With a flight deck packed with carrier-based aircraft, including stealthy fifth-generation F-35Cs, the USS Theodore Roosevelt pulled into Yokosuka, Japan, on Friday. Roosevelt is the first non-resident U.S. carrier to visit the key naval port, strategically located on the east side of Japan, in more than four years. Yokosuka is home to the USS George Washington and America’s only forward-based Carrier Strike Group (CSG).

The Roosevelt, which serves as the flagship of CSG 9, escorted by guided-missile cruiser USS Chosin and destroyer USS Decatur, completed the journey from San Diego in 19 days − maneuvering around a typhoon in the Western Pacific − and will participate in the upcoming combined exercise Keen Sword 27. Meanwhile, the USS George H.W. Bush departed Thailand after a five-day port call and returned to the Middle East, and the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived home after a nearly eleven-month combat deployment.

Here’s TWZ’s weekly carrier tracker monitoring America’s flattop fleet, including deployed CSGs and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs), using publicly available open-source information. Check out last week’s report here.

Theodore Roosevelt Docks In Yokosuka, Japan; First Visiting Carrier In Four Years

Roosevelt and Chosin chopped into the U.S. 7th Fleet-Pacific Command (PACOM) area of responsibility (AOR) and arrived at Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka on the morning of October 16. The CSG will spend a few days in port before beginning participation in exercise Keen Sword, a “premier joint-bilateral field training exercise designed to increase readiness and interoperability between the Japan Self-Defense Forces and U.S. military forces,” according to the 7th Fleet press release. The brief visit allows the crew to complete maintenance, resupply, and disembark for liberty before resuming routine operations.

“Our crew is honored to visit Yokosuka and experience the rich culture and hospitality of Japan,” the commanding officer of Roosevelt, Capt. Will Mathis, said in the release. “Port visits like this are vital for crew morale and mission readiness, allowing our Sailors to rest, recharge, and prepare to operate seamlessly alongside our allies during exercise Keen Sword.”

The five-ship CSG, the composition of which a Navy official confirmed to TWZ, is currently operating on a disaggregated basis − a common practice employed by strike groups with multiple ongoing missions. The duo that departed the U.S. at the end of September linked up with another element of the group, Pearl Harbor-based guided missile destroyer USS Decatur, as they were steaming westbound past the Hawaiian Islands, based on public Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Decatur arrived in Yokosuka the day after Roosevelt but was not mentioned in the press release.

USS Carl M. Levin, also stationed in Hawaii, was the first ship from the group to deploy, according to DVIDS, the military’s content-sharing platform. Levin departed on September 9 and is operating at an undisclosed location. USS Paul Hamilton, the final ship assigned to CSG 9 to deploy, left San Diego on October 10 after onloading ammo at Bravo Pier and moored at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on October 15, AIS data shows. Henry J. Kaiser class fleet replenishment oiler USNS Tippecanoe supported the group’s transit across the Pacific, conducting multiple replenishments-at-sea (RAS), and recently entered the East Sea/Sea of Japan via the Tsugaru Strait before going dark on AIS.

Multiple reports indicated that medium unmanned surface vessel (MUSV) Seahawk (2) deployed with the group, which would represent a significant operational achievement and the first time a drone boat was assigned to a CSG, but the MUSV quietly slipped out of Point Loma on October 8, more than ten days after Roosevelt. Seahawk reappeared on AIS and docked in Hawaii for a couple days before continuing its journey westbound in the Pacific on October 16. If Seahawk is assigned to CSG 9, it is currently disaggregated, and whether it will join Roosevelt to participate in exercise Keen Sword 27 is unknown.

Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao seemingly confirmed the deployment, saying during a panel at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) convention that “the Teddy Roosevelt carrier strike group just deployed on October 8 with a medium sized unmanned surface vessel. This is the first carrier strike group to ever deploy with a large size unmanned surface vessel.” However, Roosevelt was more than halfway to Japan on the date referenced. “This is a force multiplier, imagine having more guns out there,” he added.

