WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Army has reduced the footprint of its command posts and increased the speed with which they can be set up and taken down as it implements key lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, its chief said.
The army is also boosting investments in drone and electronic warfare as those technologies play an ever-greater role on the battlefield in Ukraine, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth told a conference organized by the Stimson Center in Washington on September 12.
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The pervasive use of drones in warfare has made it very difficult for militaries to conceal themselves and that has forced the army to disperse troops and assets, she said.
Army command posts at training centers in the United States and Germany may now have just a few soldiers and two Humvees with a cluster of antennas located at a distance. Prior to the Ukraine war, the number of troops and vehicles would have been larger with the antennas nearby.
“That is a huge change and it is driven by what we have seen in Ukraine. There is nowhere to hide,” she said. “We have to disperse. We have to be more mobile.”
The command posts can now be set up and taken down within 15 minutes, she said.
Speed is important because surveillance drones can identify and locate enemy command-and-control centers. The information is instantly relayed to artillery units that can then fire precision missiles.
Wormuth said the army is also reducing its electronic footprint in light of the war in Ukraine. Electronic signals emitted by devices such as Fitbits and mobile phones can be picked up by opposing forces and used to identify their location.
“We’ve really been working on getting that signature as tight as possible,” she said.
Wormuth said the army will be making a “significant” investment in drone and counter-drone technology as well as electronic warfare in next year’s budget, adding the reallocation of funding is “a direct result of what we are seeing in Ukraine.”
She said the cycle of drone and counter-drone technology is evolving rapidly and that the U.S. Army has learned important lessons about their uses on the battlefield from Ukrainian soldiers, including using 3D printing to attach payloads.
Amid debate in the United States about whether to continue supporting Ukraine with weapons, Wormuth said a Russian victory would undermine U.S. security.
“If other countries see us let Ukraine be consumed [by Russia], it may make them more opportunistic, more adventurous in ways that are very detrimental to the United States.”