Latest news with #RonaldClark
AllAfrica
11-07-2025
- Business
- AllAfrica
US containerized missiles: steathy firepower, high strategic cost
The US military's turn to containerized missile launchers reflects a push for stealthy, mobile firepower that complicates targeting and enables rapid deployment but comes with operational, legal, and political concerns – especially regarding their use on allied soil and civilian cargo vessels. This month, The War Zone identified a prototype launcher known as the palletized field artillery launcher (PFAL) at Fort Bragg, after it appeared unannounced in footage from US President Donald Trump's June visit. Currently owned by US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), PFAL can fire most munitions in the multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) family – such as 227 millimeter guided rockets and Army tactical missile system (ATACMS) – from two pods housed in a standard container, though it cannot launch the precision strike missile (PrSM). Concealable on trucks, railcars, or ships, PFAL supports the Army's strategy to complicate adversary targeting. Originating from the US Department of Defense's Strike X program, it also informed designs for future uncrewed systems like the autonomous multi-domain launcher (AML). Although no longer funded after FY2021, PFAL remains strategically relevant for distributed, expeditionary operations, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Containerized launchers like PFAL offer operational benefits– concealability, rapid mobility and modular integration across partner platforms. Yet their covert nature also introduces tactical weaknesses, legal risks and political complications. While these systems enhance deterrence through ambiguity and dispersion, they risk civilian targeting, escalation and backlash from host nations wary of entanglement. At the tactical level, containerized launchers complicate detection and response. In remarks delivered at a June 2025 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), US Army Pacific Commander General Ronald Clark stated that such systems 'literally operationalize deterrence,' likening them to 'a needle in a stack of needles' due to their ambiguous electromagnetic signatures and visual resemblance to civilian containers. He emphasized that their dispersed posture enables US forces to hold Chinese targets at risk across the Indo-Pacific, while avoiding traditional launcher vulnerabilities. In a June 2025 Proceedings article, Rear Admiral Bill Daly and Captain Lawrence Heyworth IV emphasized advantages of modular, containerized payloads: low cost, ease of production and quick scalability. They noted that mounting them on unmanned or optionally manned vessels increases survivability and complicates targeting. A standardized interface allows for rapid reconfiguration, while adaptability enables distributed maritime operations with flexible firepower suited to near-peer conflicts. However, Ajay Kumar Das noted in a July 2023 piece for the United Service Institution of India (USI) that these systems are tactically vulnerable due to their deliberate lack of radar and active defenses. Das explained that containerized launchers are designed to blend with civilian traffic, leaving them unable to detect or repel threats. He said that while concealment aids deception, it undermines survivability. He warned that such launchers, often aboard civilian-manned vessels, become 'soft targets' in high-threat environments, exposing both cargo and crew to disproportionate risk in legally ambiguous zones. Gabriele Steinhauser highlighted in a March 2025 Wall Street Journal article the operational advantages of containerized platforms such as the US Army's Typhon system. She reported that the Typhon – mounted on trucks and deployable via transport aircraft – is 'relatively easy to move,' unlike shipborne systems that are more visible and vulnerable in the early stages of a conflict. Steinhauser stressed that such mobility enables pre-positioning across the Indo-Pacific and opens avenues for allied use, injecting unpredictability into adversary calculations. R. Robinson Harris and Colonel T.X. Hammes argued in a January 2025 article for the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) that containerized launchers support rapid, cost-effective fleet expansion. They estimated that converting surplus merchant ships into missile platforms with modular payloads can be done in under two years for $130 to $140 million each, dramatically faster and cheaper than building destroyers or frigates, which take seven to nine years and billions to construct. They advocated shifting force metrics from ship numbers to missile capacity, arguing that distributed firepower across many modest platforms complicates enemy targeting and boosts resilience. At the strategic level, US missiles on allied territory in peacetime can be politically fraught due to sovereignty sensitivities and domestic opposition. According to Jeffrey Hornung and other authors in a September 2024 RAND report, the Philippine government is especially cautious, given legal