It made another in October.

So frequent are the Chinese aircraft carrier CNS Liaoning’s publicly visible voyages that military analysts presume that the People’s Liberation Army Navy has fixed a routine that will let the relatively aged carrier help train and equip the fleet’s two more modern ones.

Still, the carrier group’s passages not far from Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines – places that have political or maritime sovereignty disputes with China – have raised alerts.

“The current voyage by the Liaoning appears to be part of an established evolving pattern of far-seas training deployments,” said Carl Thayer, an Asia specialist and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

“The Liaoning demonstrates China’s naval military capability and political influence through its constant presence in China’s near and far seas,” he said.

The aircraft carrier led a naval task group to the western Pacific Ocean on Oct. 14 for training, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy said via China’s official Xinhua News Agency. Citing the navy, Xinhua called the expedition a “drill” and part of an annual routine training plan aimed at “testing and improving combat readiness.”

China’s state-controlled Global Times news outlet called the Liaoning’s October voyage its second in the distant seas and hailed the carrier’s long-term progress as going from a “coastal pathfinder” to a “far-sea blade.”

The vessel, categorized as a “short take-off but arrested recovery” aircraft carrier, measures about 305 meters (1,000 feet) long and with flight deck width up to 75 meters.

As of Oct. 23, the carrier group had done exercises near the southernmost Japanese outlying islands and was headed for the South China Sea near the Philippines, according to local media reports in East Asia. The reports said it went with two large destroyers and a guided-missile destroyer.

The deployments are meant to show China’s two more-modern carriers, the CNS Fujian and the CNS Shandong, how to adopt new technology, experts said.

The nine-year-old Shandong carrier would learn about “new and emerging” technology as the older Liaoning tests flight operations, sensors and modern aircraft, said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

“The Shandong aircraft carrier is basically an improved version of the Liaoning,” Koh said. He said the current deployment was probably “meant maybe to validate certain technologies.”

Being the oldest of China’s three carriers, the Liaoning would “not be the frontline reaction force if there were a contingency”, said Alexander Huang, chairman of the Council of Strategic and Wargaming Studies in Taipei.

China’s maritime rivals have taken notice.

The Taiwan Ministry of National Defense said in mid-October it was monitoring the possibility of large-scale Chinese military exercises nearby as an outcome of the Liaoning’s movements.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take it. The PLA has stepped up military activity in waters near the island since 2022.

In the South China Sea, Beijing has already shored up its sovereignty claims over the past two decades by building artificial islands, often for military use. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam dispute parts of the sea with China.

In Tokyo, which disputes a group of uninhabited islets with Beijing, the defense ministry said it had seen fighter aircraft taking off and landing from the Liaoning carrier 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Japan’s Ishigaki Island.

The Chinese carrier group launched and recovered aircraft in Japan’s maritime exclusive economic zone during its deployment, said Colin Karotam, senior resident fellow with the Defence Strategy Program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. That activity is “uncommon,” Karotam said, though it may have taken place before.

The Chinese carrier group’s activities also began shortly before the Keen Sword 27 U.S.–Japan military exercises launched on Oct. 19. The exercises on Ishigaki are biennial and include the Philippines among other nations. China sees the United States, a treaty ally of both Japan and the Philippines, as a military rival in Asia.

Xinhua said the Liaoning’s movements in October comply with international law and “are not directed at any specific country or target.”

Arrangements are underway to transition responsibilities to the Vice Chief of Defence Force, Rear Adm. Mat Williams, who will serve as Acting Chief of Defence Force.

Air Marshal Davies said: “The resignation is for personal reasons, and results from errors of judgement made by me in the past, for which I am taking responsibility. The errors of judgement were contrary to the values of the Defence Force.

“These matters revolved around an inappropriate relationship I had when in a position of unit command, and I regret not disclosing this when I had the opportunity to do so.”