TWZ reached out to the Secretary’s office for clarification and to confirm the deployment but did not receive a response. “Seahawk’s operations represent continued progress in the Navy’s efforts to integrate unmanned systems into Fleet operations. As with any emerging capability, we continue to learn, adapt, and refine how these systems are employed,” a Navy official told us.

Abraham Lincoln’s Homecoming

Surrounded by small boats, with hundreds of spectators lining the channel in San Diego Bay and thousands more watching online, the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived home from a historic ten-and-a-half-month combat deployment. The flagship of CSG 3 and her crew of more than 5,000 Sailors and Marines served as the tip of the spear in the war against the Iranian regime, first during Operation Epic Fury and then the subsequent blockades, and set a new record for the most consecutive days at sea without a port call.

Lincoln pulled into Naval Air Station North Island and moored at Berth Lima on October 8, 321 days after casting off on November 21, 2025. Sailors in dress whites manned the rails as the carrier transited the bay, escorted on both sides by small boats and jet skis flying American flags, while family and friends eagerly waited pierside for their return. The video below, shared by the Pentagon, captures the moment.

Lincoln now lays claim to the second-longest deployment in the modern carrier era, falling just five days short of the 326-day post-Vietnam record held by the USS Gerald R. Ford. The flattop traveled over 93,000 nautical miles during the cruise − more than four trips around the Earth, a post by the public affairs officer highlighted − and conducted 72 replenishments-at-sea, received 20-plus million gallons of aviation fuel, and flew more than 14,000 sorties that totaled 28,500 flight hours, a press release from the Navy highlighted.

The release confirmed for the first time that Lincoln broke the previous record of 206 days set by USS Dwight D. Eisenhower during the COVID pandemic for days spent underway between port visits, as TWZ first reported. “The ship’s 208 uninterrupted days at sea between Guam and Oman, and its 286 consecutive days at sea between departing San Diego and arriving in Thailand, are record-breaking marks for modern aircraft carriers.”

Lincoln’s cruise took her through both U.S. 7th Fleet and U.S. 5th Fleet AORs. During Operation Epic Fury, which began on February 28 and lasted almost 40 days, Lincoln took up station in the northern Arabian Sea as Commander, Task Force (CTF) 50 and pressured Iran’s southern flank. When major combat operations wound down, the carrier and her air wing patrolled and enforced the blockade line during both rounds that followed.

Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9, the “Navy’s premier next-generation air wing that served as the primary offensive power” for CSG 3, flew 14,037 sorties − including 4,000 combat missions − and dropped more than 1.37 million pounds of ordnance on thousands of targets while employing 1,499 precision weapons. “This concentrated firepower significantly degraded Iranian Navy capabilities,” a separate statement noted.

“The rapid mobilization and combat execution of CVW-9 during Operation Epic Fury demonstrated the unmatched flexibility of a U.S. Navy carrier strike group,” Capt. J.W. Stigi, commander of CVW-9, said in the statement. “Pairing fifth-generation F-35C stealth and sensor fusion with fourth-generation workhorse strike and electronic attack platforms, Team Shogun destroyed Iran’s conventional Navy and secured vital maritime chokepoints in support of our commander’s objectives.”

Kill marks painted on the island superstructure show CSG 3 destroyed 106 one-way attack drones fired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), 34 Iranian Navy and IRGC ships, 23 inbound cruise missiles, and 10 enemy submarines. The strike group dropped 1,463 air-to-ground munitions in total, a Sailor explaining the marks said in a video on social media.

George H.W. Bush Leaves Thailand And Returns To The Middle East

The USS George H.W. Bush and her destroyer escort, USS Delbert D. Black, departed Phuket, Thailand, on October 9 after a five-day liberty visit. “Nearly 5,000 Sailors from across the strike group experienced the sights and sounds Thailand has to offer, deepening their understanding of the Thai people and strengthening interpersonal bonds,” according to a press release.