and political constraints alongside historical baggage, requiring that any US deployment serve Philippine interests and be framed as a joint effort. Hornung and others also point out that, in Japan, hosting offensive US systems raises concerns about escalating regional tensions and inviting preemptive strikes. They note that Japan has avoided hosting US ground-based missiles and prefers deployments on US territory or with regional partners, reflecting fears that such basing could entangle Japan in US-China conflict dynamics. Further, Raul Pedrozo writes in a 2021 report for the Stockton Center for International Law that using merchant ships to launch precision strikes without formally converting them into warships may violate Hague Convention VII, which requires overt identification, military command and crew discipline. According to Pedrozo, failure to meet these criteria could strip such vessels of protected status and make their use a violation of the law of armed conflict. Moreover, he adds that disguising launchers as civilian cargo risks being deemed perfidious – guilty of a treacherous act under the law of armed conflict – thereby endangering civilian mariners and undermining legal protections for commercial shipping. Containerized missile systems may be stealthy and scalable, but the ambiguity that makes them operationally effective also renders them legally and politically contentious. Their fusion of warehouse and warship invites hard questions about survivability, legality, and escalation, especially when deployed on allied soil in a region primed for great power confrontation.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US Army tailoring Pacific commands for Multi-Domain force
The U.S. Army in the Pacific has begun working through how it will build two Multi-Domain Commands in the theater to oversee and direct the service's Multi-Domain Task Force units as it continues to expand and refine its presence as part of an overall effort to deter China's increasing aggression in the region, Gen. Ronald Clark, U.S. Army Pacific commander, told Defense News. The new Multi-Domain Commands are coming as part of the Army's new transformation initiative. According to an Army execution order issued in May, the service plans to build four. Indicative of the Army's desire to continue to prioritize building up capability in the Pacific theater, two will be focused there: Multi-Domain Command — Pacific and Multi-Domain Command — Japan. Two others, Multi-Domain Command — Europe and Multi-Domain Command — Army, are taking shape, as well. The Army is working on sizing the force for the commands 'in a way that's different,' Clark said in a Friday interview. With the rise of the MDTF capability in the Pacific, 'the authorities associated with that, in some cases are to the [Indo-Pacific Command] commander and above,' Clark said. 'So, to be able to ensure that we have the authorities associated with the right level of command and the staffs associated with the tasks required to plan, synchronize, train those assets, a two-star level headquarters is where that will reside.' The service's first MDTF was experimental, but since then the Army has operationalized that first unit and will ultimately build four more. The Army established the initial unit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state around 2018. U.S. INDOPACOM theater exercises, with MDTF participation, helped inform the Army's Multi-Domain Operations warfighting concept, which has now evolved into doctrine. The Army stood up the second MDTF in Europe in 2021 and the third in Hawaii in 2022. A fourth MDTF will also be devoted to the Pacific, and a fifth, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will be able to deploy rapidly as needed. All five MDTFs will be established by 2028. The units are designed to operate across all domains — land, air, sea, space and cyberspace — are equipped with the Army's growing capabilities, such as the Precision Strike Missile, the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Mid-Range Capability Missile. MDTFs will also have units devoted to the critical sourcing of intelligence across domains and spectrums and information sharing with the joint force to enable targeting. The MDTF units' presence in the Pacific in recent years have been credited with effective deterrence. For instance, the MRC resident with the 1st MDTF has drawn the ire of China since being deployed to the Philippines as part of the last two cycles of U.S. Army exercises with the country. Recent assessments through exercises and warfighter experimentation have shown the need to operationalize such commands and create a higher level of command authority for the MDTFs, according to Clark. The new commands are 'additive to what we currently have in the Indo Pacific and in U.S. Army Pacific, so with that comes additional tasks and funding,' Clark said. The Army's fiscal 2026 budget request reflects some additional funding in order to execute the establishment of the commands. The 1st and 3rd MDTF will fall under the Multi-Domain Command — Pacific, and the 4th MDTF will be associated with Multi-Domain Command — Japan. According to the Army's execution order for the transformation initiative, the Pacific command combines the 7th Infantry Division headquarters with the 1st and 3rd MDTFs. The command in Japan combines U.S. Army Japan's headquarters with the 4th MDTF. 