Appointed as the Chief of Air Force from 2016 before becoming the Vice Chief of Defence Force in 2018, Air Marshal Davies, born 1966, was promoted to his current rank on appointment to Chief of Defence Force on June 6, 2024.

The Chief of Army, Maj. Gen. Rose King, will act as Chief of Defence Force until Sunday before Williams takes on the role.

Freed from Cold War-era constraints, the U.S. Army has been upgrading its existing missiles and rocket artillery and developing new, longer-range systems. Those investments are largely in response to the growing size and sophistication of China’s missile arsenal, which the U.S. military worries could deny its forces access to the Western Pacific during a conflict. The intensification of training with the Philippines and Japan reflects a shared concern about China’s military capabilities.

The emphasis on long-range fires in the first island chain is visible in the extended deployments and first-of-their-kind drills involving those weapons, especially the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. HIMARS can conduct land-attack and maritime-strike missions using guided rockets with ranges of a few dozen miles or ballistic missiles with ranges of a few hundred miles.

U.S. Army HIMARS operated in Japan for the first time in 2021 during an exercise in Hokkaido and were first deployed to Japan’s Southwest Islands, which separate the East China Sea from the wider Pacific, in 2022 for an exercise on an island northeast of Okinawa. Since then, HIMARS has been a common feature of U.S. exercises with Japan, most recently this year’s Keen Sword, for which Army HIMARS were sent to a Japanese island that is only 150 miles east of Taiwan.

The Army’s HIMARS has a longer history in the Philippines, but in recent years, U.S. and Filipino troops have employed it in new roles, such as anti-ship strikes, and in new parts of the country. Exercises in 2024 and 2025 saw HIMARS deployed to Palawan, facing the South China Sea, and to the northern coast of Luzon, facing Taiwan.

This year’s edition of Balikatan, the two countries’ largest annual exercise, showed their ability to move HIMARS around the country by land, sea and air: In April, U.S. soldiers and airmen transported a HIMARS to Itbayat, the Philippines’ northernmost municipality and only 100 miles from Taiwan, for a dry-fire exercise. A few weeks later, an Army watercraft transported a HIMARS launcher to Balabac Island, south of Palawan, for the first time for a live-fire exercise, which showed its ability “to protect shipping going into the Sulu and Celebes Sea,” the Army said.

The ability to move forces into and across the first island chain demonstrates alliance integration and sends a message to rivals, according to Gen. Ronald Clark, commander of U.S. Army Pacific. “It’s really a joint success story,” Clark said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. this month.

Clark pointed to a recent exercise for which soldiers loaded HIMARS launchers on aircraft at a base in Washington state and flew them to the Philippines, all of which was visible to adversaries. “We then join munitions from Korea that were drawn out of stocks there to the Philippines, where our adversary could see it, and then we conduct a live-fire on the backend of a HIMARS rapid-infiltration operation,” Clark added. “Being able to do that, it, one, takes a lot of skill. Second, it takes a tremendous amount of partnership with, in this case, allies to assist us.”

Clark said improving capabilities in increasingly complex exercises affects adversaries’ thinking. “To be able to conduct operational maneuver and have tremendous tactical effects that then have a strategic effect on our adversary is exactly what we were looking to gain, because what that does is it gives them pause.”

Over the past two years, the U.S. Army has introduced its Mid-Range Capability, a new ground-based missile system known as Typhon, to its training in the first island chain. Typhon can fire SM-6 missiles at air and maritime targets a few hundred miles away and Tomahawk missiles at land targets up to 1,000 miles away, bringing swathes of China and Russia into range from the Philippines and Japan.

Typhon’s first overseas deployment was in 2024 in the Philippines. It has remained there since then, and in May this year, it was test-fired for the first time, striking a target in central Luzon from nearly 400 miles away. The Army sent a Typhon to Japan for the first time in August 2025 for an exercise the following month, but the weapon lingered until November that year. It returned to Japan this summer, deploying to the southernmost of Japan’s main islands for exercises in June and September and moving to a base on Okinawa for storage in October. U.S. officials told Tokyo the deployment isn’t meant to be permanent, but it has no official end date.

