months ago, with progress really accelerating over the past six months, but it does not yet have a working autonomy system.

Thales Australia signed a memorandum of understanding with Deakin University at Land Forces 2026 to develop its autonomy suite. This will build upon the suite used on the smaller Guardian Angel UGV unveiled by Thales earlier this year. It will be capable of remote, fully autonomous or follow-me operations, for example.

Thales Australia said in a statement: “By integrating advanced autonomy that enables human-machine teaming, hybrid technology, heavy payload capacity and power generation within a single platform, Thales Australia and 3ME Technology are delivering a next-generation solution that enhances operational readiness and supports Australia’s commitment to sovereign defense innovation.”

The BladeHaul is aimed at the Australian Army, but its appeal extends to any land force, according to the manufacturer.

The vehicle has no V-shaped hull to protect against underbody blasts, as there is no crew aboard. However, ballistic protection could be added to it depending on the function.

Bain said there is interest in a UGV version able to carry a 40-foot container too. “If there’s sufficient demand, we may look at that.”

From Sept. 11 to 19, 11 squads battled at Fort Benning, Georgia, to earn the titles of Soldier of the Year, Noncommissioned Officer of the Year and Best Squad.

Cpl. Michael Shield was named the Army’s Soldier of the Year, and Staff Sgt. Colin Doyle as the Army’s non-commissioned officer of the year. The announcement cements the Rangers as a dominant force within the Army competition, with the special forces unit sweeping the last three events in four years.

“The 75th Ranger Regiment is a one-of-a-kind unit,” Doyle said, an Army release states. “We simply show up to work every day focused on marksmanship, small unit tactics, medical training and mobility.”

Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael R. Weimer presented the awards to Shield and Doyle, as well as to the soldiers that rounded out the best squad, which included Sgt. William Masters, Spc. William Schaeffer and Spc. Marshall Garren.

After securing its place in the competition and being named the Army Special Operations Command top squad in August, the five-soldier squad found themselves in the muck and mire of Fort Benning.

During the 2026 competition, events ranged from fitness assessments, weapons qualifications, medical scenarios and an 18.6-mile nighttime foot march and obstacle course. Competitors also experienced the “First 100 Yards” evolution that replaced the traditional “shark attack” opening day for recruits, the release said. The soldiers also completed the combat water survival course, loaded and fired from an M1A2 Abrams and rounded out the competition with interviews with review boards.

“The Army Best Squad Competition is important because it shows where the readiness of the different commands is at across the entire Army,” Shield said. “And on top of that, competition is a huge part of the Army. And who doesn’t want to be first?”

This is the first Best Squad competition in two years after the yearly competition was canceled in 2025 due to a “lapse in appropriations” caused by Congress’ failure to pass a fiscal 2026 budget.

In 2022, Rangers earned the title of Best Squad and swept all three awards the following year. In 2024, a team from the U.S. Army Pacific won Best Squad.

Another 800 are on federal orders supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and “quite a few” are deployed to Washington, D.C., to support local law enforcement.

It all makes up more than three times the Guard’s true capacity, according to Maj. Gen. Robert Carruthers, assistant adjutant general of the Florida Guard. And that’s even after the activation in recent years of the Florida State Guard, a volunteer civilian military force, to support hurricane response and other state needs.

In a panel at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting on Tuesday, the message of other Guard leaders was clear: The demands are unsustainable — and they need to stop.

“The governor’s become quite addicted to the Guard and how useful they are since COVID,” Carruthers said, referring, presumably, to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been in office since 2019.

The effects are felt in equipment readiness and training, he said, particularly as funding has not followed the deployment of units and their gear.

“You’re going to have this cascading effect of breaking units downstream,” Carruthers said. “In the case of Florida, what are we going to lose first? Are we going to lose our transportation companies, which are critically important in hurricane [relief], or are we going to lose our aviation first? So it’s also important for us to plan for that aspect.”

The Florida Guard, Carruthers said, had ordered a “maintenance stand-down” to assess the status of infantry brigade combat team equipment sitting unused in motor pools. As a result of the assessment, he said, equipment readiness rates dropped from 90% to 27% within six weeks.

“It’s somewhere five degrees below combat-ineffective, right?” he said. “So that’s just the state of where we are, because the equipment sits … we are not funded to maintain it all the time.”

Maj. Gen. Jack James, commanding general of the New York-based 42nd Infantry Division, proposed a solution to push back on governors’ demands: a “broker” and a “traffic cop” to filter activation and employment requests and prioritize them.

“You hear what these guys are up against with their governors, right? And then what the warfighting commanders are up against with our, whether it’s the [U.S. Central Command] commander, [U.S. Pacific Command] commander, our Army components, right?” James said. “There’s inherent friction right there, so we need a brokering function. We need a traffic cop function. We need the arbiter of how those resource allocations are going to be made in a quick, timely manner, so we can get after it for the country.”

Carruthers acknowledged there would be “political pressure” and fallout as the Guard works to manage expectations and requirements in line with its actual capacity.

“There are probably homeland defense people who think they’re getting these dudes and dudettes, and all of the governors think they have all of their Guard because they’re not really led in war plans,” he said. “And the time of mobilization is not the time to adjudicate that. So that’s something we got to work now to include … trying to get our governor and our state leadership in on these plans at a classified level, so they understand.”

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 saw a historic mobilization of some 118,000 Guard troops at home and overseas.

And the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in 2025 kicked off a new wave of domestic deployments, both to quell unrest and support ICE enforcement actions in Democratic-controlled cities and to contribute to crime reduction in Washington, D.C. The D.C. deployments alone are expected to cost the country another $1.4 billion through January 2029.

While the increased role of National Guard troops in domestic affairs has been a point of concern for some time, Army National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Jonathan Stubbs said the current situation would force action, and even confrontation, within the next year.

“Hope is not a method in this case; there is no fail. We’ve got to figure this thing out,” Stubbs said.

“It’s going to require hard conversations between adjutants general and governors. There’s going to be a level of dialog, of informing and educating our state commanders and chiefs in terms of the prospect of … mobilization and what it could mean for their access to the respective National Guard service members when conflict comes,“ he continued. ”And then when conflict persists, as it expands and retracts, and at some point in time, what they’re going to have left inside the state.”

That’s the essence of “How The Army Fights,” a new 46-page guide on how the U.S. Army can leverage the tactical to improve the operational.

“While [How The Army Fights] is focused on the operational and strategic levels of war, it will affect how tactical units execute warfighting at echelon,” according to the guide, issued by Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve.

How The Army Fights, or HTAF, is a farewell to the small-unit counterinsurgency warfare that shaped Army organization, equipment and structure for nearly two decades.

“These experiences created a generation of units that rarely had to maneuver under a contested sky, mask their electromagnetic signatures, or sustain high-tempo operations without contractor support,” the guide states.

Now, the Army’s operational concept is Multidomain Operations, or MDO, which features big-unit maneuver warfare waged by divisions and brigades rather than platoons and squads.

The guide represents an acknowledgement that the last thing the Army — or the American public — wants is the sort of stalemate seen in the Ukraine war. In that conflict, drones and long-range guided munitions dominate the battlefield to such an extent that maneuver has become the exception rather than the norm.

“Only ground maneuver can seize what the enemy holds and secure it against the enemy’s will,” the HTAF manual emphasizes.

To enable maneuver and the possibility for strategic victory that maneuver offers, HTAF highlights the importance of “the four elements of Army land power”: Convergence, Strike, Close Battle and Endurance.

During Convergence, U.S. forces disrupt enemy command, communications and sensor systems, according to the document.

For example, “a commander executes a kinetic strike against an adversary command post while electronic warfare assets jam backup communication systems,” HTAF states. “Concurrently, long-range artillery targets an enemy radar exposed while illuminating friendly aircraft, while friendly space and cyber capabilities degrade the broader integrated air defense network.”

The Strike element calls for the Army to unleash a variety of munitions, including artillery, rockets, missiles, one-way attack drones and loitering munitions.

“Strike acts as the deep operational shaper, employing medium- and long-range precision fires and uncrewed systems to disrupt, degrade, and dislocate enemy forces and logistical assets before they can influence the close fight,” the document states.

If Convergence and Strike phases achieve the objectives of leaving the enemy dazed and blinded, Close Battle can begin.

Throughout history, battles have culminated with troops advancing to destroy the enemy. But HTAF acknowledges the unprecedented difficulty of a modern battlefield where drones appear to see all and enemy fires can rain down at any moment.

Army units will therefore need to be adept at camouflage and deception, and possess their own defensive weapons against drones and other fires, HTAF states.

“Close Battle is built on highly lethal ground maneuver formations that cannot be formed over short periods of time,” the guide reads. “They are built on years of rigorous training, institutional expertise, and leadership.”

The Army’s ability to function despite enemy fire, particularly when it comes to logistics, is especially vital. This has become a significant issue throughout the Iran war, with strikes by the Islamic Republic on numerous U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf forcing American aircraft to rebase, and ships to sail thousands of miles to seek replenishment.

The Endurance aspect of HTAF involves protecting supply depots, medical facilities and vital infrastructure against enemies that have built anti-access/area denial, or A2/AD, capabilities to keep American forces at bay.

“This requirement is even more pronounced today: the absence of sanctuary across any theater of operations underscores the critical necessity of interior lines,” the guide states.

This also means ensuring that supplies can reach troops on the front lines.

