WASHINGTON—After years of frustration, Army leaders are starting to see progress on upgraded networks designed to make it easier to communicate with allies and partners in the Pacific in the event of a conflict with China.
“When I arrived at [U.S. Army Pacific Command], we had an exercise in Japan—and I'd only been in command a month. It was a trilateral exercise between the U.S., Japan, and Australia. And we literally couldn't pass voice data to each other. We couldn't create a common operating picture without physically putting icons into this system,” Gen. Ronald Clark, commander of U.S. Army Pacific, told reporters earlier this month.
“It was so frustrating to me because I just left working in the Pentagon where I had literally attended both the signing ceremonies for AUKUS…sharing our most sensitive defense technology. But we are using basically a swivel chair to have a conversation with regard to land forces.”
In recent years, the Army has been building and testing the telecommunications pipelines that allies and partner militaries would rely on in a war with China. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has a broader Pacific Mission Network, previously known as the INDOPACOM Mission Network, which is used on a more strategic or operational level.
Earlier this year, the U.S., Australia, and Japan used the Pacific Mission Network during the large-scale Balikatan exercise to get a “real-time picture of participating forces across the entire training area,” an Army spokesperson told Defense One.
Months later, the nations reconvened for Yama Sakura 91, an annual military exercise with Japan and Australia that ended Sept. 10.
“Yama Sakura 91 demonstrated the live sharing of simulated information in a command post exercise, while Balikatan 26 demonstrated the live sharing of real-time information across a physical training environment and multiple echelons,” the Army said.
That network, which connects dozens of nations, was the linchpin for USARPAC to test whether it could share and see the same information as allies and partners.
“The [mission partner] enclaves work, so we're able to pass and share data in a way that we had not been before,” Clark said, at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference, calling the network an “important and critical innovation” that addressed years of frustrations.
That means commanders can more easily send “target-quality data” and share a “common operational picture” without needing to swivel between workstations.
For example, Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington, who leads the Army’s Multi-Domain Command-Pacific and 7th Infantry Division, can gather information on “land-based long-range precision fires, sensors, space capability, [electronic warfare], cyber” and then share it with Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Stephen Koehler, who led the exercise, and “can then integrate that [data] into a joint context in the fight,” Clark said.
The progress on the Pacific Mission Network comes as the Army looks to add more tech and sources of data—mostly drones—to its forces. That means being able to see, control, and learn from devices and the information they collect will become increasingly important on the battlefield.
Seventh ID recently finished an exercise called Bayonet Quest near Lake Huron, Mich., in which it was able to coordinate high-altitude balloons, and aerial and maritime drones, using a shared data connection, Harrington told reporters.
“We used multiple [unmanned aerial systems], multiple [unmanned surface vessels], long-range, one-way attack, and a high-altitude balloon,” he said. The division also collected and analyzed data from all of those systems using a single data layer.
During the exercise, which ended Oct. 6, the Army was also able to orchestrate the drones and coordinate simulated attacks with an “adaptive and agentic” command-and-control system.
“We were able to pull in a vast amount of data, make sense of it quickly, and then task those systems through a large language model, reducing the need for soldiers on individual ground control stations,” Harrington said in a statement to Defense One.
The exercise showed how unmanned systems could be used in the Pacific, particularly from different locations, which could help keep soldiers safe, he said.
The exercise wrapped earlier this month, but the division plans to keep training with the concept and employ it in future exercises with allies and partners.
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