'The Multi-Domain Task Force is a theater-level capability,' Clark said. 'It has inherent capabilities ... cyber, space, electronic warfare, long-range precisions first, it's ability to be able to conduct integrated air and missile defense in its own defense and in a point defense kind of way, those capabilities ... go beyond an area of joint area of operations.' MDTFs are commanded by colonels,'which is great,' Clark said, but adding they will now plug into a two-star command structure that can report to U.S. Army Pacific, for example. 'We need to up-gun the level of staff and command,' he said.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Setting the scene: Army to test new hub for stockpiling in Australia
The U.S. Army will test a nascent capability to effectively preposition equipment and supplies forward in the Pacific theater in Australia during the large-scale exercise Talisman Sabre kicking off this month, according to U.S. Army Pacific Command commander Gen. Ronald Clark. As the U.S. military tackles preparing for the difficult challenge of sustaining a possible protracted operation in the Pacific theater, the services are working together to develop what they are calling Joint Theater Sustainment Distribution Centers. The Army is largely responsible for establishing several of these major sites that will shelter equipment and a variety of supplies that could be used during war, humanitarian crises or natural disasters. 'We are responsible for setting the theater for the joint force,' Clark told Defense News in a June 27 interview. 'The way that we've undertaken that strategically is to build joint interior line through Joint Theater Distribution Centers that we're establishing across the Pacific.' The Army has so far established one center in the Philippines and one in Australia, for which the service is directly responsible. The other services are tasked with building out more centers across the first and second island chains in the Pacific, key archipelagos stretching from Japan through Taiwan and down to Borneo in the south Pacific. One of the JTDCs is being established in Townsville, Australia, just north of the Gold Coast on the eastern side of the country. During Talisman Sabre, the Army will be building its concept for the center along with other logistics and sustainment capabilities the service expects it will need in a highly contested environment. The exercise happens every other year. This time, roughly 35,000 soldiers from 19 countries will participate. 'This gives us a great opportunity to test some of the capability associated with that because we have to move personnel and materiel into Australia. The tyranny of distance, of which you're well aware of, requires that,' Clark said. Having JTDCs 'in and near the first island chain is exceptionally important for us and to be able to work through some of those challenges in the concept, in peacetime, as we're working through contested logistics,' he said. 'We're building those concepts and building those capabilities with the Australians side-by-side to facilitate setting the theater.' The locations throughout the theater will vary in size and scope, 'but the things that will be universal,' Clark said, 'is, one, you're going to have to have a port capability to move surface vessels with large amounts of material. 'Two, they're going to have to have storage capability for our efforts that store classes of supply. Three, they're going to have to have some sort of airfield and air capability so we can move quickly materiel, supplies, from one place to another in rapid fashion.' The centers 'will allow us to essentially cheat the requirement for strategic air because, should there be crisis or conflict, the ability to use strategic lift to get into position will be highly contested by ourselves,' Clark said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event June 27. 'Our efforts to get Army prepositioned stocks on the ground in multiple locations where we can draw and then move inter-theater to a place of need is essential.' Talisman Sabre will also test out other capabilities designed for contested logistics, such as Army watercraft concepts, as the service works to shape that strategy. The exercise will also mark the first time the Army's Typhon, or Mid-Range Capability missile, is live-fired in the Pacific theater.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
U.S. Army celebrates 250 years of service with Schofield celebration