“To achieve Endurance and sustain dispersed forces in contested environments, the Army must operationalize autonomous ground, aerial, and littoral distribution platforms to scale throughput while minimizing human exposure in high-threat corridors.”

Significantly, HTAF stresses the need for the Army to forward-deploy capabilities close to potential combat zones to enable troops to act immediately rather than await reinforcements from the U.S.

“Near-term priorities include constructing bulk fuel and munitions storage, stockpiling supplies, improving contingency sites, and establishing an enduring command-and-control architecture to neutralize the pacing threat’s A2/AD networks,” according to the guide.

HTAF also envisions troops making and fixing their own equipment at the forward edge, including “additive manufacturing and secured ‘right-to-repair’ authorities” that will spare the need to transport items from factories and depots thousands of miles away.

The document points to the importance of the Army’s plan to expand and modernize its organic industrial base: the 23 government depots, arsenals and ammunition plants that produce many crucial items.

“This ‘agile facilitation construct’ will allow production of numerous different finished products and repairs, evolving beyond historical ‘one plant, one output’ industrial models,” the guide states.

Similarly, the contractors in the U.S. defense industrial base must be prepared to surge production if needed.

“The industrial base must develop rapid replenishment solutions rather than relying on peacetime schedules,” the guide says.

Still, HTAF takes care to laud the human component.

“At the center of our operational elements remains the individual soldier. Advanced technology, uncrewed systems, and autonomous networks optimize kill webs, yet they can never replace the human judgment, tactical discipline, and physical courage of the soldiers executing the fight in the mud.”

Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, the deputy prime minister and defense minister of the Netherlands, highlighted the Dutch defense sector’s ties with Ukraine in the field of drones.

“Our armed forces are really training, as we speak, every day with the knowledge the Ukrainians have, because … they have the most innovative Army in Europe,” Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said on Oct. 12. “And what we are doing at the same time … is investing in our own defense industry. Because it was also, of course, due to a lack of spending, not that strong anymore. And in Europe we have that issue.”

Meanwhile, while investing in drone and counter-drone systems, NATO allies bordering Russia are also procuring heavy gear for their land forces and seeking to secure a significant share of manufacturing work for their domestic defense industries.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas told Defense News at the forum that the country’s planned acquisition of six-wheel-drive armored personnel carriers from Finland’s Patria is an example of how allies can work together on major purchases for their land forces. The vehicles are to support the Baltic state’s National Division, its main combat unit.

“One of our intentions is not only to assemble, but also be involved in the R&D process,” Kaunas said. “The National Division is important because, together with our allies, including the United States, Germany, Poland, we can block our adversaries near the front line, near our borders, and then, of course, use drones, modern types of weapons to break them.”

Kaunas said that combining the two categories of military assets is crucial, as demonstrated in Ukraine.

“Ukraine adapted tanks with additional defense anti-drone capabilities and used them as a great source of protection for their soldiers, pushing Russians back near the front lines,” the Lithuanian minister said.

Dovilė Šakalienė, a Lithuanian lawmaker and the country’s former National Defence Minister, told Defense News that European allies must sign “smart contracts” that reflect the rapidly changing battlefield reality in Ukraine, as exemplified by Lithuania’s 2024 deal to buy 44 Leopard 2A8 tanks for the country’s military, which she signed while in office.

“We need to sign smart contracts which give us the delivery of the newest technology,” Šakalienė said. “In the Leopard agreement, we also included in a very clear way a condition that the newest version of anti-drone defense systems is going to be included. Not the ones which would be ready in 2024, but the ones that will be ready at the time of the assembly of these tanks. For the development of such technology, three years is eternity.”

Despite European nations’ rapid expansion of drone procurement, allies should continue to invest in heavy equipment such as tanks and armored vehicles for their land forces, Šakalienė said.

“Massive land maneuvers cannot be completed only with drones,” she added.

Meanwhile, as Poland, the forum’s host, is making efforts to increasingly shift from the role of a buyer of foreign military gear to exporter of such goods, foreign defense groups competing for major orders are investing to expand their manufacturing footholds in the country. For U.S. companies, Poland’s drive to expand its domestic production capacities comes as many industry players are already planning to boost their capabilities in the country.

“One of the things I can say about Poland is that the workforce here is exceptional. We’ve already got 1,000 employees here in Poland. And we’re looking to have much more than that,” Vince Logsdon, vice president for international business development at Boeing Defense Space and Security, told Defense News.

Building on the 2024 deal to sell 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters to Poland under a deal worth around $10 billion, the producer is now offering its CH-47 Chinook aircraft to the country’s armed forces, pitching it as a complementary platform to the Apaches that can support troop movements and battlefield logistics.

“The Chinook is our offering, it has proven itself throughout the world as a vertical lift, heavy lift helicopter. It has lots of operators throughout the world, and one of the things I have seen with our CH-47 offering is that most operators that acquire the Apache, they ultimately also acquire the CH-47,” Logsdon said. “It’s a perfect combination in terms of extending the battle space for the Apache.

According to the company, the new vehicle, also called the “Kaaiman,” was derived from the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV, and adapted for the Netherlands Ministry of Defence.

At the 2026 AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition, Pat Williams, the company’s chief program officer, described the “production” as “an important step in delivering next-generation capability to the Netherlands.”

Compared to a standard JLTV, the DXPV has been enhanced for mobility, corrosion protection, mission systems and suspension for increased off-road performance.

“Just as importantly, it demonstrates the strength of an active production base and our ability to continuously evolve proven vehicle technologies to address the changing needs of our customers and their missions,” Williams said.

Beyond the DXPV prototype, Oshkosh officials at the show are emphasizing the company’s renewed approach toward “rapidly delivering mission-ready solutions.” The company added that it has delivered more than 200,000 tactical wheeled vehicles to U.S. and allied forces.

The Oshkosh AUSA booth also featured other platforms like its Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle A2 Low-Velocity Air Drop, or FMTV A2 LVAD, and the hybrid electric JLTV, or simply eJLTV.

With that, Williams added that “production readiness matters,” referring to how quickly Oshkosh was able to develop the DXPV. The Dutch MoD signed an agreement with Oshkosh for the vehicles last summer and then placed an order valued between $25 and $30 million in January.

“Because we’re building on a mature platform from an active production line, we can move from concept to prototype much faster than traditional vehicle development,” Williams said.

The Panama course, back after a decades-long hiatus, resumed in 2025 as the U.S. military shifted its focus to the Western Hemisphere. In August, the Army confirmed it had approved the small arch-shaped patch — emblazoned with the word “Jungle” — for service-wide wear on the left shoulder. It joins the Special Forces, Sapper and Ranger tabs as wearable markers of additional skill identifiers.

Those who attended the course from 1990 to 1999 at Fort Sherman, now known as Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, are authorized the tab retroactively, as well as those who attended the 12-day jungle school in Oahu, Hawaii, after Fort Sherman’s closure.

The 18-day course includes classes on flora, fauna, machetes, jungle first aid, fire-starting, shelter-building, and more, but showing up and trudging through muddy terrain in crippling Panama humidity is not enough to earn the tab.

“There’s a difference between graduating the course with the tab and finishing the course,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Eagan, the officer in charge of the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama, or JOTC-P.

Even if students fail one part of the curriculum, as long as their failure presents no medical or safety issues, they must finish the course.

“We direct that you will come and you will do the X number of days of training. There are then five critical tasks across the course that you have to pass in order to graduate with the tab,” Eagen said.

Combat Water Survival Assessment and 5K

Early in the course, participants face physical fitness tests.

The Combat Water Survival Assessment, or CWSA, requires participants to complete a variety of survival tasks in the water, including swimming in combat gear, ditching their equipment and dropping from a meters-high diving board.

The 5-kilometer run — only 3.1 miles — has proven one of the course’s toughest obstacles for many jungle school candidates. While a 5k might sound like an easy morning workout for most soldiers, the Panama 5k route covers uneven terrain underneath dense, humid canopy. Service members have 40 minutes to complete the run outfitted with full canteens, gear, a rifle and boots. Eagen said the schoolhouse saw a pass rate of 45% to 55% in the first three iterations.

Now that word is spreading about the route, the pass rate is improving. More than 80% of candidates are passing it now, Eagen said. “They’re not undervaluing the difference between 5k here and 5k at the Fort Benning course,” he mused.

Master Sgt. Dale Taylor, a former Ranger School instructor who attended the course in September, said that people approach the run mistakenly thinking it will be a Thanksgiving Day turkey trot. “It’s nothing alike,” he told Military Times from a mosquito-infested bench at the jungle school. “Never in any other assessment in the military do you know for a fact that you will walk a portion of the run,” he said, alluding to the heat, humidity and steep hills. Only “a handful of people,” he said, “could have ran that course from start to finish.”

Knots and Rope Systems

Jungle school students must also pass individual tests on knots and rope systems. Seven knots are tested, Eagan said, and they are used throughout the course. One example is the bowline knot service members tie around their chests to secure themselves on a one-rope bridge across water.

On a sunny practice day after minimal rain, the knots felt like an added step in an already tiresome water squad crossing. But participants know things can change quickly in the jungle: That gentle, bubbling creek could become a rushing waterway after a storm.

Jungle school students must also qualify independently on rope systems.