“The Sailors and I had an amazing time in this beautiful country, and I sincerely thank the people of Thailand for their incredible welcome,” Capt. Justin T. Issler, the commanding officer of George H.W. Bush, said about the stop. “This port visit to Phuket was a tremendous opportunity for the crew. We are grateful to our Thai allies for hosting us, and we look forward to continuing our mission here in 7th Fleet, alongside Thailand and our other regional allies and partners.”

Bush dropped anchor approximately two nautical miles south of Ao Makham Deep Sea Port on October 4 after 187 consecutive days at sea. After leaving Phuket, the carrier stopped broadcasting AIS while steaming due south at 10 knots. Imagery on DVIDS confirms that the CSG returned to the Middle East and operating in the U.S. 5th Fleet AOR to “support maritime security and stability,” joining the George Washington CSG once again as the second strike group in the region.

Destroyer USS Mason, which deployed as the integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) commander for the CSG but has disaggregated at times, arrived in Singapore on October 5, likely for a port call. The Arleigh Burke class destroyer departed on October 9 and was last tracked heading northwestbound in the Malacca Strait, likely to rejoin the CSG. The other two destroyers assigned to the CSG, USS Ross and USS Donald Cook, remained in 5th Fleet during the visit.

F-35C Lightning II Operates from A Ford Class Carrier For The First Time

Marking a major milestone, an F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter made the first arrested landing aboard a Gerald R. Ford class carrier, the Navy’s newest and most advanced class of aircraft carriers that are being built to replace the aging Nimitz fleet. The trap was made by Lt. Cmdr. Robert Mason with the “Salty Dogs” of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 aboard the future USS John F. Kennedy in the Western Atlantic on October 13. The first catapult launch followed the next day, pictures on DVIDS showed.

VX-23, based out of Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, is part of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and was putting Kennedy through the ongoing Aircraft Compatibility Testing to assess the “operational capabilities of the ship’s aircraft launch and recovery equipment.” A team from the Patuxent River-based F-35 Integrated Test Force, detached to the ship, conducted the evaluation using a specially instrumented example of the jet. One of the two pictured was externally equipped with an inert Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb.

The Navy took preliminary acceptance of Kennedy, which is still considered a Pre-Commissioning Unit, on September 29. This process allows the service to conduct at-sea testing and build underway proficiency while the shipbuilder, Huntington Ingalls Industries, completes final system checks ahead of expected delivery in spring 2027. Kennedy got underway on October 13 and returned to her homeport of Naval Station Norfolk three days later.

The lead ship of the class, the USS Gerald R. Ford, does not currently embark F-35Cs and will need upgrades to field the Navy’s most advanced jet. Back in 2019, TWZ warned that the stealth jet wouldn’t fly from the troubled class for years. Because of this, Congress required that Kennedy be equipped to embark F-35Cs, which led to additional delays for the Navy’s next carrier.

Big Deck Fleet At A Glance

Overall, three U.S. carriers are deployed, three are working up in various states of readiness, three are in maintenance availabilities, one is post-deployment, one is being used primarily for training before deactivation next year, and another will be delivered in 2027. Two amphibious ready groups are deployed, one is forward-deployed, three are working up or in port, and three are in maintenance.

Note: Positions are general approximations. Non-deployed LHA/LHD amphibious warships are not shown.

Contact the author: ian@twz.com or @ianellisjones

The post Where Are The Aircraft Carriers?: October 17, 2026 appeared first on TWZ.

A pilot flying an F-22 Raptor fighter has issued commands to a YFQ-44A Fury Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone in a first-of-its-kind test. This is an important development for the U.S. Air Force’s CCA program, as its F-22s are set to be the first aerial ‘quarterbacks’ for these uncrewed aircraft once they enter operational service.

The Air Force and Anduril, Fury’s prime contractor, announced the “airborne tactical-control demonstration” today, but it occurred sometime earlier this month. An Anduril spokesperson confirmed directly to TWZ that this was a first for an F-22 and a pre-production YFQ-44A. Last month, the company disclosed tests involving Fury flying in formation with F-35 fighters, but stressed that the latter were not yet issuing commands to the former in mid-air. A Fury drone also launched an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) for the first time earlier this year.