The Typhon was sent to the Philippines at Manila’s request and “has maintained forward presence for now over 30 consecutive months,” Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington said in a presentation at the AUSA conference. Harrington commands the recently established 7th Infantry Division/Multi-Domain Command-Pacific, which combines the 7th Infantry Division’s ground-maneuver elements with the long-range fires and non-kinetic effects of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force.

Typhon’s presence in the Philippines has allowed for extended in-theater training, giving soldiers more insight into issues like “How do we sustain in the environment? How do you protect those types of systems in the environment? How do you connect sensor to shooter?” Harrington said in his presentation. “To be able to do that persistently forward and persistently with our ally in the Philippines and our partners is incredibly important for us.”

While the presence of HIMARS and Typhon in new places has been widely publicized, those deployments also create opportunities for U.S. troops to do less visible work to improve communications links and enhance their command-and-control networks, ensuring that friendly forces have a common operating picture of the battlefield and can use their weapons effectively in combat.

China has watched these developments warily. Beijing regularly criticizes U.S. exercises with Japan and the Philippines as provocative and destabilizing, and it has singled out Typhon deployments for vitriol. But experts cited by Chinese state media also say China has an advantage against weapons like HIMARS when they are deployed on islands near Taiwan because the islands’ small size and terrain will hinder mobility and concealment and their remoteness will make it easier to spot and block resupply efforts.

The logistical challenge is real. U.S. war games also emphasize the difficulty of resupplying small islands near Taiwan — but Harrington said it underscores the need for US forces to disperse and adopt lower-cost, lower-signature weapons alongside expensive missiles.

“This maximizes options for the Joint Force while also enhancing the protection and survivability of our soldiers,” Harrington told Defense News at AUSA. “For example, the employment of systems such as long-range one-way-attack drones, unmanned surface vessels, and long-range launched effects may enable our division to achieve a desired effect for the Joint Force while also preserving our larger, more exquisite systems until needed for a specific purpose.”

The combined tonnage of combat ships built by China in the two years through to December 2025 amounted to 636,208 tons, compared to 270,509 tons for the United States, according to data compiled by Flottes de Combat and French maritime industry association Gican.

China accounted for more than a third of the global naval tonnage constructed in 2024-25, based on the Euronaval report. U.S. lawmakers and congressional researchers have warned that China’s greater shipbuilding capacity, combined with delays and bottlenecks in U.S. naval shipbuilding, could hurt America’s ability to keep up with Beijing’s expanding fleet.

“We are seeing a fairly substantial expansion of naval forces, and consequently of shipbuilding,” said Philippe Missoffe, the general director of Gican, in a press briefing here on Tuesday. “We’re seeing an increase in power capabilities, particularly nuclear-powered attack submarines for example.”

Global naval construction overall was booming in the period, with 1.47 million tons of combat vessels built in 2024-25, compared with 959,671 tons in the prior two years. The value of global naval construction amounted to $123.9 billion, climbing from $81.8 billion in 2022-23.

The value of Chinese combat-vessel construction was US$43.5 billion in the latest two-year period, compared with $26.8 billion for the U.S., the report said.

China has reversed roles from 2022-2023, when production of the country’s naval yards amounted to 202,520 tons, compared with 245,703 tons for the U.S., according to the previous edition of the shipbuilding report published in 2024.

The U.S. fleet of combat vessels of more than 200 tons amounted to 3.11 million tons as of Jan. 1, 2026, compared to 1.44 million tons for China’s fleet, the report showed, That compares with 3.22 million tons for the U.S. and 1.3 million tons for China two years earlier.

Russia was in third place in terms of naval construction in 2024-25, with 149,056 tons built, followed by India with 76,430 tons and Italy with 53,700 tons. Turkey, France, Japan, South Korean and Romania rounded out the top 10 of naval builders.