“You have to pass rope systems, which is individually being able — in a time standard — to tie a one-rope bridge and the Z-pulley system,” Eagen said. A Z-pulley system, he added, can move a dead or injured soldier in unforgiving terrain that does not lend itself to easy casualty evacuation.

The Green Mile

Water movements, traversing uneven terrain and ropes are all part of the final crucible participants must complete to earn a Jungle tab. The notorious Green Mile — in the heart of Panama’s “Green Hell” — is a more-than-four-mile gauntlet at the end of a days-long field training exercise that separates damp, dirty students from graduation.

Squads must run through muddy ground, wade through coastlines, climb dizzyingly steep hills — often with the help of ropes — carry a hasty litter and shimmy under barbed wire, all while carrying heavy rucksacks, water jugs and ammo cans.

Movements that might have been easy, even enjoyable, with a full night’s sleep and a cool temperature turn into damp, arduous slogs in the jungle. By the time the squads are stepping off for their final tasks, each person is running on minimal food and sleep. The hours-long trek reflects the course’s demanding nature and relentless bodily strain.

“The biggest difference between a student on day one and the last day is the physical toll the environment took on them,” Eagen said, adding, “[I] haven’t yet seen a student that didn’t lose double digits in weight. They are excessively skinny by graduation.”

The soldiers, drawn from across the force, voluntarily applied and were selected to reclassify as MOS 40D Tactical Space Operations Specialists, the Army said.

“We had nearly 3,000 soldiers apply, and selected over 600 of the most capable, professional soldiers in the Army,” Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson, command sergeant major of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in the release. “We drew talent from Military Intelligence, Air Defense Artillery and the Signal Corps, but the 40D MOS is open for anyone to apply.

“Ultimately, we are looking for soldiers who master their current jobs and consistently stand apart from their peers.”

The Army announced in January that it was opening applications for the specialty to soldiers in grades E-4 through E-9 across the active-duty Army, National Guard and Army Reserve.

Previously, the service temporarily pulled soldiers from other specialties to help with space operations. However, the soldiers’ experience was often lost when they returned to their original branches.

“For too long, enlisted soldiers with specialized space training and experience rotated through critical space assignments, eventually returning to their basic branches,” Lt. Gen. John L. Rafferty, commanding general of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in a separate release. “The rotational system served the U.S. Army well in the past but will not meet the demands of the future, which requires a professional and sustainable approach to training, career progression and leader development for Army Space soldiers.

The Army’s Space Operations Branch was officially established in June, bringing together the newly-created enlisted occupational specialty and functional area 40As, the Army’s Space Operations Officers. Though 40As have been part of the force since 1999, they have not had enlisted peers until now.

The newly minted Tactical Space Operations Specialists will receive training at the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“Our space operations soldiers bring unmatched value to the Army and joint force because of the education and training they receive to execute space integration and interdiction missions — specifically counter-SATCOM, stratospheric warfare, navigation warfare and counter-sensing,” Col. Felix Torres, commandant of the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, said in the release.

Space systems, the Army said, help soldiers with navigation, weather, communication and early warnings.

Soldiers in the 1st Space Brigade, the Army’s only singularly-focused space unit, have theater missile warning capabilities and long-distance satellite communications, for example.

Despite massive technological shifts, that paradigm still holds, which is why the U.S. Army and Navy have teamed up to keep systems operational — even in the extreme cold of the Arctic.

As the Department of Defense eyes greater operability in the far north, these low temperatures can wreak havoc on equipment and machinery (and toilets), with ice becoming enemy No. 1.

Which is why the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center, or NAVFAC EXWC, and the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, or CRREL, began working with both branches to field a rapidly deployable Triple Container rigid-wall shelter system usable in temperatures as low as -50 degrees Fahrenheit.

The already fielded version can operate in temperatures as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit. The team focused on different configurations of thermal wrappings, insulation and other components to ensure that parts of the kit’s components that are particularly vulnerable to cracking and freezing — hoses, valves, bladders and pumps — were able to withstand the greater threshold for cold, according to a recent Army release.

The result, per the release, far exceeded the objectives, with the TRICON-based system staying operational down to -65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Testing took place in CRREL’s New Hampshire-based Extreme Cold Chamber, a 288-square-foot cold room capable of reaching temperatures as low as -90 degrees Fahrenheit, per the release. While military units typically have to wait until the Alaskan winter reaches its peak to simulate similar conditions, the controlled environment allowed the research team to create conditions similar to those of the real world.

“Our armed forces live and operate in extremely cold and difficult conditions, so having these facilities operational is important for their physical and mental health while serving in the Arctic and other high-north environments,” said Dr. Dan Tague, a research chemist at CRREL, one of seven U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center laboratories.

In 2024, the DoD released its “Arctic Strategy,” citing “Major geopolitical changes are driving the need for this new strategic approach to the Arctic, including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the accession of Finland and Sweden to the NATO Alliance, increasing collaboration between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, and the accelerating impacts of climate change.”

The region, according to the report, had become “a venue for strategic competition,” and a space where the United States intends to build a more persistent presence.

The latest successes with TRICORN-based systems provide, beyond the obvious comforts for personnel stationed in the Arctic — Toilets! Laundry! Showers! — an expanded operational footprint for the U.S. military as a whole, according to James Pilkington, a project manager in NAVFAC EXWC Expeditionary Technical Department.

“This extends the operational range of base camps in terms of geographic locations and durations,” said Pilkington. “In turn [it] extend[s] force posture.”

The test, or Neurocognitive Assessment Tool, is computer-based and records neurological activity, such as attention, concentration, reaction time, memory, processing speed and decision-making. Testing started in 2024 in response to reports about the effects that routine weapons training can have on the brain, including traumatic brain injury.

Active-duty, National Guard and Reserve soldiers in high-risk military occupational specialties, including combat engineers and explosive ordnance technicians, as well as troops operating heavy weapons systems, must take the assessment every year, starting soon after they enlist. All other soldiers are required to test every three years.

Medical professionals use the data to monitor service members’ cognitive health throughout their military careers, allowing them to spot significant changes, including potential brain injuries.

“[The NCAT] is an important part of taking care of soldiers, but what this does is, it sets a baseline for reaction times and for memory,” Jordan Gillis, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said in a release. “By establishing a baseline for all soldiers, we’re able to monitor brain health, as well as … let medical providers help with treatment, if required.”

According to the Sept. 30 release, the Army is expected to publish a directive about the Neurocognitive Assessment Tool and a broader overpressure program, which includes hazard assessment, exposure tracking, risk mitigation, cognitive monitoring, information management, illness and injury reporting and training and education.

“The takeaway is we are trying to take care of soldiers and monitor their health,” Gillis said. “And if there is an impact, we’ll be able to treat them.”

Reaching the milestone of 97% of soldiers being tested on the NCAT “demonstrates our commitment to cognitive safety, medical readiness and warfighting capability,” Gillis added.

The announcement of the milestone came just one month after the Government Accountability Office released the findings of its investigation into the ability of military services to provide the baseline cognitive assessments. Across the services, the Defense Department is hampered by staff shortages and a lack of technology needed to conduct the assessments, the GAO found.

The Pentagon announced in April that it will begin a one-year pilot program to test a new cognitive assessment tool, an app that service members can use to complete assessments. DoD officials said the app will be less resource-intensive than current assessments and will help improve the services’ ability to track exposures.

But according to the head of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, the new soldiers struggled to hold up their end of the deal.

The service’s decades-old Hometown Recruiter Assistance Program has been suspended, Lt. Gen. Johnny Davis confirmed at a forum hosted by the Association of the United States Army.

And while he said it’s being “looked at” for possible next steps, he also described the built-in problems keeping the service from getting its money’s worth.

“I would tell you, when the program was initiated and really delivered to the Army years ago and executed, that we had some good return on investment — about, you know, one or two percent,” Davis said in response to a question at the forum.

“But, bottom line, what we’ve learned over the years is that 20, 30,000 young superstars, when they were headed back home, were good; they got to go home,” he added. “But they weren’t really working with the recruiters as much as we wanted them to.”

Davis said leaders understood the “human element” of what was happening, in that new graduates were eager to reconnect with family and friends in what amounted to additional uncharged leave. But, he added, the Army had to consider what it was getting out of the arrangement.

Likewise, he said, the Army has in the past allowed National Guard and Reserve soldiers to return home for non-charged leave during the holiday break known as the Christmas Exodus on the understanding that they would support Army recruiting as ambassadors during that time.

“During that Christmas holiday, was there a lot of recruiters in the recruiting stations working with them? No,” Davis said. “So we’re really thinking through: is this return on investment, and is it worth the cost to the Army? Or can we take those funds and spend them in other ways to help our men and women.”

Davis said leaders were now “looking at other ways” to help soldiers get coveted hometown leave apart from the hometown recruiting program.

Army recruiting social media pages began discussing the suspension of the Hometown Recruiter Assistance Program in January, though the service has not publicly addressed the move until now.

HRAP dates to the 1980s. In its most recent form, soldiers had to be selected and approved for the program by a company commander.

In a 2022 Army news release, a recruiting center station commander in Missouri, Staff Sgt. Colton Dunbar, said the success of the program came down to “how the soldiers are leveraged.”

“We try to get the most out of them while they’re here by bringing them to the high school where they graduated and their communities to show everyone that this person was in your community six months ago as a civilian, but look at them now,” he said in the release. ”It helps to break down any barriers because they know that person in uniform — it helps show we are people just like everybody else.”

