And Here's Your Russian "Pretext"

Now that pro-Russia "gunmen" have seized government buildings in Crimea, it won't be long before they claim to be an oppressed minority and appeal to Mother Russia for help.

Russia granted protection to the fugitive Ukrainian president, Russian media reported Thursday, as dozens of heavily armed gunmen seized control of government buildings in Ukraine's Crimea region and raised the Russian flag.

The moves pose an immediate challenge to Ukraine's new authorities as they seek to set up an interim government for the country, whose population is divided in loyalties between Russia and the West. Some 150,000 Russian soldiers carried out military exercises and fighter jets patrolled the border.

A respected Russian news organization reported that President Viktor Yanukovych, who was driven out of Kiev by a three-month protest movement, was staying in a Kremlin sanatorium just outside Moscow.

"I have to ask Russia to ensure my personal safety from extremists," Yanukovych said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies on Thursday. He said he still considers himself president.

Shortly after, the same three Russian news agencies quoted an unnamed Russian official saying that Yanukovych's request for protection "was satisfied on the territory of Russia."

Oleksandr Turchynov, who stepped in as acting president after Yanukovych's flight, condemned the takeover of government buildings in Crimea as a "crime against the government of Ukraine." He warned that any move by Russian troops off of their base in Crimea "will be considered a military aggression."

Russian "Exercises" Drawing Attention

"Exercises" eh? Suuuuuure... thankfully, the West is watching.

Britain will pay attention to Russian military activities and opposes outside interference in Ukraine, the British defense secretary said on Wednesday after Moscow ordered an urgent drill to test its armed forces across western Russia.

"We will certainly, obviously, want to take proper cognizance of any activities by Russian forces," Philip Hammond told reporters when asked about President Vladimir Putin's order.

"We would urge all parties to allow the Ukrainian people to settle their internal differences and then to determine their own future without external interference," he said, speaking before a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers which will discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Putin earlier ordered an urgent drill to test the combat readiness of the armed forces across western Russia, flexing Moscow's military muscle amid tension with the West over Ukraine, Interfax news agency reported.

US Realpolitik Revealing Another Double Standard?

So John McCain was on CBS's Face the Nation this weekend, and he said this about Russia and the Ukraine

What does Putin do here? I think the message has to be sent to him to let the Ukrainian people determine their own future. And a partition of Ukraine is totally unacceptable.

Really?

So a partition was totally acceptable in Serbia/Kosovo, but not in Ukraine? Serbia was punished for intervening to protect their own minority (note the date of the article). And we don't think the Russians would be justified in protecting their ethnic minority?

He continued

The people of Russia are have watched this transpire and they're tired of the crony capitalism and kleptocracy that governs Russia today.

So we put a rebranded organization of drug runners and human traffickers (the KLA) in charge of a neo-country we stole from another sovereign nation, effectively creating - and then protecting! - a kleptocracy in the Balkans. And then we tacitly opposed the Russians for trying to clean out the gangster state on their own doorstep as the criminal gangs in Chechnya decided to call themselves "freedom fighters" because some of them happened to be Muslims.

We've given the Russians all the political pretext they need to effect a partition of the Ukraine. The question is whether or not we've recognized it. And how long before it bites us in the ass closer to home.

War Heroes: Medals of Honor for Discriminated non-Recipients

Following an extensive Pentagon review, President Obama will award several Medals of Honor to soldiers whose recommendations were shown to have been downgraded for religious or racial bias. The soldiers range from WWII to Vietnam, and three are still alive today.

On March 18th, 2014, President Barack Obama will award 24 Army veterans the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. These veterans will receive the Medal of Honor in recognition of their valor during major combat operations in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Each of these Soldiers’ bravery was previously recognized by award of the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second highest military award; that award will be upgraded to the Medal of Honor in recognition of their gallantry, intrepidity and heroism above and beyond the call of duty.

In 2002, Congress, through the Defense Authorization Act, called for a review of Jewish American and Hispanic American veteran war records from WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, to ensure those deserving the Medal of Honor were not denied because of prejudice. During the review, records of several Soldiers of neither Jewish nor Hispanic descent were also found to display criteria worthy of the Medal of Honor. The 2002 Act was amended to allow these Soldiers to be honored with the upgrade - in addition to the Jewish and Hispanic American Soldiers.