The four-day Euronaval show, the world’s biggest maritime-defense exhibition, is set to kick of in Paris on Nov. 3. The number of exhibitors will be more than 40% higher than in 2024, according to the organizers.

The close attention that Beijing is paying to the new USMC strategy became clear about a year ago when the Global Times [环球时报] published an unusual editorial decrying Washington’s new determination to deploy anti-ship missiles proximate to China. Arguing that the new American strategy aims to correct a U.S. Navy prioritization for “open ocean control” rather than “close-quarters engagement in confined waters,” this article concludes that Washington’s effort to “control maritime chokepoints [aims to] curtail the freedom of rivals to operate at sea … [and] introduces new risks … .”

A much more detailed study of the new USMC strategy appeared in early 2025 in the naval magazine Modern Ships [现代舰船]. This Chinese assessment noted with considerable alarm that the USMC was experimenting with unmanned surface vessels capable of firing the stealthy LRASM anti-ship cruise missile and that these units could alternatively serve as forward scouts, fixing targets for long-range U.S. military fires. Still, this analysis underlines some weaknesses of the USMC strategy, including the range limitations of related sensors and drones, and even characterized the air-defense capabilities of the USMC as “precarious.” Another study in this same magazine had earlier drawn attention to the logistics quandaries raised by the new strategy.

A 2026 Chinese analysis in another Chinese navy-affiliated magazine, Shipborne Weapons [舰载武器], offers a sharper critique of the Marines’ new approach, noting that the creation of the Marine Littoral Regiments (MLR) “actually represents campaign preparation by the USMC to militarily intervene in China’s unification.” At the outset, this study notes that many American think tanks raised doubts about the strategy, suggesting that forward bases without sea and air control could prove “untenable.”

There is a recognition in this analysis that the new mobile missile launchers that are being deployed by the USMC are small, light, and thus “not easily discovered by … surveillance.” In the end, this study concludes that the USMC strategy is vulnerable because the “U.S has no way to quickly establish air superiority. This could take weeks or months and would entail massive losses.”

Among the most remarkable pieces written by Chinese experts on the new USMC direction is one that was published in translation recently by the China institute at U.S. Naval War College (NWC). That translation deserves extra attention due to the fact that it was written by senior active-duty Chinese Navy officers and also because it was published originally in a sensitive internal circulation Chinese military journal too.

Though this piece does not touch directly on the sensitive Taiwan issue, and it also explicitly notes the USMC strategy aims at deterrence of Beijing, it nevertheless explains that the new USMC deployments amount to “continuous penetration and encroachment into our near seas” and argues that China must “establish effective countermeasures.” Notably, this high-level rendering links the USMC strategy to China’s improving submarine force in significant detail, observing that forward deployed Marine forces could deploy “hydro-acoustic arrays and other assets to establish barrier zones and monitoring areas to track Chinese submarine operations.” Similar arguments are made that U.S. deployments could degrade Chinese air defenses by employing drone swarms “to overwhelm our radar tracking capacity.”

The Chinese Navy authors caution against applying resource-intensive assets to defeat such American asymmetric tactics. However, the conclusion of the article is rather disturbing since it argues that China must counter this posture by deploying a Chinese “proactive offensive posture, aggressively expand[ing] our operational reach, [and] project[ing] forces forward.” Elaborating, they counsel: “We must maintain and normalize forward-deployed forces, extend[ing] undersea combat capabilities as far forward as feasible.”

This conclusion and other aspects of these Chinese-language analyses raise some rather uncomfortable questions for U.S. defense planners. The final translation done by NWC strongly hints that the Chinese Navy may be adopting a more aggressive approach as a direct reaction to the forward lean in American strategy. This seems to be a very clear manifestation of the so-called ‘security dilemma,’ wherein two powers’ defensive measures develop into a dangerous escalatory spiral. Moreover, there is a clear recognition by Chinese strategists that forward USMC elements could be vulnerable due to logistics challenges and lack of proper air and missile defenses. It would not be the first time that the USMC was deployed haphazardly in East Asia at the cost of many American lives.