But from early on in the program, a lack of success metrics and specific service requirements have limited HRAP’s success.

A 1983 study from the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences found that it was hard to evaluate the usefulness of program participants, because it was hard to track their impact outside of foot traffic to the recruiting office.

It also suggested, though, that there were nevertheless non-quantifiable benefits to having new soldiers present and visible in their hometown.

“Aides are credited for individuals they brought to the recruiter who subsequently enlist, but the total effect of the aide’s efforts is more subtle than the sum of their recruits,” the study found. “For example, aides can ‘plant seeds’ or lay the groundwork months in advance of an enlistment decision and receive no credit for an enlistment that occurs months after his or her departure.”

The Army hasn’t said when it will make final decisions on the way forward for HRAP.

Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve said that the Futures and Concepts Command has been redesignated as U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. The change comes as the Army aligns its weapons purchases, force structure and training around new “How the Army Fights” guidance, which was published last week and explains how the service intends to wield land power in future wars.

“We are not walking away from modernization,” LaNeve said, addressing the industry partners directly at one point in his speech. “We are sprinting towards, it,” he said, adding “and we are doing so responsibly with a recognition that resources are not endless.”

LaNeve has charged FASCOM with developing corps-level autonomous capabilities through experimentation and testing.

According to a Tuesday release, the three-star command will have “capability-based formations centered on autonomous long-range fires, protection, tanks, logistics and obstacle breaching,” and will include some of the Army’s first 390A Robotic Technicians, which were activated this month.

The Army said it chose those capabilities based on their ability to affect maneuver and their alignment to the “four elements” of land power outlined in last week’s guidance: convergence, strike, close battle and endurance.

“This goes beyond drones,” LaNeve said in the release, “FASCOM will pioneer operational concepts that harness autonomous capabilities across all warfighting functions.”

The Army has come under fire recently after shuttering its experimental drone battalion in Europe less than a year after launching the novel unit to test how such a formation could operate. According to The Wall Street Journal, the decision to end the experiment — the brainchild of LeNeve’s predecessor, Randy George — came as part of LeNeve’s broad “back-to-basics” approach.

In September, a bipartisan group of lawmakers signed a letter expressing concern about eliminating the 600-member “Unmanned Assault Battalion,” which was created as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The legislators questioned how the U.S. would continue to learn drone warfare from Ukraine.

In a September media roundtable, Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, the acting Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, said the future of the U.S. Army’s drone warfare is spread across formations, not condensed into one unit.

“In Ukraine and Russia you’ve seen those armies create brigades and entire unmanned systems forces, whereas the U.S. Army’s approach has been to decentralize; to accelerate learning across all units,” he said, adding that the Army is aiming to push one-way attack drones to the squad level in the near future.

During Project Sandhills 2.0, soldiers planned flight routes and operated Bumblebee V2 small unmanned aircraft systems at Range 63.

The project tested how unmanned systems could support contested obstacle breaching, while soldiers and industry partners collected feedback to inform future Army capabilities.

The Army said the effort included autonomous trucks, robotic breaching payloads, drone swarms, mine detection and counter-UAS tools operating on the same problem.

A counter-UAS turret used a human-authorized effector, underscoring that autonomy did not mean removing people from critical decisions. Human decision-making remains central to the Army’s approach.

The experiment illustrates the larger question raised by retired Army Col. Dave Rowland and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Brian Hester in a Sept. 29 Modern War Institute analysis: Autonomy becomes consequential not when the Army adds an individual robotic system, but when it has enough autonomous systems, performing enough missions, to change how an entire brigade fights.

That difference becomes more consequential as autonomous systems are integrated across a battlefield shaped by drones, sensors, electronic warfare and precision fires.

Rowland and Hester argue that persistent observation and long-range fires make large formations easier to find and attack, threatening the maneuver that allows combined-arms forces to concentrate combat power.

They envision autonomous systems moving ahead of manned formations to identify enemy positions, obstacles and usable routes. Other systems could provide counter-drone, electronic-warfare, sensing or deception capabilities, while autonomous platforms could move supplies through exposed areas.

Beyond experimentation

The Army is moving beyond experimentation into acquisition and organizational changes, with its fiscal 2026 budget justification including an “Autonomy Formation” effort intended to accelerate robotics for armored and infantry formations.

In July, the Army selected four companies for its Engineer Autonomous Breaching Capability program, which calls for prototypes capable of breaching complex obstacles and minefields under direct observation and fire using beyond-line-of-sight autonomous control. An assessment of the unit is planned for early 2027.

On Oct. 1, Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle signed a memorandum directing the establishment of the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. The Army announced the move Oct. 2, saying the command will integrate autonomous capabilities into aviation, armor, fires, sustainment, engineer and training formations.

It will also prioritize autonomous fires, combat vehicles, watercraft resupply, breaching, reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition, and crewed-uncrewed teaming for acquisition and fielding by fiscal 2028.

But the Army’s own research shows why turning that ambition into battlefield capability won’t be simple.

In a Sept. 30 Army Research Laboratory study, 13 soldiers operated a mixed air-ground formation during a two-week simulation. The formation included a manned control vehicle, two robotic combat vehicles, a Future Vertical Lift platform and shared launched effects, operating against a human-controlled opposing force under contested conditions.

Researchers found that the formation adapted rapidly, developed effective coordination patterns and maintained stable subjective workload as mission complexity increased. The findings suggest that air-ground teaming was feasible under the conditions tested and that soldiers could integrate autonomous capabilities without an unsustainable cognitive burden.

However, the study did not demonstrate autonomous maneuver by an operational brigade. It tested a specific human-machine formation in a simulation under defined conditions.

Another Army Research Laboratory study examining autonomous reconnaissance and screening identified soldier-robot trust, communications, shared understanding and cognitive load as areas requiring further research. Those issues become especially important when communications are degraded or denied.

That is where Rowland and Hester envision a fundamental change in command.

A brigade cannot scale autonomy if every unmanned vehicle requires a soldier continuously controlling it. The retired Army leaders describe a progression from operating individual systems, to supervising multiple systems, to coordinating mixed manned-unmanned teams and eventually commanding autonomous formations through mission command.

Ukraine offers evidence of what unmanned systems can already do, but also a warning against overstating the technology.

Rowland and Hester point to Ukrainian use of unmanned ground systems for logistics and casualty evacuation while noting that most remain remotely operated or have only limited autonomy. Their use demonstrates the value of shifting dangerous work from people to machines; it does not establish that fully autonomous formations are ready for combat.

Acquisition isn’t the only issue

The Army faces a problem bigger than acquiring machines alone. It must determine how many systems formations can absorb, how soldiers should supervise them, how networks can support them under attack and what happens when a machine encounters circumstances its programming does not anticipate.

Rowland and Hester argue the Army should learn those lessons before the technology is perfected. They call for brigades to train with meaningful quantities of autonomous systems at home stations, identify failures and refine tactics before those systems reach combat training centers.

The Army is now aligning its organizations, acquisition efforts and training around that broader push. The unresolved question is whether those efforts can produce something more difficult than a successful demonstration: a repeatable way for a brigade to see, survive, sustain and maneuver when an adversary is actively disrupting its communications and attacking its forces.

The service expects to soon make a decision in light of a wide-ranging review of its prepositioned stocks “within the next calendar year,” Maj. Gen. Gavin Lawrence, deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Materiel Command, told Military Times in an interview.

The review, called TAP2E, Total Army Power Projection Equipment, aims to assess the laydown of the Army’s forward-deployed and stored gear, including weapons and large vehicles, that can be activated and distributed rapidly if conflict needs arise.

The effort continues through 2032, according to a recently published Army strategy, and will cost $702 million in the next year, per Army budget documents.

“Strategically placing TAP2E in key theaters, such as the Indo-Pacific and Europe, shortens deployment timelines and demonstrates a credible commitment to allies, underpinning the nation’s integrated deterrence posture,” a budget overview for Fiscal Year 2027 states.

The Army has at least seven publicly identified stockpiles, according to a 2024 congressional report. They include two in North America; two in Asia; one afloat; and two in Europe.

The Army’s budget proposal calls for an eighth stockpile in the southwest Indo-Pacific and increases to “comprehensive maintenance and care” funding for the existing prepositioned stock focused on Europe.

“Together, these TAP2E investments ensure that forward-positioned assets are maintained at the highest state of readiness, providing a tangible deterrent to adversaries and a rapid response capability for the Joint Force,” the proposal states.

According to Lawrence, the work continues.

“Is it located in the right places? Do we have the right equipment in the right quantities to support preposition of materiel?” Lawrence said. “That’s critically important, right, as you look at our ability to support and prosecute operations in a contested environment, and so we’re in the process of doing that in lockstep with [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] as they make posture decisions. So we are supporting and prioritizing where we’re putting materiel accordingly.”

Last year, the then-commander of Army 8th Theater Sustainment Command, Maj. Gen. Gavin Gardner, outlined some changes that had already been identified, such as stashing less equipment on ships through the program called APS afloat and moving one new set of equipment to the Pacific in light of an increased focus on that region.

Lawrence added that another change in motion was increased reliance on Joint Theater Distribution Centers, or stockpile sites that hold more expendable gear such as medical supplies.

“We’re working hand-in-hand with the combatant commands to identify where those need to be and provide materiel according to those requirements,” he said. He declined to say how many sites had already been set up or what the total number might be.