Follow the link above for brief paragraphs about each recipient.

How to Prune the Army's End Strength

Some controversial - but probably correct - ideas about how to cut the Army's end-strength.

Most of the colonels and generals leading the Army were trained to fight World War III against the Soviets; most of the captains and majors have trained and fought against al-Qaeda, Sunni militias and the Taliban. Unfortunately, few colonels and generals have, in practical terms, been able to adapt their 1980s and ’90s training to the needs of today’s warfare.

The best evidence for this is that we didn’t win in Iraq and haven’t won in Afghanistan. Military journalist Thomas E. Ricks has argued that America’s generals and colonels have been largely responsible for these failures. Small, transient battlefield successes — the Sunni Awakening in Iraq and partnering with militias in Afghanistan to defeat Taliban groups — were largely products of enterprising junior officers: perceptive lieutenants, captains and occasionally majors. In the past three years, those officers have been promoted to captains, majors and lieutenant colonels — and now they’re the ones on the chopping block.

Another reason to consider promoting mid-level officers into substantial leadership roles is the military’s fast-changing culture. The younger captains, majors and lieutenant colonels did not, for the most part, grow up in a country or a military where being gay was automatically seen as disgraceful; they are also more readily able than prior generations to imagine women in combat. Empowering officers who can help solidify such changes will boost morale and enhance the Army’s fighting capability, especially at a time of austerity and decreased training opportunities. These officers have in many cases served alongside women in combat (or are women themselves). They’re better able to see them as warfighting equals than as irksome obligations or legal liabilities — making these officers ideally suited to help the military transition away from its current culture, in which serial rapists are slapped on the wrist or tacitly endorsed.

I am not suggesting that every colonel or general deserves to be fired to make way for a new generation. I do, however, think that trimming a similar number of colonels and generals — say, 10 percent of captains and majors — would create room for the change the Army badly needs. The number of generals remains constant at 230, and I don’t believe we need fewer colonels — just different ones — so this won’t reduce the actual number of senior leaders in the military. It will, however, open up senior leadership to younger officers. To do this correctly, Congress would have to select which senior officers to retire, at which point the military would select which officers to promote. It could be as straightforward as putting every senior lieutenant colonel, colonel and general under the microscope and getting rid of the least capable.

It's All Going, uh... "South" - in South America

Venezuela is about to unravel and the world is distracted from both this and the Ukraine by the Olympics.

Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden.

What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood.

Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.

People continue to be arrested merely for protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of soldiers shooting civilians on the street.

And that’s just what came out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this blog itself has been the object of a Facebook “block” campaign.

h/t JC

BAE Profits Down. Big Deal?

Should it matter that BAE Systems profits are in a slump?

BAE Systems shares tumbled on Thursday after the British defence group warned that earnings would drop this year on cuts to government spending in its main market the United States.

The shares were down 9.0 percent in early London deals, also after BAE said that 2013 net profit had slumped 82 percent owing to an impairment charge on its US business totalling £865 million ( $1.441 billion, 1.052 billion euros).

In a further blow, reports overnight said that Germany had cancelled an order for additional Eurofighter Typhoon jets, which BAE makes in cooperation with aerospace giant Airbus Group and Italian defence group Finmeccanica.

BAE Systems said that its profit after tax tumbled to £168 million ($280 million, 203 million euros) in 2013 compared with £948 million a year earlier.

The group announced a 2.0-percent rise in sales for last year to £18.18 billion, with its underlying performance boosted by the so-called Salam deal with Saudi Arabia on improved pricing of Eurofighter jets.

"Following last year's non-recurring benefit from the Salam price escalation settlement, together with continuing US budget pressures, the group's reported earnings per share is expected to reduce by approximately 5 to 10 percent (this year) compared to 2013," BAE said in a statement.

Armor vs Speed, Round 239042563495782634907

The MCoE (gawd, what an awful acronym) has issued a sources sought notice about an ultralight combat vehicle to carry a 9-man squad and haul ass doing so.