Understanding these dynamics, American leaders should recalibrate and opt to rely less on forward defense. Alternatively, the USMC should aim to embrace the strategic depth of the Pacific and its myriad island archipelagos (e.g. the Philippines) in a less costly, less risky, more sustainable, and clearly defensive strategy.

Lyle Goldstein is director of the China Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School and concurrently serves as director of the Asia Program at the think-tank Defense Priorities.

The Department of Defence launched an industry solicitation for the project, christened Project Land 6504, on Oct. 13. The potential deal has already attracted interest globally, with vendors from Europe, Israel, South Korea, Turkey and the United States eying the requirement Down Under.

A primary motivation for filling the gaping hole in Australian defenses is China’s rising military prowess. Alarming many, the People’s Liberation Army sent a naval task group to circumnavigate Australia in early 2025, and then China fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the South Pacific in July this year.

With China possessing the world’s most diverse missile arsenal, Australia knows it needs better defenses. Land 6504 is therefore looking for a defensive system capable of shooting down ballistic missiles in their terminal phase of flight, as well as address subsonic air-breathing threats.

The National Defence Strategy 2026 prioritized missile defense, calling for “accelerated introduction of medium-range, ground-based, active missile defense through investment in missile launchers and munitions and integrating them with the Australian Defence Force’s command-and-control systems.”

This envisioned off-the-shelf system is expected to be a “proven capability,” contributing to a national, integrated system, the solicitation reads.

Money is a perennial problem, however, as AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines soak up available defense funds.

But perhaps the greatest risk is the lightning speed at which this Australian project is moving. Final selection of the vendor is to occur by the end of 2027. The solution is to perform live-firing in Exercise Talisman Saber in mid-2029, and an initial operational capability achieved in the early 2030s.

Importantly, the expeditionary air-defense system must integrate with radars from CEA Technologies and the Joint Air Battle Management System being developed by Lockheed Martin Australia.

Because of the time constraints, Canberra is pursuing direct commercial sale and U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) avenues simultaneously.

The timing of the tender may boost the chances of non-American missile suppliers, as the U.S. grapples with depleted magazines after expending large amounts of missiles in its conflict with Iran.

A recent Congressional Research Service report warned, “Finite U.S. industrial base capacity introduces trade-offs between filling FMS orders and replenishing U.S. stockpiles. FMS delivery delays may result in cancellations, potentially affecting U.S. and partner interoperability and integration.”

Other options are available, however. For example, Australia could add AMRAAM-ER extended-range missiles to its existing NASAMS.

John Fry, managing director of Kongsberg Australia, told Defense News: “We’re definitely interested in that program. I think the great thing with the NASAMS architecture is Kongsberg and Raytheon are evolving that into full-spectrum air defense.”

Elsewhere, Lockheed Martin Australia fired an SM-2 missile from a trailer launcher in June, utilizing the Aegis combat system and a CEA radar. This demonstrated how a hybrid air defense system can make use of components already available in Australia.

The company’s stationary Cheongwang laser air defense weapon and a 30-kilowatt-class vehicle-mounted laser took part in the live-fire event, held during the Army’s TIGER+ Future Warfare Integrated Combat Exercise. About 500 people attended, according to Hanwha, including Army Chief of Staff Gen. Kim Kyu-ha.

Cheongwang fired on a drone overhead that “caught fire and fell from the sky,” The Korea Times reported from the exercise at a training ground in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province. The laser was one part of a layered counter-drone demonstration that also included electronic jamming and a K21 armored vehicle firing on incoming drones.

Hanwha did not say which system destroyed which drones, what kinds of drones were used, what vehicle carries the newer laser or the range of either weapon.

The Oct. 14 demonstration followed a Sept. 16 event at South Korea’s 2026 Defense Drone Technology Exhibition, where Cheongwang downed four drones and two larger unmanned aircraft in succession, Hanwha said.