In June, the Air Force’s Air University compiled a number of proposals dating to 2023 about how to improve Army Prepositioned Stocks for future conflict. Among them were moving maintenance and reset facilities for APS afloat stocks from stateside locations to regions in the Pacific — where the vessels are tethered — and moving prepositioned gear from concentrated “iron mountain” storage locations to smaller and more distributed caches that are harder for an enemy to target.

Lawrence emphasized that the Army was “in lockstep” with the Pentagon in carrying out changes to prepositioning stocks and “awaiting some additional guidance” from OSW before making concrete changes.

An Oct. 1 memo signed by Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle directs the Army vice chief of staff to establish the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. It also tells the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, who oversees how the Army buys weapons, to put one office in charge of purchasing its priority autonomous systems. Telle wrote that he issued the memo under guidance from Hegseth’s Sept. 30 State of the Force address.

The memo does not say who will lead FASCOM, where it will be based or when it will be established. “Specifics on structure, command, mission, etc. will be announced at a future date,” Col. Marty Meiners, an Army spokesperson, told Defense News.

The new acquisition office, a Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Autonomy, would have single authority over buying the Army’s priority autonomous systems. The Army reorganized its weapons buying last year under six portfolio acquisition executives, each overseeing a group of related programs. This would add another for autonomy.

The memo also directs the assistant secretary to prioritize buying and fielding several types of autonomous systems no later than fiscal 2028. The list includes fires, the Army’s term for artillery, rockets and missiles; combat vehicles; watercraft resupply; breaching systems that clear obstacles such as minefields; reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition systems; and drones and robots working alongside crewed vehicles and aircraft.

The Army said in its release that the memo’s initiatives build on work already underway, including an office set up earlier this year to work autonomous technology into weapons programs across the Army. Neither the memo nor the release says whether that office, the Capability Program Executive Office for Mission Autonomy, will move under the new acquisition office.

The memo tasks the Army staff’s force management office, which shapes how units are organized and equipped, with quickly working out how to fit autonomous systems into at least six existing types of units: aviation, armor, fires, sustainment, engineer and training.

It also tells the assistant secretary of the Army who oversees manpower and personnel policy to add drone and robotics specialist positions to all applicable Army units.

Both specialties already exist: the 15X tactical unmanned aircraft systems specialist for enlisted soldiers, and the 390A robotics technician for warrant officers.

“The Army is rapidly advancing to maintain our lethal edge,” Telle said in a statement released by the Army. “We are forging the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command to get cutting-edge technology into the hands of soldiers, while prioritizing autonomy in our formations, our acquisitions, and our training to dominate the future of warfare.”

Hegseth announced the Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom, during his Sept. 30 State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Military Times reported. He said the command would have service-like authorities to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the military.

Hegseth’s own memo, “Project Agincourt: Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command,” signed the same day as his address, puts the Pentagon’s unmanned systems office in charge of Project Agincourt, an effort to lay the groundwork for AutoWarCom.

Hegseth said in his address that the project is named for the 1415 battle in which an outnumbered English army used the longbow to defeat a larger, heavily armored French force. The memo argues that cheap, precise weapons built at massive scale now threaten the expensive aircraft, ships and vehicles the military has long relied on.

The Agincourt memo describes AutoWarCom as a four-star functional combatant command, a headquarters organized around a mission rather than a region, like U.S. Cyber Command. It says the command would have dedicated manpower, budget and authority to buy equipment.

Powers like those require an act of Congress, which gave U.S. Special Operations Command a similar setup when it was created in 1987. The memo directs the unmanned systems office to work with Congress on the needed legislation, with a goal of establishing AutoWarCom by Oct. 1, 2027.

The Agincourt memo says AutoWarCom will “define joint needs and integrate Service-provided forces in support of geographic combatant commanders,” the four-star officers who lead U.S. forces in regions such as the Middle East and the Pacific. A plan due by Oct. 30 is to lay out command relationships and what forces each service will contribute. Telle’s memo does not say how FASCOM will fit into that structure.

The new command’s name revives “Futures” a year after the Army inactivated Army Futures Command. In October 2025, the service merged Futures Command with Training and Doctrine Command to form the Army Transformation and Training Command, or T2COM, headquartered in Austin, Texas.

The memo does not address how FASCOM will relate to T2COM. A T2COM spokesperson referred questions about the new command to Army headquarters.

Asked how FASCOM will relate to T2COM and AutoWarCom and how the changes will be paid for, Meiners said the Army had no information to provide beyond its release.

American Rheinmetall, one of two defense companies chosen to develop replacements for the Army’s M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, announced in September the delivery of its Lynx XM30 prototype to the service. The Army conducted initial safety tests before allowing soldiers to join the trial-and-error phase.

“Now it’s in soldiers’ hands,” said Chris Haag, vice president of business development and strategy at Rheinmetall. “Seeing their eyes light up when they got to see the vehicle for the first time is pretty awesome.”

While Haag could not disclose where soldiers were along the tinkering process, he confirmed that service members were in possession of the vehicle and were at least able to hop inside and turn it on, beginning a new era for Army combat vehicles.

Rheinmetall is currently competing for the XM30 Army contract with General Dynamics Land Systems, which is unveiling its Wolf XM30 prototype at the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., from Oct. 12 to 14.

The Army selected the companies in 2023 for the design phase of a process that will eventually replace the Bradley, which arrived in the 1980s.

The Lynx XM30 is designed for modern combat environments riddled with drones and electronic warfare, like those seen in Ukraine.

The vehicle will wield a hybrid-electric powertrain and an uncrewed 50mm turret, providing more firepower than the Bradley, which boasts a 25mm M242 Bushmaster.

American Rheinmetall’s prototype likely wouldn’t differ from General Dynamics’ XM30 design when it came to physical architecture, Haag said, which meant the Lynx could differentiate itself from competition through aspects like power, engine, transmission and soldiers’ experience with user interface and operability in general.

The Army’s initial solicitation called for a new combat vehicle shaped by a modular, open architecture, which will allow it to undergo updates more swiftly than its predecessor.

For large modernization efforts, the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle may have to travel back to an Army or manufacturing facility to undergo overhauls or block upgrades, whereas the XM30 could potentially undergo software updates that revamp the system in a much shorter timeframe and require less geographical displacement.

The company will deliver seven more prototypes to the Army by the end of the year, all part of a nearly $764 million Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract to expand the XM30 from digital design through validation.

Regarding next steps, Haag said the Army will put the prototype through testing and evaluation with soldiers, driving it hundreds of miles to see what works and what doesn’t.

The service will then provide feedback to American Rheinmetall, at which point the company can incorporate those suggestions into updated designs that it will use to try to nail down a final contract.

Survival in Alaska’s vast wilderness, where any hint of complacency can indeed kill, presents a colossal difficulty. Training service members to fight in these environs is an undertaking even more daunting.

For the soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division, this task rests, ultimately, on the shoulders of Maj. Gen. John Cogbill and the capable leaders he advises.

And the commanding general of the Arctic Angels would not trade it for anything.

“We have a saying that everything breaks at 40 below,” Cogbill says when asked about these challenges.

Everything, except morale.

From the outside, the soldiers of the 11th Airborne appear to be built differently. But Cogbill insists that’s not the case.

Perhaps it’s the frigid air, wilderness that stretches beyond the horizon or a sky that unleashes snow without end, but troops reporting to Alaska for the first time often do so with “trepidation in their eyes,” he says.

“But when I see them six months later, after they’ve been through their cold-weather indoctrination course and gone out to the field, they realize their team leader, their squad leader, their platoon sergeant — they’re being taken care of,” he says.

“We’re not going to give them something they can’t handle. Then they start to build that trust in their leaders and trust in themselves. That’s when they truly become Arctic-tough.”

Achieving that rare brand of toughness requires both sound leadership and reliable equipment, Cogbill says. Nestled in a region that places the 11th Airborne at a crucial convergence of three combatant commands — U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Northern Command and U.S. European Command — a soldier’s ability to trust in both is the difference between success and failure.

Cogbill spoke to Military Times about what goes into earning that trust, and how a relentless pursuit of innovation is critical to keeping abreast of distant developments that would be reduced to ruin in the far North.

For the Arctic Angels, accounting for their surroundings is part of the fun.

“Winter is always coming in Alaska,” Cogbill says. “They embrace it.”

Editor’s note: Some answers have been edited for clarity.

MT: We’re watching the Arctic domain become increasingly vital, with threats evolving rapidly. How are developments in the region impacting how you’re preparing your soldiers?

Cogbill: The Department of War has an Arctic strategy for a reason. We can range any of these locations and be within 90% of the industrial world within nine hours.

Billy Mitchell, the father of the modern-day Air Force, said whoever owns Alaska owns the world. It’s a power projection platform in any of those directions — west of the International Date Line to the Indo-Pacific or over the pole to Europe.

Therefore, we have to be able to fight in different environments. But we optimize for the Arctic, because we’re the only Arctic division.

We have to have certain vehicles that no other unit has, such as the Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV), the workhorse for moving soldiers and equipment over snow.

We have to be proficient in skis and snowshoes. We have to be able to jump out of airplanes with this gear. We have to be able to do air assault missions with this kit and then sustain ourselves — not just survive, but fight and thrive.

You mentioned unique equipment. Today’s tech does not universally function in Arctic extremes. How are your troops innovating to overcome those challenges?