This week the U.S. Army is commemorating its 250th birthday with a series of celebrations around the country. The Army, tracing its roots to rebels that fought the British, is older than the nation itself. On Oahu on Monday, soldiers from every unit in Hawaii—a few thousand troops—gathered at Schofield Barracks on Weyand Field at dawn for an early morning run at the same time that comrades currently deployed to the Philippines also were running. The Army also dedicated a new gym facility honoring the family of a well-known Oahu veteran. As the sun rose, Gen. Ronald Clark, the commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific, addressed soldiers at Schofield as well as in the Philippines—where it was just after midnight—in a live-feed broadcast to them before they began the run. Clark told his troops 'you stand on the front lines of freedom, on the forward edge—the tactical edge—of our Army. You are the theater Army of the Pacific in the most challenging time in the history of this region in our lifetimes. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for the manner in which you do it and the leadership that you provide every day, and the example you set for the United States of America.' Troops based out of Schofield and Fort Shafter have been conducting several exercises in the Philippines amid simmering tensions with China. In recent months, Hawaii Army units have been in the country for annual training exercises training with Philippine forces as well as bolstering infrastructure around Philippine military bases. The South China Sea—a busy waterway that nearly one-third of all global trade travels through—has become increasingly militarized over the past decade. Beijing claims nearly the entire sea as its exclusive territory over the objections of neighboring countries, and the Chinese military has harassed and sometimes attacked fishermen and other marine workers from neighboring countries—especially the Philippines. The 25th Infantry Division's Command Sgt. Maj. Shaun Curry, a veteran of the Army's elite Ranger Regiment, said that soldiers in the Pacific today face very different challenges than he did in Iraq and in Afghanistan—lessons he and his comrades learned the hard way. Curry said that 'when I went to combat for the first time, no one in my unit had deployed. I had a platoon leader, fresh out of college, I had a platoon sergeant who had been in the Army, close to a dec ade at that point, and neither one of them had seen combat.' His generation of soldiers fought long, drawn-out wars and often deployed multiple times. But much of that generation is now moving on to civilian life with only more senior troops having memory of what it's like. Curry said currently only about 20 % of the 25th Infantry Division has ever deployed to an active conflict zone. But Curry also said watching the conflict in Ukraine, where drones and other tech are changing the game, means everyone has to learn and adapt to keep up. Curry, who hails from Wisconsin, has been with the division since 2020 and said he's come to feel close to Hawaii. His daughter attended University of Hawaii at Manoa and his son attended UH Hilo and recently joined the Hawaii National Guard. 'This field here, Weyand Field, is named after the commanding general that took the division into Vietnam, ' Curry said. 'But this field is also on the Leilehua Plains. So for kamaaina, this is where the warriors came to trade, and then they went up to the top, and that's where they fought. So this is something that is sacred to the Hawaiian people and something we need to take responsibility for.' After the run, the 25th held a cake-cutting ceremony with the division's oldest and youngest serving soldiers cutting it with an Army saber. As soldiers ended the run to return to their duties, Curry and division commander Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans prepared for another ceremony. Friends of the family of the late Command Sgt. Maj. Henry Lee gathered at a new gym named in his honor. Lee was born in 1930 in Castner Village, just outside of Schofield, attending Leilehua High School before enlisting in 1946 at the age of 15. His career would take him to Europe and Asia, but it ultimately brought him back to Hawaii to serve with the 25th. In 1968 during a deployment to Vietnam with the division, he earned a Purple Heart when a helicopter he was in was shot down. Lee was the first Korean American to become an Army command sergeant major. After leaving the Army he continued his education in Hawaii and became an educator, teaching social studies at Nanakuli and Wai anae public schools and went on to a long career of public service, ultimately retiring in 1989 but continuing to be civically engaged until his death in 2023 at age 92. '(His service ) exemplifies a life well lived, the generational leadership manifests itself today on the plains of Leilehua, on the fields in the jungles in the Philippines, here at Schofield Barracks, across the Pacific and across our ohana, ' Evans said. 'Command Sgt. Maj. Lee's family exemplifies generational leadership that has been passed down from one generation to the next and is represented by you all here today.' Lee's son, Henry Lee Jr., told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser 'Dad has 24 years in the service and all his contributions, and we're just so happy that they were able to honor him this way. … We grew up in the military over the years, so this is a part of our life.' The Army will continue holding events, including a public community day around Fort DeRussy in Waikiki until the service's actual birthday on Saturday.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pacific land force leaders seek ‘positional advantage' against China