Heavy armor works well in heavy brigade combat teams, but it has no place in the light infantry formations of the IBCT of the future, said Lt. Col. Kevin Parker, branch chief of Light Systems in the MCoE's Mounted Requirements Division.

"I am not trying to refight Afghanistan and Iraq," Parker said. "With any high-speed avenue of approach, particularly a road, it's a very easy thing to target. ... If I am gonna drive down the road, I probably want to be in MRAPs because that is where [the] enemy can target me with IEDs."

The ULCV instead would be designed to travel 75 percent of the time across country and on rough trails.

"We are looking for freedom of maneuver for the IBCTs across country," Parker said. "It provides that commander with mobility options that currently he does not have."

Army officials continue to work with the Marine Corps to deliver the Humvee replacement, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. Leaders from both services were forced to pare down expectations for this truck as costs spiraled out of control as officials wanted to increase armor while lightening the overall weight.

Maneuver officials maintain that the ULCV is not competing against the JLTV. The ULCV is designed to fill a capability gap of being large enough to carry a nine-man squad but light enough -- at 4,500 pounds -- to be sling-loaded by a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.

"Dismounted infantry move by UH-60 because that is the vehicle that the tactical commander can get his hands on, so you want to make sure that the vehicle that is supporting that dismounted infantry can also be moved around by that platform," Parker said.

The only way to achieve this weight and meet the capability is to trade armor protection for speed and mobility, Parker said.

Here's the full Sources Sought notice

PURPOSE OF INFORMATION. This information will examine the benefit of an Ultra Light Combat Vehicle (ULCV) to support mobility for Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) Soldiers. The information received will be used by the Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE) to screen potential Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions, which may be demonstrated during a static display and proof of principal event. The ULCV does not currently have an approved requirement. The information solicitation and subsequent vendor demonstration and product display are conducted for the sole purpose of demonstrating product capabilities. The information is to be presented in a single quote mark quad chart quote mark (title up top; upper left quadrant is the quote mark capability name quote mark ; upper right is the quote mark capability description quote mark ; lower left is the quote mark operational description quote mark and quote mark battlefield interrelationships and dependencies quote mark ; lower right is quote mark Point of Contact quote mark ) and an attached White Paper (not to exceed 25 pages).

Below are the threshold ULCV general requirements providing enhanced mobility for IBCT Soldiers.

a. Payload. Vehicle must carry Infantry Squad (9 Soldiers) with equipment (3200 lbs).

b. Protection. Base level of protection is provided by high mobility to avoid enemy contact and Soldier Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) (since the vehicle supports dismounted Soldiers).

c. Survivability. The ULCV (at GVW) shall provide a crashworthy vehicle structure capable of maintaining structural integrity in a rollover; quantified as a crush resistant roof structure or rollover bars capable of supporting 100% of its own GVW after a dynamically applied impact load.

d. Mobility.
a) Provide mobility with 10% on primary roads, 10% on secondary roads, 75% cross-country and trails, and 5% in urban, rubble environment.
b) Perform in Terrain level III (ridges/summits)
c) Routinely tasked to hold position on cross-country and trail conditions.

e. Lethality. Provide threshold capability to host crew served weapons assigned to an IBCT Infantry squad. Objective is to incorporate a medium caliber weapon into squad operations.

f. Transportability.
a) Internally transportable by CH-47 (in combat configuration under High/Hot conditions).
b) Sling load transportable by UH-60 (in combat configuration under High/Hot conditions).
c) Air drop from C130 on 463L pallet (in combat configuration).
d) Air drop from C17 dual row 463L pallet (in combat configuration).

g. Sustainability. Maintain high operational readiness rates through rugged construction and modular component replacement under field conditions.

h. Protection. Vehicle will provide FMVSS compliant restraints to Soldiers riding inside the vehicle and storage capability for individual equipment and squad equipment.

i. Range. 250-300 mile range on internal fuel.

j. No add-on communication equipment requirement.

UN to Issue Damning Report on Norks

And they pretty much don't care...

A year-long UN inquiry into rights abuses in North Korea is due to be published, and is expected to urge punishment for systematic violations by the state.

A panel of experts mandated by the UN's Human Rights Council said North Koreans had suffered "unspeakable atrocities".

The panel heard evidence of torture, enslavement, sexual violence, severe political repression and other crimes.