Drones are a hot topic right now, and it’s something that I’d say we’re catching up a little bit with the rest of the Army.

We’re not a Transformation-in-Contact division, which means we didn’t have an initial fielding of a large number of small- and medium-range drones. But continuous transformation is a mindset for the 11th Airborne Division, which means we’re learning and adapting quickly, and we’re also bootstrapping this effort by learning from other divisions in the Army and how they’ve utilized first-person-view drones, either for reconnaissance or for strike.

So, we are collaborating with these other divisions — like the 101st Airborne Division and the 25th Infantry Division — to get our own parts, stand up our own Arctic innovation labs and build similar systems.

The difference is, if we want to fly these drones in Alaska during our winter training exercise, the battery life will be about 1/20th of what it is in the Pacific. So, we’re trying to figure out ways to prolong battery life, to build drones that are more capable in high wind, high altitude and sub-freezing temperatures.

Something that works anywhere else in the world — we bring it up to Alaska, take it out to the field and put it through its paces.

If it doesn’t work, then we have innovation partners — academic partners at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, for instance — who we go to and say, “Hey, this is an engineering problem. What can you do to help us?”

They’ve got one of the best small UAS engineering programs in the entire world, because they live and operate in this environment.

So, we share as much as we can, learn from our peers and work closely with the modernization enterprise to pioneer some of these efforts.

When you’re seeking those solutions, what combat lessons can you learn from places like Ukraine or Iran, which may be inherently different environmentally?

There are certain things that just work differently in the Arctic. Mobility is harder, going from point A to point B. Sustainment is harder when you’re talking about moving things off-road through waist-deep snow. Battery life is shortened, which means you have to resupply more often. Water can’t be delivered in bulk. Fuel has to be delivered in cubed ice.

Those are all the logistical challenges. For the individual soldier, it’s about just being able to maneuver.

Common across all these operating environments are the need for decision dominance and for human-machine teaming.

So, we understand the importance of drones, which is why we’re catching up as fast as we can and working with the Army Materiel Command and SkyFoundry initiative to get as many of these drones as possible into the hands of our soldiers so they can operate in any environment.

For the decision dominance piece, it’s about being able to develop a common operating picture and a common intel picture at echelon.

Everywhere from the rifle squad up to the division and corps, all the way up to a combatant commander — where we can see the enemy, see ourselves and use all the sensors at our disposal to make decisions about how to strike most efficiently.

We’re using existing exercises and joint partners to pass targets through tactical data links to do machine-to-machine communication, gain and maintain custody of targets and increase our lethality as a division and warfighting headquarters.

When it comes to unmanned and AI integration, what is your command doing to ensure soldiers are critical thinkers who can inform sound decision-making?

It varies depending on the echelon of command. As the division commander, I’m responsible for every decision we make as a division, whether it’s in training or combat. If I make a decision to strike a target, I own that decision and the outcome.

A culture where commanders feel empowered also means a culture of accountability. Having commanders in the loop — although the machines and AI are evolving rapidly, the Army still expects us as commanders to use judgment and experience to make a call to strike or not strike.

You have to practice that. You have to get reps and sets, and do it through training as often as you can. So, we do exercises every 90 days to help us see the strengths and weaknesses of the algorithms, to code, to work with the engineers and our own operators.

We need to be able to program new strategies and develop agentic AI solutions for targeting that allow us to not only find optimal solutions for shortening kill chains, but also to be able to incorporate large language models in things like rules of engagement and lessons learned.

Anything that we’re doing in a training exercise can then be referenced using these large language models to make us better, to make my decisions faster, better, more informed and hopefully yield better outcomes.

Over the last few years, it is the speed of innovation that has been most staggering. How do you ensure the 11th Airborne is up to speed a year or five years from now?

With the proliferation of these machines — and not just at my level or the squad level, but throughout our formations — we have to train and rehearse this physically.

I mentioned digital targeting, but when you talk about the mechanics of lethal squads, platoons and company commanders who are trying to converge fire and maneuver, you have to put that into live-fire training.

Our brigades at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson recently went through nine company iterations of combined arms live fire. In every single one of those live fires, they were employing FPV drones in a strike capability and in a reconnaissance capability, while also trying to think, “Where would the enemy be attacking us right now? What is our counter-UAS posture?”

So, you’re adding another dimension to a company commander’s thought process as they try to make tactical decisions about how to assault an objective. Again, it’s getting those reps and sets. It becomes ingrained in them that there’s always a machine aspect.

So, maybe you’re a battalion commander, and you have to think, “Who can see me right now? Who can see this command post? How many tents do I have set up? What does that look like from above? What does it look like in the summer? What does it look like in the winter, when I’ve got a green tent on a snowy landscape?”

Or, if you’re one step ahead, maybe you set up a white tent, but then you have to consider, “What kind of EW signature am I emitting that can be picked up by a machine or a sensor? What does my heat signature look like? Because I’ve got all these bodies and machines cranking out processing power inside of a tent.”

So, how do you mitigate that? It requires constant thought about how we see the enemy, but also how the enemy sees us, and making sure that we can adapt and stay ahead.

That’s where I think those lessons learned from the battle labs in Ukraine, Operation Epic Fury and other places inform the way we train. That feedback loop has to be super fast, because we can’t be everywhere and do everything, but we can certainly learn from everywhere.

So, if we can use large language models to put all these lessons learned into a one-stop shop, it makes it a lot easier for us to access all that knowledge and incorporate it into how we train every single day.

You’re not just dealing with tech that needs to work, but a changing landscape as well. Impacts of climate change have opened up sea lanes. Chinese-Russian collaboration has surged as a result. How is the Army adapting to those changes?

We’re worldwide deployable and the Pentagon’s only Arctic division, but we could go anywhere.

We’re very aware of the collusion between adversaries and what that would mean to us. With environmental changes — you talked about sea lanes opening — there are also strategic choke points, and we’re seeing how important choke points can be — like the Strait of Hormuz or Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea.

We have the Bering Strait right off the coast of Alaska. And there are people in our neighborhood who don’t always have the best interests of the United States in mind.

So, how do we deter? That’s probably the most important thing we can do is deter an adversary from thinking, “Today’s the day that we’re going to go. We’re going to take a shot at the United States of America.”

You deter through forward presence. You deter through people who are trained, and you deter through capable partners that are able to prevail if it goes from competition to crisis to conflict.

That’s what we’re trying to build every day through Operation Pathways. As we train with our multinational partners, we need the ability to project power, to put ourselves astride some of those strategic choke points and be capable of holding adversaries at bay if they start to encroach on our national boundaries.

You mentioned that everything breaks at -40. But there is a certain love, among troops, in shared misery. How do your junior enlisted stay motivated?

We get our soldiers from the same basic training as anywhere else.

They may be coming from Hawaii. They may be coming from Fort Polk. But when they arrive in Alaska, they realize they have a job to do, and they are going to be expected to operate anywhere from -20 to -40, which was the range of temperatures during our last Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation in February.

That’s expected. That’s what our nation needs us to do. And they rise to the occasion.

My sergeant major and I use the ANGELS acronym to remind soldiers of our expectations of every paratrooper in the 11th Airborne Division as the Arctic Angels.

The A is for Arctic tough. Everybody, whether you’re a sustainer, a cyber warrior or an infantryman, has to be Arctic tough, and you’ve got to be able to operate in that environment.

The N means you’ve got to be able to fight at night. Night fighters have to own the night and maintain that advantage over our enemies.

The G represents being a great teammate, whether that’s inside of your team, squad, company, up to your higher headquarters or down to a subordinate unit. We demand that you be a great teammate.

The E represents being experts in the fundamentals — your PT, marksmanship, battle drills, medical training and mobility. This means a lot. Being part of the 11th Airborne Division means you’ve got to be able to jump out of a plane, air assault, move on snowshoes and skis, pull a sled — do all that’s expected.

The L is to be lethal. That’s why we exist — to close with and destroy the enemy anywhere in the world.

And then lastly, the S. We need soldiers to be standard bearers. Because if you violate a standard in the Arctic, people lose a finger, a hand, a leg or a life. It’s a natural risk to operate in this environment, so we need leaders who are very engaged, who know the standard, who uphold it and model it themselves. That builds trust in the organization.

There’s ultimately so much value in Arctic warfare expertise. Not only are we training Rangers, jump masters, air assault and repel masters, but these are people who have learned how to fight and not just survive, but thrive in these conditions.

And once you’ve served in Alaska, you kind of never want to leave. Most people come here a little bit nervous, but they leave kicking and screaming.

That expertise is only enhanced when working with other services and allies. The Marines this year announced an Alaska rotation, for instance. Do you anticipate more collaboration as the region receives greater focus?

We’re all about joint training opportunities and service interoperability. When we do our annual training exercise up there in the Yukon Training Area, we invite all of our multinational partners and all of our joint partners.

We’ll never fight alone. We’ll never fight as just an Army, and we’ll never fight as just the United States of America. We want everybody to come together.

There is plenty of training area in the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex. It’s two and a half times the size of the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California. So, imagine all that wild and wonderful wilderness out there with very permissive airspace and a lot of maneuver area.

So, the more the merrier for us, and those joint training opportunities help us see gaps and seams where maybe our machines are not talking. But we want to be able to seamlessly have a common operating picture and share a common intel picture on a single pane of glass.

You can’t know if you can do it well or not unless you train together on a regular basis, so we welcome that opportunity.

