America's Plan to Win a Ground War in the Asia-Pacific

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, General Ronald Clark of the U.S. Army Pacific Command stated that the U.S. Army needs to undergo significant reforms and form new mobile forces to counter China in the Indo-Pacific theater and address potential conflicts with China.

The focus of this round of reforms is threefold: first, enhancing the mobility of the army; second, deploying the army in a dispersed manner; third, strengthening intelligence gathering capabilities; fifth, the army must possess long-range strike capabilities.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Army is most concerned about the South China Sea and East China Sea directions. In the event of a conflict, the U.S. Army will use long-range firepower to suppress our coastal forces, while the U.S. Navy and Air Force will conduct attack operations from the coast.

The U.S. military believes that when fighting against adversaries at the level of Russia or China, high demands are placed on air defense and electronic warfare capabilities. It requires that every unit above battalion level must deploy drones, anti-aircraft units, and electronic warfare forces.

The U.S. Navy focuses on distributed lethality, treating the army as a shore-based missile force. The Air Force emphasizes hypersonic lethality, and the Marine Corps suggests restoring traditional roles to launch maritime interdiction operations in the Indian Ocean-Pacific region. The Air Force and Navy are essentially artillery, the Marine Corps are shock troops, and the Army are missile groups.

If the U.S. proceeds with these changes, it is fundamentally due to the overwhelming power of China's DF ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles. If the U.S. continues to build large air bases, large naval ports, and large army bases, it would be purely self-destructive.

The U.S. military is now dividing one army group into more than a dozen, even over twenty independent units, with main combat forces being combined battalions. This is done to enhance battlefield survivability. Even if several combined battalions are hit by DF missiles, an entire army group can still maintain its combat effectiveness.

Even if heavy weapon units are hit by DF missiles, combined battalions still have various shore-based anti-ship missiles and air defense forces. Under such tactics, countries like the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian islands are all considered frontline cannon fodder, luring our attacks and exposing our targets.

U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy conducting dispersed mobile deployments in the first island chain will launch missiles from behind. However, it seems that the U.S. is quite lost right now.

Because China is developing too quickly, resulting in a shift in the balance of power. The U.S. adapts year by year, but it cannot fully adapt. Constantly reorganizing divisions cannot solve the problem. At present, the U.S. military is just trying its best. After all, can dividing one division into a dozen combined battalions really defend against DF missile strikes? It doesn't resolve the issue at all.

American Army to Cut Large Numbers of Weapons

Weapons unsuitable for mobile warfare in the first island chain will be comprehensively cut. After U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth officially ordered the "Army Transformation and Procurement Reform" work for the U.S. Army.

U.S. media has exposed many key points of the current "Contact Transformation" (TiC) deep structural reform of the U.S. Army. The four priorities are: improving long-range precision strike firepower, providing air defense and anti-missile capabilities, strengthening electronic warfare, anti-space, and cyber warfare capabilities, reinforcing drone and anti-drone tactics.

M-10 Buch light tanks, which are only suitable for close-range armored warfare, must be phased out. Anti-terrorism war projects and Humvee military vehicle projects must be discontinued, and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) project must also cease production.

The new multipurpose armored vehicle project designed for use in Europe and the Middle East, based on the M-2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle chassis, has been canceled. Vehicles already manufactured can be sold to Ukraine to recover some costs.

The Stryker wheeled armored vehicle is to be eliminated and will no longer be produced. The modernization project for the M-109-52 long-barrel self-propelled howitzer has been canceled.

The robotic combat vehicle (RCV) project has been canceled, as well as the MQ-1C Gray Eagle reconnaissance drone and AH-64D Apache attack helicopter projects. The entire helicopter force will gradually be reduced.

Key developments include integrated air defense systems, anti-drone systems, mobile land and sea strike missiles, such as the PRSM tactical precision-guided missile with a range exceeding 500 kilometers. Each platoon will increase anti-drone capabilities, and drone units will be established at brigade-level units below the division.

By 2027, active AI command and control capabilities will be achieved in U.S. military regional-command-army-division-brigade command structures. Progress on the long-range strike drone project will be accelerated.

From these series of actions, it is clear that the U.S. military is indeed preparing for a major island chain war in the Asia-Pacific region, and the target is none other than China.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7500835365570216458/

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