The Air Force has orders in now for production of FQ-44As, as well as General Atomics’ FQ-42A Vengeance drones, under the first phase, or Increment 1, of its CCA program. The service is still planning to acquire additional CCAs, which could be of entirely different types, through a follow-on Increment 2. The goal now is to have a fleet of at least 500 Increment 1 CCAs by 2032. The recent test is part of efforts to lay the groundwork for an initial tranche of CCAs to start entering operational service around the end of the decade.

“During the demonstration, an F-22 pilot served as an airborne ‘quarterback,’ issuing high-level tactical directives to a single YFQ-44A,” according to a press release from the Air Force. “The aircraft’s onboard autonomy software interpreted and executed those directives in real time, conducting dynamic flight maneuvers and simulated combat tasks.”

“The event brought together personnel from the 412th Test Wing, 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, 309th Software Engineering Group, Experimental Operations Unit, F-22 System Program Office and the CCA Software Autonomy and Teaming Branch,” according to the Air Force release.

The Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) mentioned here is based at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and has been leading efforts to pave the way for future Air Force CCA operations.

The “Fury and an F-22 both took off [from] Edwards AFB [Air Force Base in California] and joined up midair,” according to a separate release from Anduril. “While in flight, the Raptor pilot sent an updated mission plan to Fury using a tactical data link, commanding Fury through operationally-relevant maneuvers from the cockpit of the crewed quarterback.”

Neither the Air Force nor Anduril provided further details on how the F-22 was configured for this test. Past Air Force budget documents have mentioned the need to integrate “tablets, cables, and associated materials” onto the Raptor for this purpose. A single Raptor is also expected to be able to manage multiple CCA drones simultaneously.

The Raptor’s prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, has certainly been working with the Air Force to develop the relevant control architectures and user interfaces for that fighter, as well as the F-35. In terms of in-cockpit user interfaces for controlling drones, known work to date has centered largely on the use of touchscreen tablet-like devices, but this is understood to just be a starting point. Though tablet-based interfaces are a workable option, questions and criticisms about increased workload, especially for pilots in single-seat fighters, have been raised in the past.

It is also worth noting here that General Atomics announced a similar demonstration involving a Raptor and an MQ-20 Avenger back in November 2025. General Atomics has been using the MQ-20 as a CCA surrogate in various types of testing. What the plan might be now to demonstrate the F-22’s ability to control an FQ-42A in flight is unclear. General Atomics has previously released a picture of a Vengeance drone flying in formation with, though not being directly controlled by, Air Force fighters.

In addition, Fury and Vengeance are set to make their debut in a large-scale exercise before the end of the year. Bringing the CCAs to the next iteration of Exercise Emerald Flag will give the Air Force further opportunity to test them in a more operationally relevant context alongside crewed fighters.

“We have not yet done a LFE [large-force employment exercise] with these [CCAs], for real. The first one is going to be Emerald Flag. That’s in December,” Lt. Col. Lyndon “OTTO” Bartlett, the EOU’s Director of Operations, said during a panel at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September, at which TWZ was in attendance. “That’ll be our first tip [sic] dip of the toe in an actual force integration.”

The EOU, working together with other Air Force elements and industry partners, still has to answer a host of other outstanding questions unrelated to tactical operations. CCAs will be deployed, launched, recovered, supported, and otherwise operated in ways that are distinct from their crewed counterparts, and for which new policies and procedures will need to be developed. Just making sure human pilots have trust in their uncrewed wingmen operating as expected will be critical, underscoring the specific importance of the demonstration disclosed today. All of this applies equally to the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy CCA programs, which are being run in very close coordination with the Air Force’s efforts.

When it comes to the recent test involving the F-22 and the YFQ-44A, “this achievement demonstrates what is possible when we are aligned with industry on a shared imperative: delivering capability to the warfighter at unprecedented speed,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in a statement today. “We are driving urgency into every part of acquisition from rapid integration and flight learning to disciplined assessment, so we can turn promising technology into combat capability at the pace the threat demands.”