Part of maximizing training is budgeting for it. If you were going to pitch the importance of the Arctic to those who distribute those resources, what would you say?

With the budget, it’ll work out, and soldiers will find ways to train. PT is free, so if we have physically fit, Arctic-tough soldiers, then that’s what we’re going to be.

We can go out there and train in the elements and do all those things we’ve discussed, but I think the most important thing is that we have to be able to project this power. Alaska is far away from a lot, but it’s strategically located at the center of three combatant commands.

If you’re going to build an Arctic-capable lethal fighting force, you have to be able to get it to the fight, whether that’s in the Pacific, Europe, or anywhere else in the world.

When I served in Alaska 25 years ago, we had an airborne battalion task force, but now we have an entire division that’s airborne and air assault capable. And we have these cold-weather all-terrain vehicles. We have all of the kit that the Army has invested in.

How do you get it to the fight? That’s infrastructure, that’s power projection, that’s joint interoperability with the Air Force to make sure we can get there. That’s understanding the sea lines of communication that you brought up earlier, so we can float those things and get it there fast enough.

That goes to our ready-forward concept with Operation Pathways. Not only do we train with multinational partners to build that interoperability and trust, but we also train in those locations to be west of the International Date Line with soldiers and equipment.

So, if we need to do something somewhere in the Pacific, we’re already there with our gear. That really shortens the commute time, if you will.

It’s critically important that we maintain that capability.

The team attempted to return fire as they pulled back from a harrowing effort to target a cartel leader. Fajardo, then early into his military career, felt his adrenaline surge as he realized the team had been unsuccessful: A bullet had torn through the flesh of his friend.

Over a decade later, with the early autumn sun sinking over Panamanian base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, the 47-year-old, now a first sergeant, recounted the ordeal. His friend survived, but the horror changed Fajardo’s life.

The brush with death, he said, fueled him to learn as much as he could, militarily, and eventually led him to become an instructor at the U.S. Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama.

The class, offered for decades in the Central American nation before it was shuttered in 1999, has resumed in partnership between U.S. and Panamanian forces, with Panamanian service members teaching and attending the 18-day course.

As Panama’s troops have trained, lived — and in some cases, fought — in such environments, they are largely seen by U.S. personnel as the ultimate masters of the terrain.

Lt. Col. Andrew Eagen, who heads the U.S. Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, said that as U.S. forces developed the course, they became quickly attuned to the deft tactics their Panamanian counterparts had developed for survival.

“They are the experts of this environment. We will never catch up,” he told Military Times in a mosquito-riddled interview at the jungle school.

“This does not exist in the continental United States,” he said, gesturing to the lush canopy, which was twinkling with the day’s last glimmers of sun and abuzz with the evening hum of jungle creatures. “We do not have an exposure to it. They do, and they have incredible techniques and an incredible level of comfort that the average American [does not].”

Fajardo is one of nine Panamanian instructors — from three branches of the country’s armed forces — who teach at the reestablished school.

The instructors assist in some parts of the course, but lead in areas where students learn about jungle survival, Eagen said.

In addition to the leading group, more than 10 Panamanian service members attended the course in which Military Times took part, according to Eagen.

Throughout each exercise, Panamanian troops sat interspersed with U.S. personnel and were placed in squads with a Spanish-speaking U.S. participant for course assignments.

Though the language barrier admittedly made some tactical movements difficult, U.S. personnel seemingly learned just from observing their Panamanian counterparts.

During one practical exercise, one squad had to hide in the jungle, cover their tracks to erase any disturbance to the foliage, and position themselves so they would be alerted to any incoming intruders.

The other squad’s job was to hunt down the hiding squad using tracking clues, the activity forming a tense game of tactical hide-and-seek.

The hunters ultimately won, thanks to one Panamanian squadmate who spotted a tiny vine that appeared slightly too parallel to the ground.

One rule of the jungle? Nothing is a straight line. The Panamanian student correctly identified the trailing plant, hovering inches above the muddy ground, as a hasty trip wire. Made using a vine and a piece of trash, it would have alerted the hiding squad to the hunters’ presence.

When the two groups gathered to discuss the interaction, the lanewalker found that the Panamanian student in the other squad had set up the tripwire; a particularly impressive development, considering a tripwire class was scheduled for later in the day.

During that class, an American instructor showed students how to create different forms of tripwires that could act as early warning systems. Some set off rattling cans. Others used fauna.

Before letting students practice, the instructor shared stories from Panamanian cadres who once operated in the Darién Gap, a roadless land bridge of brutally dense, remote jungle that spans 60-plus miles between Panama and Colombia and has been notoriously rife with human and drug trafficking.

Trip wires there are not historical relics of warfare from decades ago, the instructor said. Cartel members are using them now.

Several instructors, including Fajardo, have attended Panama’s own jungle school, called Panajungla.

Fajardo shook his head and shivered as he recounted the intense course in which participants were forced to survive on their own in the Teribe region of Panama’s Bocas del Toro province.

Students of the Panamanian course must shop at the “supermarket de la selva” — the jungle supermarket — to eat, using machetes to prepare or kill any nourishment they can find, Fajardo said.

Fajardo’s prized jungle delicacy is ñame, a tropical root vegetable similar to a yam. He also appreciates the taste of grubs, he said, which he likens to butter.

Tucked neatly into each Panamanian instructor’s backpack, razor-sharp machetes sat nestled in intricately carved leather coverings.

The U.S. Army teaches machete training in its jungle school, but some Panamanian instructors have attended a separate, more intensive course on using the long, daunting blade. It can clear brush, help prepare food, carve shelter and even help start a fire.

To Fajardo, it is the single most important tool for survival in the jungle. And with a smile, he jokingly referred to the machete as “mi esposa,” or my wife, in English.

To date, the U.S. Army is developing the course to dedicate at least 20 of its 120 spots to partner forces and at least 15 to Panamanians.

Though no other countries have sent soldiers yet, Eagen is confident that the school is close to having Colombian students join.

The U.S. has partnered with Colombia’s Lancero course, which is similar to Ranger School, and all three countries exchange information. Panama supports hosting Colombian forces, Eagen added, as “they have a direct relationship with the country.

“They have a lot of shared bilat right there at the Darién,” Eagen said, “so both Panamanian leaders and Colombian leaders want them to be first.”

Panama’s expertise in navigating such unforgiving terrain, meanwhile, has also prompted other countries, like Costa Rica and Brazil, to express interest in the course, Eagen said.

Other jungle courses worldwide have so far informed the new U.S. Army jungle school’s curriculum, and Eagen said the Army is designing a scenario construct for the school using threat characteristics seen by Panamanian service members.

And while Panamanian forces often confront small-team drug trafficking operations attempting to establish supply lines, Eagen was clear that the Army endeavored to replicate a potential combat environment, not the country’s security situation.

“That is not the premise of us being in Panama,” he said. “We try to make sure there are clear boundaries of understanding for the students that this is about the skills required of the environment, not about the situation in Panama.”

Though public sentiment between the countries has ebbed and flowed in the decades that followed Panama’s 1994 formal abolishment of its standing army — several years after a U.S. military invasion ousted military dictator Manuel Noriega — those tensions were absent from interactions Military Times observed among the service members during the course.

Eagen said the U.S. is mindful of the pride Panamanians take in their nation’s sovereignty. The Army, he added, has been purposeful in approaching the course’s renewed partnership with an emphasis on learning from — rather than simply teaching — its Panamanian counterparts.

Under the new brand, the Texas-based defense firm debuted Primex, a lightweight wearable meant to provide soldiers with night-vision capabilities and augmented reality so they can “maintain awareness without distraction or cognitive overload.”

For the design, Twenty-Six Defense said it engineered Primex for sustained operational use by equipping it with “the lightest head-borne load and near-neutral center of gravity.”

The company explained Primex uses low-light sensors, thermal imagery, and real-time processing to produce an ultra-low-latency digital perception that enables operators to better interpret the surrounding area even amid challenging environmental conditions.

What separates Primex from other advanced lightweight heads-up display units for operators, according to Twenty-Six Defense, is that its design was built on mature technologies that have already been fielded.

The company said it already produces AN/PSQ-44 Enhanced Night Vision Goggles, which contain features that allow for rapid target acquisition and augment reality to enhance visual clarity.

In August, Ernie Basic, Twenty-Six Defense’s senior director of research and development, explained how his company was developing equipment for the Soldier Borne Mission Command, a project to deliver augmented reality wearables to soldiers.

He said the technology combines fighter-pilot displays with night-vision systems, so soldiers get “the full operational picture.”

“You are not only seeing what is in front of you. You can leverage a feed coming from a drone or from other assets,” he said. “You can start seeing what is going on behind a house or another structure, cue a squad to a different location, and continuously update them.”

In addition to Primex, Twenty-Six Defense showcased defensive weapons and equipment like the XM1168 mobile 120mm mortar system, Autonomous Relocatable Surveillance Tower and SkyStriker Block 4E.

Demand for exquisite munitions has skyrocketed as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine — and an ever-tense Indo-Pacific — continue to redefine stockpile demand.

So, too, has there developed an insatiable market for cheap systems and interceptors capable of balancing scales that, in regions like the Middle East, have been encumbered by cost-per-kill ratios as lopsided as 114-1 — in the case of a PAC-3 interceptor versus a Shahed-136 drone.