Cheongwang, meaning “light of the sky,” in Korean is formally known as the Laser Air Defense Weapon Block-I. Hanwha developed it under a program led by South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development. The company calls it the world’s first operationally deployed laser weapon.

South Korea first fielded the system in December 2024 and had about five units at major government facilities as of June, including the Ministry of National Defense building, according to Korea JoongAng Daily.

North Korean drones have repeatedly violated South Korean airspace. In December 2022, five crossed the border, one reaching Seoul. Fighter jets, attack helicopters and warning shots failed to bring any of them down, Defense News reported at the time.

Hanwha says each Cheongwang shot costs about $1.50, in line with the figure South Korea’s arms procurement agency gave in 2024. Unlike guns or missiles, the system uses no ammunition and can continue firing as long as it has power. The company asserts lasers can counter cheap drones used for surveillance and strikes without relying on much costlier missile-based air defenses.

Hanwha is also developing a 50 kW Laser Armored Vehicle in-house for export customers and displayed a model of it at the MSPO defense show in Kielce, Poland, in September.

At the show, Hanwha Systems manager Hyungun Park told Defense News that the company had built a prototype and planned to begin production by the end of 2027. He said Hanwha was in talks with potential buyers in Europe, Asia and the Middle East about exporting Cheongwang.

South Korea’s 2027 defense budget proposal includes funding to begin research on a mobile Block-II version of Cheongwang, UPI reported.

A fight in the Indo-Pacific would look different from past wars, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, making maintaining the “Golden Hour” standard difficult.

Instead of requiring medical care and evacuation to a surgical facility to occur within 60 minutes of a traumatic combat injury, the 18th Theater Medical Command, based at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, is rethinking the term to mean bringing advanced care to the point of injury.

The “tyranny of distance” in the region makes implementing the Golden Hour challenging since it accounts for over 50% of the world’s surface, 18th TMC Maj. Gen. E. Darrin Cox told Military Times on Monday during AUSA 2026.

“In the past, what [the Golden Hour] has meant is getting someone from the battlefield to a [medical] facility in that 60 minutes, so here in the Pacific, that may not be possible,” Cox said. “So what we’re talking about when we say Golden Hour is the pathophysiology of injury and bringing care to that patient in that time before pathology becomes deranged.”

As autonomous systems become increasingly relevant in militaries across the globe, the command is experimenting with ways it can assist patients with prolonged care at the point of injury, while keeping in mind the possibility of an attack.

Blood Storage and Distribution

Even though warfare and medical care are both “human endeavors,” Cox said, autonomous systems are a part of the future. The systems can help deliver care through managing a patient’s vital signs, triaging patients, delivering blood or monitoring a patient so a provider on the ground can take care of others.

“We’re experimenting with autonomous delivery of blood and other Class A medical supplies,” Cox said. “They’re experimenting in Ukraine with autonomous evacuation of injured folks off the battlefield, so there’s a lot of work in that area.”

“Not everything in Ukraine is directly applicable to the maritime environment you find yourself in the Pacific, but we take what we observe, we learn those lessons, and then we try to apply it to the operating environment that we’re in,” he continued.

Alongside experimenting with autonomous systems, the 18th TMC is working with joint partners and allies to ensure access to blood distribution facilities, storing it west of the International Date Line.

“We were able to successfully bring blood from Japan to Australia last year during the Talisman Saber exercise,” Cox said. “That demonstrates developing those networks where we can move blood from potential storage locations to the points of need as different operations would surge.”

In critically injured trauma patients, blood and its components are necessary at the point of injury, Cox said, whether it’s blood provided by other countries for American use or stored ahead of time in a facility.

The best option is fresh whole blood, but that requires collection on scene, which has a limited supply, and refrigerated fresh blood has a limited lifespan. Another option is frozen products, both blood and plasma, but they need to be thawed with specialized equipment.