Top generals in the Pacific are aiming to create 'positional advantage' using a combination of land forces and maritime assets to counter Chinese military aggression in the region. Some units, such as the Japanese Self-Defense Force, are positioned inside the first island chain around China. While others, such as the Australian Defence Force and Armed Forces of the Philippines, are farther out but plan to use terrain as they monitor Chinese military maneuvers. Leaders from those three militaries discussed their respective roles alongside the head of U.S. Army Pacific, Gen. Ronald Clark, on Wednesday at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual Land Forces Pacific conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. Lt. Gen. Roy Galido, commanding general of the Philippine Army, said changes in the operational environment, in part due to modern technologies, have 'radically altered the definition of key terrain.' Army task forces 'centerpiece' for deterring China: INDOPACOM boss Some of that is more ships and boats coming under the control of traditional land forces, while other influences include longer-reaching fires that can hold Chinese ships at bay. Ultimately, though, Clark said, it will take a combination of those nations and others to effectively contain Chinese military action in the region. 'It's not just about the United States Army, it's not just about our joint force, it's about our allies and partners,' Clark said. Gen. Yasunori Morishita, chief of staff for Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces, said he sees Japan's location as a key block to Chinese expansion. For Lt. Gen. Simon Stuart, chief of the Australian Army, ongoing, daily campaigning is key to winning the competition phase of any potential conflict, which leaders hope will ultimately deter conflict overall. Stuart pointed to recent acquisitions of ships and light vehicles that his country has approved as ways to 'achieve sea denial and kill ships from the land, dominate key and vital terrain' in the littoral regions, those areas of the sea close to land. Following Australia's 2023 defense review, the country began looking to acquire lighter, smaller vehicles for moving in and around littoral zone land features, Defense News previously reported. At the same time, the Australian military will acquire 28 new ships for its land forces to facilitate that maneuver, the most it's had since the end of World War II. Other review recommendations include an enhanced long-range strike capability for multiple domains of warfare. Planners also expect to field a fully enabled and integrated amphibious combined arms land system and a mobile, joint expeditionary theater logistics system, Defense News reported. On the strike side of the house, the review also recommended acquiring more M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and including local weapons manufacturing to ensure stock levels. Adding the HIMARS and the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, will give the Australian military greater land and maritime target reach, according to a Journal of Advanced Military Studies article published last fall. The Australian Army will acquire 42 HIMARS, the article notes. Japan, meanwhile, has built a new amphibious unit and launched its first such ship for the unit in November, U.S. Naval Institute reported. The maritime asset is key for the island nation to resupply its long island chain. The first ship, the JS Nihonbare, has similar capabilities to the U.S. Army's Runnymede-class large landing craft, according to USNI. Ultimately, the unit will contain 10 such vessels, four of which will be in the Nihonbare class, two 3,500-ton transport vessels and four maneuver support vessels. Elsewhere, the Philippine Army is actively training with U.S. Marines and Army assets, adopting an antiship strike capability of its own and facilitating U.S. strike platforms in their region through recent exercises such as Balikatan and Valiant Shield, officials said. The Maritime Key Terrain Security Operation recently concluded following an experiment with stand-in force concepts that deployed 'low-signature, light-weight formations to various islands in the Batanes and Babuyan Island chains to rehearse Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, test sensing capabilities, and simulate securing and defending key maritime terrain,' according to a Marine release. The event included the simulated use of the Marines' newest weapon, the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, which deployed onto Batan Island. 'Walking off the C-130 with NMESIS onto that island was one small step for a Marine, and one giant leap for U .S.-Philippine-delivered sea denial capabilities,' said Col. John G. Lehane, commanding officer of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment.