If that weren’t enough to consider, there’s the lightning-quick speed of AI integration and unmanned systems into formations, and the reality of having to rethink a simple concept — hiding — that was seldom given a second thought due to the total air superiority of the Global War on Terror.

Such frenzied developments, meanwhile, come against a backdrop of new Pentagon policy that aims to eliminate the antiquated red tape of the acquisition process and speed development to the battlefield.

A daunting cluster of problems to solve, no doubt. But if encountering such a catalog of to-dos is stress-inducing, one would not know it when speaking to U.S. Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal, who finds himself at the center of many of these discussions.

From his office and out on the trail, Obadal oversees the service’s business operations, acquisition strategy, and manpower and personnel systems, among myriad other duties.

Obadal assumed the position after a stint in the private sector, which followed a military career that included time as a Special Operations officer, the status of Master Army Aviator and qualifications in nine different aircraft.

Obadal spoke to Military Times about how he and the Army are approaching these seismic shifts in warfighting philosophy, and how this year’s AUSA exposition reflects the blistering pace of innovation that catalyzes them.

There are many examples of individuals without military experience working in consequential positions within the Pentagon. You are not one. How has your military experience shaped how you approach this role?

What I try very hard to do is not let my experience drive the way I do things. I want it to inform the way I do things, whether that’s my experience working with the interagency and seeing how other executive branch agencies operate, my experience in the conventional military or in other parts of the military, doing joint work, working with partners and allies or going out into corporate America.

I don’t want any one of those things to be the driver of how I make decisions and conduct myself in the business of the Army, but I do want all of it to come together and inform it.

So, it’s certainly very helpful for me when I talk to soldiers or when I look at programs or weapon systems.

The biggest thing it helps me with is understanding that there’s no single weapon system that operates by itself anywhere. They are all part of a joint force, and within that, you have a maneuver Army that is reliant — tanks are reliant on infantry, infantry is reliant on fires, all of it is reliant on aviation, medical and logistics.

All those components work together as a chain, and you have to make sure every link in the chain is as strong as possible.

That’s one of the biggest things that I take away from being in the military: an understanding that all of these things have to work in synergy, and there are no easy solutions.

We continue to watch the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran unfold. What do you expect to see at an event like AUSA that reflects what America has learned from them?

If you walk around the hall at AUSA, it’ll give you a good indication of the Army’s priorities. Our priorities are reflected in what we’re procuring.

Going back several years, when we were in the Middle East and we first saw adversary drones — counter-drone systems became a really important topic. It kind of started in the special operations and then expanded into the larger Army.

Ukraine has not just reinforced that counter-UAS is a critical part of operations today; it’s cemented it.

So, if you walk around AUSA, you’re going to see an immense number of not only drones but also counter-UAS. That’s a reflection of the procurement and the budget, not just in the Army but in the Pentagon.

That’s number one. Number two is software. Being able to see, sense and integrate to understand what your positional advantage is, and understand the adversary and their vulnerabilities.

That’s just military operations, but today it’s looking at how we apply the best sensors and best software to bring all of that together to give decision advantage to our commanders.

The third one is fires, and when you look at current conflicts, the importance of long-range precision fires is highlighted.

So, what you’ll also see at the conference is a reflection of our investment portfolio in our magazine depth, but also the variety of munitions.

Expanding out the optionality that commanders have beyond just one or two exquisite munitions, with everything from longer-range artillery, one-way attack and loitering munitions, up into our higher-end missiles.

All of those represent our fires portfolio, but that’s just for offensive operations. When we get into the defensive side, we’ll be seeing everything from ballistic missiles down to Group One drones.

If you look at those three areas — drones and counter-UAS; software and sensors; and the fires portfolio — and were to roll back the clock to AUSA 10 years ago, the difference is remarkable.

At that time, the focus was very vehicle-centric, armor-centric, pieces of kit for individual soldiers. All of those things are important and are continuing to advance, but these newer investment areas represent a noticeable shift in warfare.

These conflicts are obviously influencing the speed of acquisition. But that process includes an emphasis on both cost-friendly and exquisite munition stockpiles. What is the best balance to ensure success?

The conflicts are definitely influencing and accelerating the way the Army — and certainly the broader Department — are innovating, prototyping, procuring and then fielding different capabilities.

If you were to roll back a decade or even less, you would see very traditional models that go from experimentation into writing an initial requirement document, then into prototyping, then selection, then low-rate production and then finally into fielding and high-rate production.

That’s years long. That process is very deliberate, and it built our military to where it is today, which is still the most dominant, but with a number of vulnerabilities because of technical innovation in the commercial market that adversaries are able to take advantage of.

So, where can we compress this cycle and get it more into a process where we ask the commercial industry to experiment on their dime?

A lot of this has to do with private capital being interested in the defense market. They’re making a bet that they can get through some of the experimentation, and then we can follow on with prototyping and quickly get into low-rate and high-rate production before fielding.

Fielding then allows us to get immediate feedback that goes back into industry. That is essentially what had to happen in Ukraine because it’s existential to them.

So, when we say wartime footing, Ukraine is on the ultimate wartime footing, and there are lessons to draw from there. What are the unnecessary steps in the acquisition process? Where can you smartly accept risk?

Probably one of the biggest drivers of speeding things up is acknowledging that we’re willing to accept risk. We know that if we get a tighter innovation cycle, we’re accepting more risk on the battlefield, but we’re also driving down risk on the battlefield because we’re getting it to them much sooner.

So, then we get into how that translates to fires. Exquisite versus low cost. It’s a balance, or a high-low mix, essentially, where we have to have both offensive and defensive exquisite weapons.

We have to have certain stockpiles to be able to counter the exquisite weapons of our adversaries and have our own effects. Then you get into mass, which comes when we start going beyond the first few days of a conflict, and we’re in protraction. We have to have affordable mass. The cost curve needs to come back in our favor.

While balancing the above, how much of a difference has the surge in domestic manufacturing made in having these pre-positioned elements assisting efforts?

A massive difference.

The Infantry Squad Vehicle is a perfect example. That’s a Chevy Colorado chassis; the drivetrain and suspension are a little different, but it’s nothing unusual.

Essentially, it then goes to a detailer that puts the military-specific equipment on top of it. It’s everything that we need it to be.

As with anything, it has its vulnerabilities. We’re sacrificing heavy armor and survivability, which we needed throughout the GWOT years, for mobility, transportability and ease of repair.

But using this model also allows us to sustain it far more easily because so many of the components are commercial.

It especially matters when you get into keeping the ISV — or domestically made equipment — in the decades ahead and needing improvements over the years. With the ISV, as Chevy makes improvements to its chassis and drivetrain, that immediately feeds back into the production line of ISVs.

So, we’re now getting upgrades that are just byproducts of the commercial market.

With acquisition, there’s a major emphasis on AI. What are you discussing with tech companies to ensure the human-in-the-loop element equates to maintaining final say despite the speed of the tech?

Every company that deals with this emerging technology and the military is of the same mindset, which is that the human-in-the-loop factor has to be the default.

There are workflows and cycles that human commanders can say, “I need this to run in the background, and I don’t need to see it or be on it.” But when it comes to kinetic kill chains and making decisions on the battlefield, the workflows that enable commanders have to have very hard stops.

It’s not just a commander saying yes or no. It’s far more complicated and nuanced. It’s presenting options based on a tremendous amount of computing analysis and saying, “Here are all the courses of action based on the priorities that you gave, based on the environmental factors that the agents have been able to ingest and all of the long-term planning that goes into it.

That allows the commanders to then take highly complex tasks like mission planning and distill it down into areas where they can consume it more easily, and then apply what only humans can do, which is context and reason.

That context and reason part is what the tech companies that work with us are very focused on enabling, as opposed to taking over entire workflows.

Autonomy is important, really, in three areas when it comes to warfighting.

Think about combat breaching. That’s one of the most dangerous things we ask a human to do: to breach a linear minefield or barrier. If we can automate that, that removes something inherently dangerous.

The second is highly complex, like command and control. How do you distill what would take human staff officers hours or days into seconds, and give a commander not only several options, but the analysis behind it and the confidence in the product being presented?

The third is the ability to remove repetitive and mundane things human soldiers are doing. Resupplying via trucks, for instance. If we can automate that, we are removing that task from our logistics soldiers and allowing them to apply their talents to solving real problems with a clear vision and mindset.

Beyond weapon systems, something as simple as staging — or hiding — equipment or personnel requires a vastly different strategy than even 10 years ago. How does something as simple as saying, “How do we hide this helo?” impact your conversations with industry?

It’s not something that we’ve had to truly consider as an Army for 40 or 50 years because we were guaranteed air superiority.

We don’t have air superiority at this point because of long-range fires and precision targeting from space.

So, you go back to dispersion, displacement of assets and disaggregation of large headquarters. As you remember from recent decades, a division headquarters would be a massive entity with satellite dishes and other assets in the open. Those days are gone.

We now have to consider how we bring in technology from the companies to allow us to displace 10-foot satellite dishes and 20 miles of wire, and actually have small-scale edge compute and transport systems that can disaggregate everyone. That’s incredibly important.

Certainly, camouflage comes into play. Other classified capabilities come into play as well, and that’s all just the visible element. Then you get into electronic warfare and the ability to monitor.

So, how do you disaggregate some of that?

Those are all things that we are actively moving — and coming back to — in a more modern stance.