Army transformation team previews new multi-domain formation

CALAYAN, Philippines — The U.S. Army has stood up a new two-star operational headquarters designed to knit space, cyber, electronic warfare and precision fires into joint operations across the Indo-Pacific, and put it through its paces during major June exercises.

The 7th Infantry Division Multi-Domain Command–Pacific (7ID MDC-PAC), based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, merges the 7th Infantry Division with the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force. The formation reached full operational capacity in mid-June. Army Futures and Concepts Command and assessment teams from the Army’s Joint Modernization Command (JMC) used the Pacific Fury and Valiant Shield exercises to examine the unit’s role in defending Guam and other island chains and to evaluate broader joint integration and capability improvements.

“In the Pacific, the Army is never going to be the main effort until we hit mainland on potential conflict,” Maj. Caleb Bloom, an assessment planner with JMC’s Operations Group A, said. “However, there are things the Army can do to support the Joint fight, and the MDC-PAC brings a lot of sensors and effects that will allow success at an operational strategic level. The formation is really aimed at how the Army can support the Joint fight by providing kinetic and non-kinetic effects and sensors.”

JMC dispatched a large assessment team to JBLM for Pacific Fury to provide an external look at developing concepts and capabilities, said Col. Joseph Mukes, who leads JMC’s Operations Group A. “Our partnership with 7ID MDC-PAC here in Pacific Fury and in future exercises will afford the Army a great opportunity to learn from an elite formation as they progress,” Mukes said. “We expect to glean new and innovative ways the Army will contribute to the Joint Force as they provide protection and stability to the Pacific. We also look forward to our partnership with MDC-Europe, where we also expect to learn great deal under a very different operational and strategic problem set.”

A core value of JMC’s experimentation teams is to provide units with an outside perspective informed by how other formations are employing new tools and tactics, said Maj. Kyle Shea, lead planner for JMC’s participation in Valiant Shield. “The main thing we bring that the participating units don’t have is the assessors, the subject matter experts, who can give them an external look,” Shea said. “It’s easy for units to say, ‘We participated, check the block; We did the thing.’ To get an outside perspective to look at you and say, ‘You know what, here are your strengths; But, also, here’s where we see some opportunity for improvements.’ Yes, this capability works really well, but we see other capabilities and other exercises constantly, so how does it measure up against those others? We can give the outside perspective that the units may have a tougher time seeing. We’re just looking at it from a little different perspective.”

For Valiant Shield, JMC positioned teams in Guam, Hawaii and at JBLM to gauge progress in the Pacific area of responsibility. “We’ll be looking for improvement in the integration of the Joint kill web; the best sensor, best shooter methodology, in a defense of Guam scenario,” said Lt. Col. Zachary Quintana, assessments team lead for JMC’s Operations Group A. “We are looking at the Air Force, Navy, Army, how we all work together to address the same problem: closing any sensor-to-shooter gaps that USARPAC and USPACOM are trying to address in their AOR.”

Because Valiant Shield is driven by U.S. Pacific Command, joint and coalition participation is built in, Shea noted. “This has the advantage of being an USPACOM-driven exercise, so participation of our Joint and coalition partners is inherently already there,” he said. “We’re not pulling people to the table to participate, they’re already there, so it makes for easier opportunities to see our Army capabilities integrated into the Joint force and into that Joint kill web.”

Shea said this summer’s work extends lessons from Project Convergence Capstone 5 and leads into Project Convergence–Capstone 6 in July in California. “We gained a lot of insight into Joint integration in the defense of the Pacific during Capstone 5, and this will be a continuation of that progress,” he said. “What does it look like as they introduce new capabilities and continue to refine their processes? What’s awesome about it is it’s a Joint capability. They have the Aegis Combat System integrated from the Navy. The Air Force is involved because the Defensive Counter-Air fight is part of that.

“Seeing that progress is both a material improvement, where they’re introducing new capabilities, but also a system improvement in how they integrate them, how the systems interact and overlap,” Shea said. “They all have semi-proprietary systems for how they target and what radar capabilities can be used with what effectors, so getting them to work more seamlessly together and be integrated in a continuous layered defense system is what they’re working toward. You can see that improvement happening in real time as we assess them year over year.”

As units redeploy from Pacific Fury and Valiant Shield, Futures and Concepts Command is shifting focus to Capstone 6, using insights from the exercises to sustain a cycle of persistent experimentation that ties readiness today to improvements in the future force.