Cox highlighted that many partners in the Pacific, like the Philippines, are developing their own armed forces blood program where they have a stockpile of blood in military hospitals and accept donations. America is looking to have blood-sharing agreements with some joint partners, like Australia and Japan, which have a similar testing protocol to America’s and allow for the U.S. to use blood procured locally on U.S. casualties.

“We’re also with our partners in the Philippines,” 18th Command Sgt. Maj. Jennifer Francis told Military Times. “We ensure that we share what we’re doing in the field, so that we can enhance their own capability. So we’ve made huge strides there in the Philippines.”

Training on New Concepts

Ensuring that the combat medics are familiar with these concepts and innovations ahead of a conflict takes training on “anything and everything” related to the options, she said.

The Army has multiple “echelons of care,” but it all begins with basic self-care training and the more advanced Combat Lifesaver training before some reach the combat medic level.

“Once you get to tactical combat casualty care, that’s a little bit more robust,” Francis said. “They have the basic application of tourniquet[s], and then going through some of the head-to-toe trauma.”

In the Indo-Pacific theater, the overall medical care is not significantly different, unlike the environment, prompting the 18th TMC to continue to innovate through technology and training to keep trust with soldiers.

The 18th utilizes an 8th Forward Resuscitative and Surgical Detachment, or FRSD, which is a 20-person team that can execute surgery in the theater, Cox said, and the command is tinkering with different configurations of tents versus fixed mobile containers that can be taken on or off an Army watercraft, land or underground.

At the May 2026 Land Forces of the Pacific Symposium and Exposition in Hawaii, the 8th FRSD demonstrated a care simulation on a cut suit which modeled a surgical unit aboard a vessel.

Boats or ships should transport patients because evacuating by air en masse would be less likely, Army medics told Military Times at the event. The team began using autonomous small multipurpose equipment transports, or SMETs, uncrewed, eight-wheeled robotic combat vehicles guided with a remote control, to carry patients.

Speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting here Monday, Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea, said lessons from Ukraine prompted interest in changing the shape and structure of exercises there.

“I think what we recognize is that largely the two big exercises every year in Korea focus on large command posts; we’ve got to move away from that,” Brunson said, in response to a question from a Korean journalist.

“So, what we intend to do is take advantage of the knowledge that we have of the threats that exist or that prevail in the Ukraine fight,” he continued. “We’re trying to say how might we train differently, and so [Gen. Kim Sung-min, deputy commander of the Republic of Korea–U.S. Combined Forces Command] and I talk about how we would operate in a distributed fashion.”

In light of the distributed fight and scope of battle in Ukraine, Brunson suggested a training exercise that spanned from Jeju Island to Gyeonggi Province — a distance of nearly 300 miles across nearly the full span of the Korean peninsula.

“Just imagine if we trained across the entirety of the peninsula and got ourselves in a shape where we would say, ‘You can’t utilize the things that you’ve learned in the fight in the battlefield in Ukraine on us, because we learn the same lessons and we’ve distributed ourselves in such a way that we don’t make ourselves the target,” he said. “We won’t be moored in place, and that’s what I’m talking about when I talk about positional advantage. It might not be the same place through the continuum. It might not be the same place when you’re in a crisis or conflict or competition; we might have to change that, and that’s what we’re learning.”

His remarks acknowledged ongoing collusion and information sharing between U.S. adversaries, including Russia, China and North Korea, as Russia continues its war of aggression in Ukraine.

Also on the table, Brunson said, were additional exercises, or a different schedule.

“For a long time, we trained for two big exercises every year. What would happen if we trained in between those exercises?” he said.

He cited a recent exercise conducted without troops that drilled, on a small scale, on what a mass garrison evacuation would look like in light of a major threat.

“We’re there to protect the Korean people on the peninsula, and so we’re there to defend both homelands, the United States of America and the Republic of Korea. But what would it look like … if our environment changed?” Brunson said.