It is expected to recommend an inquiry by an international court or tribunal.

The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the report is expected to be one of the most detailed and devastating ever published by the United Nations.

Testimony to the panel has included an account of a woman forced to drown her own baby, children imprisoned from birth and starved, and families tortured for watching a foreign soap opera.

The full report is expected to contain hundreds of pages of further evidence of a nationwide policy of control through terror, says our correspondent.

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Some Please Drug-Test the Entire USAF

The fact that they have the gall to foist this load of tripe on us after the repeated failures of bombing campaigns in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq (1990 and 2003), Afganistan, and Vietnam should be dowright embarassing for the boys in blue. Instead, they think this is the right way to operate? Look, y'all are artillery with wings. That's it. You don't shoot unless someone on the ground tells you to shoot, and even then, it's in support of the mission of the guys on the ground. No one ever successfully surrendered to a jet flying overhead.

Since the Cold War’s end, the classic roles of airpower and land power have changed places in major combat against modern mechanized opponents. In this role reversal, ground forces have come to do most of the shaping and fixing of enemy forces, while airpower now does most of the actual killing.

Operation Desert Storm in 1991 showcased, for the first time, this departure from past practice between air- and ground-delivered firepower. During the Battle of Khafji in January of that year, coalition air assets singlehandedly shredded two advancing Iraqi armored columns through precision night standoff attacks.

This role shift repeated itself with even greater effectiveness in 2003 during the three-week major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom that ended Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Modern airpower’s achievements in these two high-intensity wars demonstrated that precision air attacks now offer the promise of being the swing factor for victory in an ever-widening variety of theater war scenarios. The primary role of US land power may now be increasingly to secure a win against organized enemy forces rather than to achieve it.

In organizing their response to Hussein’s forceful seizure of Kuwait in 1990, the leaders of US Central Command aimed to destroy as many of Iraq’s armored forces from the air as possible before launching any land invasion to drive out the occupying enemy troops. It remained unclear, however, how effective allied airpower would be under this approach until they actually executed the air campaign.

What do you think? Can you make a legitimate case for air power becoming the dominant arm of decision on the battlefield?

By: Brant

Next Foal Eagle Exercise Starting Soon

The BBC has some background reporting on Foal Eagle 2014 and its current-events context.

South Korea and the US have announced that their annual military drills will take place from 24 February to 18 April, despite anger from North Korea.

Pyongyang warned against the planned drills last week, calling them "exercises of war".

Meanwhile, the US said it was disappointed that the North rescinded an invitation to a US envoy to discuss the release of a jailed US citizen.

Kenneth Bae has been held in North Korea for more than a year.

In a statement on Monday, the joint Combined Forces Command (CFC) said that Key Resolve, a computer-based simulation, and Foal Eagle, which involves air, ground and naval drills, were both scheduled to begin on 24 February.

"Key Resolve is a vital exercise to strengthen readiness of the Republic of Korea and US Alliance," CFC commander Gen Curtis Scaparrotti said.

"The scenarios are realistic, enabling us to train on our essential tasks and respond to any crisis which may arise."

Last year, the exercises led to a prolonged surge in tensions, with North Korea threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes and cutting a military hotline with the South.

North Korea's top military body threatened last week to cancel planned family reunions with the South if the joint military exercises went ahead.

The reunions are for family members separated when the Korean peninsula was partitioned at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. However, the North has been accused of using them as a bargaining chip.

South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said on Monday: "North Korea is well aware that the South Korean-US drills are annual trainings defensive in nature."

"So it is not appropriate to link [the drills] with family reunions."

By: Brant

Next Foal Eagle Exercise Starting Soon

The BBC has some background reporting on Foal Eagle 2014 and its current-events context.

South Korea and the US have announced that their annual military drills will take place from 24 February to 18 April, despite anger from North Korea.

Pyongyang warned against the planned drills last week, calling them "exercises of war".

Meanwhile, the US said it was disappointed that the North rescinded an invitation to a US envoy to discuss the release of a jailed US citizen.

Kenneth Bae has been held in North Korea for more than a year.

