(Left) Colonel Andy Knight, Commander of the US Army’s 17th Field Artillery Brigade, briefs Brigadier Brett Chaloner (right), Commander of the Australian Army’s 13th Brigade, on the capabilities of a US Army High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launcher during an open day for 13 Brigade members and guests at Irwin Barracks, Karrakatta, near Perth in Western Australia.Two HIMARS launchers from the 17th Field Artillery Brigade are in Western Australia for Exercise HIGHBALL, which will develop how the Australian Defence Force employs long-range land-based precision rocket and missile systems.

Operationalize Campaign Approaches

The National Defense Strategy calls on the Department of Defense to utilize campaigning approaches to set conditions and shape the environment so the U.S. can prevail in competition and conflict against our most formidable strategic challenges. DTRA will align programs, activities, and investments according to a campaign-based approach, focused on China as the pacing threat, Russia as the acute threat, and North Korea and Iran as high risk regional destabilizers. DTRA’s wide range of global activities and actions across the five core functions must be connected and coordinated to maximize impact. DTRA’s campaign plans are living documents that must drive agency-wide activities and investments. As DTRA operationalizes and standardizes its campaign approach process, we will implement improvements, refinements, and efficiencies to optimize agency-wide activities and account for rapidly changing technical, operational, and geostrategic challenges throughout competition, crisis, and conflict. This initiative will sustain and institutionalize current cross-cutting efforts while innovating across the agency to identify and deliver new capabilities and solutions to emerging problems.

Effective campaigning requires organizational and operational innovation to drive change across the agency. As part of this initiative to operationalize campaigning, DTRA will assess and restructure its forward footprint to meet the needs of our pacing challenges while tailoring expertise and allowing greater agility and responsiveness to Combatant Command needs. A signature part of this process is re-posturing the agency to better meet the pacing challenges posed by China. In particular, the agency will develop a deeper partnership and presence with Australia, focused on enhanced operational and exercise support, expanded research and development, technical information sharing, and coordinated regional partner engagements. In addition, the agency will continue to evaluate its forward posture to rebalance between embedded and reach-back capabilities and deepen its partnership with USSTRATCOM in light of growing nuclear risks from state actors. This evolution improves the efficiency and effectiveness of agency-wide capabilities and further enhances DTRA’s reach across the Indo-Pacific. In addition, DTRA will utilize matrixed campaign operational planning teams to drive functional effects against other strategic priorities that reveal, delay, degrade, or disrupt emerging chemical and biological weapons programs before any potential future use. These will include focused efforts on countering novel chemical and biological capabilities and improving hard target defeat capabilities aligned with our priority campaigning efforts.