“This flight shows the power of crewed-uncrewed teaming and the advantage it provides our warfighters,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach also said. “We must test often, learn fast, and give commanders what they need, when they need it.”

“The U.S. Air Force’s CCA program is the fastest moving, most mature CCA program anywhere in the world, and will be the first to field operational aircraft,” Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s Vice President of Autonomous Airpower, said as well. “Getting there demands that Anduril and the U.S. Air Force work together to prove out the capability, define the operational procedures, and build trust between operators and their semi-autonomous wingmen.”

With all this in mind, an F-22 issuing orders to a YFQ-44A in mid-air is an important new sign of what is on the horizon for the U.S. Air Force, though there is still work to be done.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post F-22 Pilot Controls FQ-44 Fighter Drone From The Cockpit For The First Time appeared first on TWZ.

Hey guys, just wanted to talk about a cool thing that happened last Sunday. We won Best Military Aviation Submission at the 2026 Defense Media Awards in Washington, D.C., for “What The F-47’s Canards Say About The Rest Of Its Design.” This is the biggest deal in our little corner of journalism. Not just that, but we were nominated in many categories:

• Tyler: Best Defense Electronics and Best Missile Defense
• Tyler and Joe Trevithick: Best Rotorcraft
• Howard Altman: Integrated Maritime, AI Integration, and the John Morrocco Award for In Depth Reporting
• Thomas Newdick: Training, Simulation and Readiness, and Missile Defense
• Jamie Hunter: Best Multimedia
• Hope Seck: National Security Space
• Joe Trevithick: Space and Mobile Combat Systems

A big thanks to the committee and the Defense Media Awards!

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s caption reads:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (Sep. 18, 2023) – Navy Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians assigned to EOD Mobile Unit (EODMU) 6 conduct radiological search procedures at a training bunker onboard Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story as part of a training evolution, Sep. 18. EODMU 6 provides operational EOD capabilities for the location, identification, rendering safe, recovery, field evaluation and disposal of explosive ordnance, including chemical and nuclear weapons.

PRIME DIRECTIVES:

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

The post Bunker Talk: Let’s Talk About All The Things We Did And Didn’t Cover This Week appeared first on TWZ.

Army leaders preparing for a potential fight in the Pacific told us that some of the biggest lessons they’ve learned from the war in Ukraine and America’s now-paused fight against Iran are to move around assets that you can and find a better way to camouflage those that you can’t. While seemingly common sense, these lessons come from watching how war is now waged. The ubiquity of drones in Ukraine providing constant overwatch and strike capabilities, and U.S. troops killed and equipment destroyed or damaged by massive Iranian barrages on static installations are informing changes to how the Army trains, equips and operates.

These conversations took place during the recently wrapped Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual convention in Washington, D.C., which TWZ attended.

“A lot of the things that are happening right now in terms of long-range fires, integrated air and missile defense, and the lessons that we’re learning from them, we’re able to bring a lot of that to our potential challenges in the Pacific,” Gen. Ron Clark, commander of U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC), told us at a media roundtable. “Specifically, I am thinking through mobility and camouflage. So it’s one of those age-old Army forgotten sciences of how to hide in plain sight and how to camouflage ourselves from observation, because the ability to be able to see surface entities is almost ubiquitous.”

“Our ability to be able to use electronic warfare, to be able to use just good old-fashioned camouflage, and the ability to deceive our adversary is a must,” Clark added. You can read more about the U.S. military’s camouflage and deception efforts in our story here.

As we have frequently reported about the Ukraine war, both sides have been using a variety of “old-fashioned” tactics to duck, dodge and hide. They range from practices like smokescreens to hide from drones to updates on measures from the past like paint schemes designed to obfuscate vehicles and other equipment from AI-enabled targeting systems.

 As tough as things have been for Ukraine and for U.S. forces in the Middle East, the challenges will be even greater in the Pacific, Clark warned.

In Europe and the Middle East, “it’s not a near-peer adversary that we will be working against,” said Clark, referring respectively to Russia and Iran.