While Trump’s Aug. 16 Truth Social post suggested a broad reduction in exercises with Korea, another general, Lt. Gen. Joe Hilbert, said earlier Monday that the order pertained to only one exercise in August, Ulchi Freedom Shield.

Hilbert, who commands the Korea-based Eighth Army, said the live portion of that exercise was reduced by half and some elements that had been joint became unilateral. He maintained that joint training writ large

“We continue to train on the peninsula. We continue to train with the Koreans,” he said, adding that troops from the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division were currently training on South Korean ranges in a rotational deployment.

“So we’ll continue to train and we’ll continue to build readiness for U.S. forces on the peninsula throughout the year, except from that particular timeline and that particular exercise,” Hilber said. “As we all are observing and watching how the war is changing in Ukraine and in the Middle East, the North Koreans are absolutely doing that too. So rest assured, we pay attention to that, and we work to stay ahead.”

At U.S. Army Materiel Support Command — Korea, the unit Carpenter commands, soldiers built the bolt through the drill-out process of subtractive manufacturing for a cost of $1.27, avoiding months of delay and saving more than $300 in the process.

As the Eighth Army in Korea builds out its logistics capability, it’s investing in advanced manufacturing with an eye to supplying spares, not only to local Army forces, but also to troops across the Pacific region.

“I want to be the advanced manufacturing center for INDOPACOM,” Carpenter said at an engagement with reporters at the AUSA meeting. “That’s my goal.”

Eighth Army officials spoke earlier this year about how establishing a Korea-based regional sustainment hub, or center for logistics, maintenance and supply, could cut down the burden and cost of long-distance sustainment. At a roundtable event Monday, Eighth Army Commander Lt. Gen. Joseph Hilber indicated the force was moving out to build that sustainment hub.

“Now, rather than taking equipment that might need a major overhaul and send it back to the United States, we’re looking at ways that we can overhaul it there in Korea and keep it in the fight longer. Keep it west of the [International Dateline] longer,” Hilber said. “That’s going to involve everything from some added manufacturing capabilities to additional repair capabilities that we’ve got in there in terms of being able to fabricate parts, being able to fabricate materials, and then being able to return that equipment back into the fight.”

The Eighth Army has already resourced maintenance support teams that cross service and regional boundaries, departing the Korean Peninsula to support the III Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, Japan, and to Hawaii to support Army rotational units, Carpenter said.

Through additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, and subtractive manufacturing, or cutting a part out of a solid block of metal, the Eighth Army is manufacturing an increasing number of critical parts, Carpenter said. The materiel support command recently acquired a metal 3D printer and is now building out infrastructure to house it.

“But we think come January, February, the metal 3D printer [will be] in, and my goal is … I would like to get to a point where I can 3D print the bolt,” Carpenter said.

By next summer, he said, the Eighth Army is set to receive $3 million worth of advanced manufacturing machines, with some $10 million worth of additional machinery set to be requested in the Army’s fiscal 2028 budget.

“I’ll be able to print bumpers; I’ll be able to print doors,” Carpenter said. “These are not just desktop printers.”

Recently, he said, a Guam-based military unit requested an assembly that would have cost $36,000. The Korea-based team built it through subtractive manufacturing for $82.

Through a request system, Carpenter said, any joint forces member can now request a part and get routed to the Army’s logistics hub in Daegu, South Korea.

“If you’re the Marines operating in Okinawa and you need this bolt … I get this bolt back over to the Marine at a fraction of the cost, and a lot quicker than if they were to order through the supply system,” he said. “So again, we’re maintaining combat power inside the First Island Chain.”

Hilbert said some hurdles remained for the Eighth Army, including intellectual property restrictions with manufacturers; data-sharing to ensure the advanced manufacturing processes deliver components that are up to spec; and seamless connection into existing Army logistics systems not designed for these new modes of parts production.

“We’re continuing to work through those pieces to enable us to fix faster,” Hilbert said.