“Whereas in our theater, it absolutely is,” the USARPAC commander noted in a reference to China without naming the country. “So our ability to scale that and to think through the problem sets of how do we fight Type One, Type Two UAS? How do we think through ballistic missile defense holistically in the region? We spend a lot of time working with the joint force for solutions associated with that. How do we maneuver inside an archipelagic environment?”

For the Army, any fight in the Pacific will require soldiers to be able to hop islands and move through vast swaths of ocean, constantly hunted and frequently inside the Chinese weapons engagement zone. Clark said that the Army’s organic fleet of ships like landing craft, small tugs, and modular causeway systems operated by the service’s 8th Theater Sustainment Command will be vital for maneuver.

The Army, however, is struggling to keep its aging fleet of 70 of these vessels in the water and it got rid of a number of others over the years. Concerns about this underappreciated force have been something TWZ has raised for years.

“But we also have to be able to conduct tactical maneuver with forces on the ground that can provide long-range precision fires, as an example, and then move so that fires, radars, sensors are not easily targeted,” Clark added. “Because if they can see you, they can hit you. And if you know they have an opportunity to return fire, they will. So our lessons that we’re learning are, in some cases, are very, very relevant. In some cases, we can learn from some of the changing characteristics of war.”

Still, the wide-open plains and dense cities of Ukraine are quite different from the beaches and jungles of the Pacific, Clark reminded us.

“The way we generally fight does not equate specifically in the Ukraine piece to the maneuver that you would see out of U.S. forces if deployed in a conflict like that,” the USARPAC commander explained. “To be able to use operational maneuver and tactical maneuver in a way that it’s not just simply drone on drone or firing long range fires at one another at scale for an extended period of time. We find our way to work through that problem set and maneuver to positions of advantage and to prevail.”

Ukraine’s 115th Mechanized Brigade has released new footage showing a VB-140 Flamingo interceptor drone attacking a Russian Mi-28 attack helicopter in flight.

The drone approaches from above and flies directly into the helicopter’s spinning main rotor. It’s unclear whether… pic.twitter.com/GCb9FodXG3

— Special Kherson Cat (@bayraktar_1love) October 16, 2026

Regardless of the terrain, the ubiquity of drones in the Ukraine war has made maneuver and resupply deadly endeavors, with much of the front lines bogged down with limited territorial advances by either combatant.

When we pushed further on that point, Gen. Xavier T. Brunson, commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea, weighed in.

“To be able to move with sensors everywhere at all times causes us to achieve positions of advantage from distributed locations,” Brunson pointed out. “So the fight is: you look at maneuver. You might maneuver to a position of advantage, knowing that you’re going to change that again. The ability to utilize not only joint sensors but joint effectors, if you will, joint fires, to be able to use those things from different positions changes the shape of the operating environment.”

The bottom line, he added, is that “maneuver is always going to be maneuver. You’re going from A to B, but you might go from A to A1 to A2 to A3 to get to B, and that’s what I think we realize in this distributed fight that’s going on in Ukraine, and so we continue to watch to see what lessons might be coming back into” effect.

In part reacting to lessons learned from Ukraine and the Middle East, the Army is also changing how it trains, Clark stated. In South Korea, he said the service has to get out of the habit of concentrating so heavily on just two annual major training exercises.

“We recognize… that largely the two big exercises every year in Korea focus on large command posts,” Clark proffered. “We’ve got to move away from that. So what we intend to do is take advantage of the knowledge that we have of the threats that exist or that prevail in the Ukraine fight.”

Clark said these discussions are underway with his deputy commander, Republic of Korea Army Gen. Sungmin Kim.

“We talk about how we would operate in a distributed fashion. You know as well as I do, there’s a location that we go to to train every year in Korea, and we stay in that place,” Clark said in response to a question from another reporter. “What would it look like if we train from Jeju all the way up to Gyeonggi Province in the north? What would that look like, just with our headquarters alone?”

“So just imagine,” Clark postulated, “if we train across the entirety of the peninsula, and got ourselves in the shape where we would say [to North Korea], ‘You can’t utilize the things that you’ve learned in the fight and the battlefield in Ukraine on us, because we learned the same lessons and we’ve distributed ourselves in such a way that we don’t make ourselves the target. We won’t be moored in place,’ and that’s what I’m talking about when I talk about positional advantage. It might not be the same place to the continuum. It might not be the same place when you’re in crisis or conflict or competition. We might have to change that, and that’s what we’re learning.”

Another lesson from Ukraine that Army leaders should be paying attention to, said another panelist, is how both sides are using aerial and ground drones to supply frontline forces and evacuate the wounded because human efforts have now become too deadly, thanks to drones.

“I think you also can’t talk about Ukraine without talking about autonomy,” said Tara Murphy Dougherty, CEO of a company called Air, which provides AI-based sustainment solutions to the Army.

“One of the advantages that you get from using simulation and automation, and really using models and compute in order to create convoy plans, as opposed to humans with Excel spreadsheets, is you are able to do many fewer actual convoys because you’re using all of your capabilities so much more effectively and efficiently,” Dougherty posited. “And while it’s an indirect example, I think it does tie to soldier protection because you’re putting fewer soldiers out there in vulnerable settings. I see that not as an end-goal outcome; we need convoys.”

Ultimately, however, the Army will have to advance what Ukraine and Russia are doing with the deployment of aerial drones and uncrewed ground vehicles for logistics by creating “convoys” of autonomous vehicles.

“I see the end goal outcome as having as many autonomous convoys as possible, and we’ve heard today already at this event some of those ideas,” the CEO added. “In the interim, until we get to more autonomy in medevac and more autonomy in convoys when it’s non-soldier material that’s going out to the battlefield, let’s try and put fewer out there while actually getting more material and capability into the force where it needs to be.”

The Iranian missile and drone barrages on fixed U.S. bases across the Middle East have created some very costly lessons for American forces. As we noted earlier in this story, several troops were killed and critical air defense radars, aircraft and other important equipment were destroyed or damaged. U.S. installations across the region have also suffered damage.

In another media session, we pressed Army officials operating in South Korea about what they learned from watching the destruction caused by Iran and what they are doing to address it.

You can see a satellite image of damage to a U.S. radar site in Jordan below:

NEW: The radar for a THAAD system was struck and apparently destroyed in Jordan while two other THAAD radar systems may have been hit in the UAE, satellite images show – w/ @ThomasBordeaux7 https://t.co/qiuWVQgyda

— Gianluca Mezzofiore (@GianlucaMezzo) March 5, 2026

“We certainly are watching what’s happening, and we are learning from what is happening in Operation Epic Fury,” Lt. Gen. Joseph “Joe” Hilbert, commanding general of Eighth Army, stationed in South Korea, told us. “We’re learning what’s happening in Ukraine, and we are working through changes in our own tactics and techniques and procedures to be able to react to those threats and to be able to defend against them.”

For more details, he turned the microphone over to Col. Rosanna “Ro” M. Clemente, commander of the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade in South Korea.

“Drawing from those lessons learned, a lot of it is trying to understand how our systems are being hunted by the adversary,” she told us. “So, strictly into all of our training plans, and as we conduct our own internal exercises, all of our air defenders are practicing something as simple as mobility and survivability jumps, which is being able to reposition and displace your systems to different alternative locations based on any type of threat warnings that we receive. They’re very, very well trained. I think all of our soldiers know how to move their systems extremely, extremely well. They move them quickly, and they are able to move them and reposition them into different locations across the peninsula that still maintains that ballistic missile defense coverage.”

In addition, “we also have to rely on the other pillars of integrated air and missile defense, most specifically the passive defensive measures that we also have in place,” she added.

Those measures involve “a little bit more than just hardening – but a couple of other techniques that we’ve learned from the Russia-Ukraine war in terms of deception, how to move things around, create distractions, and make sure that we create different types of dilemmas for the adversary in terms of where our capabilities are and where are they positioned to protect its defended assets.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post What The Army’s Pacific Commanders Are Learning From Ukraine And Iran Conflicts appeared first on TWZ.