In a statement on Monday, the joint Combined Forces Command (CFC) said that Key Resolve, a computer-based simulation, and Foal Eagle, which involves air, ground and naval drills, were both scheduled to begin on 24 February.

"Key Resolve is a vital exercise to strengthen readiness of the Republic of Korea and US Alliance," CFC commander Gen Curtis Scaparrotti said.

"The scenarios are realistic, enabling us to train on our essential tasks and respond to any crisis which may arise."

Last year, the exercises led to a prolonged surge in tensions, with North Korea threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes and cutting a military hotline with the South.

North Korea's top military body threatened last week to cancel planned family reunions with the South if the joint military exercises went ahead.

The reunions are for family members separated when the Korean peninsula was partitioned at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. However, the North has been accused of using them as a bargaining chip.

South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said on Monday: "North Korea is well aware that the South Korean-US drills are annual trainings defensive in nature."

"So it is not appropriate to link [the drills] with family reunions."

By: Brant

Anniversary: Russo-Japanese War

The formal declarations of war came a few days later, but the Russo-Japanese War started with an attack on 8 February.

Japan issued a declaration of war on 8 February 1904. However, three hours before Japan's declaration of war was received by the Russian Government, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the Russian Far East Fleet at Port Arthur. Tsar Nicholas II was stunned by news of the attack. He could not believe that Japan would commit an act of war without a formal declaration, and had been assured by his ministers that the Japanese would not fight. Russia declared war on Japan eight days later. However, the requirement to declare war before commencing hostilities was not made international law until after the war had ended in October 1907, effective from 26 January 1910. Montenegro also declared war against Japan as a gesture of moral support for Russia out of gratitude for Russian support in Montenegro's struggles against the Ottoman Empire. However, due to logistical reasons and distance, Montenegro's contribution to the war effort was limited to those Montenegrins who served in the Russian armed forces.

It was ended in 1905, with the Treaty of Portsmouth, a rare peace treaty that was signed in the Western Hemisphere for a war not involving nations from that half of the world.

So what games have you played on this war? Sound off in the comments!

By: Brant

Oy Vey - Domestic Attack on the Power Grid?

Are we goign to have to start issuing power workers bulletproof vests in the wake a "sniper attack" on a Silicon Valley-area substation.

This is scary.

The Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Smith reports that a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is acknowledging for the first time that a group of snipers shot up a Silicon Valley substation for 19 minutes last year, knocking out 17 transformers before slipping away into the night.

The attack was "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred" in the U.S., Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, told Smith.

A blackout was avoided thanks to quick-thinking utility workers, who rerouted power around the site and asked power plants in Silicon Valley to produce more electricity. But the substation was knocked out for a month.

The FBI says it doesn't believe a terrorist organization caused the attack but that it continues to investigate the incident.

Smith and colleague Tom McGinty assembled a detailed chronology of the attack that includes some amazing details, including more than 100 fingerprint-free shell casings similar to ones used by AK-47s that were found at the site and small piles of rocks that appeared to have been left by an advance scout to tell the attackers where to get the best shots.

A U.S. Navy investigation ordered by Wellinghoff determined "it was a targeting package just like they would put together for an attack," he said.

By: Brant

How Do We Define AQ?

For years we've used the "war on terror" as a bad euphemism for a war against intolerant and violent Islamic extremists. But now that it really is going global (and not just Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines anymore) how should we "define" al-Qaeda? WaPo has an interesting column.

Here’s the problem: According to recently declassified testimony of Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the House Armed Services Committee in October, the U.S. military regards itself as legally barred from going after the perpetrators of the Benghazi attacks (and, presumably, others who attack Americans) unless they are affiliated with al-Qaeda. The Obama administration’s parsing of words to deny al-Qaeda’s direct involvement effectively precludes a military response in these situations.

But the United States can neither disrupt nor defend itself from an enemy it cannot define. Nor are we safer because of arbitrary definitions. The question demands an answer: What is al-Qaeda?

Al-Qaeda’s leadership regulates the use of its name and resources; it has formally and publicly recognized affiliates in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and West Africa. In each of these cases, the regional leadership pledged loyalty to the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who accepted their oaths. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki may have been right when she said last month that “they don’t give out T-shirts or membership cards,” but any sensible definition of group membership must surely recognize the explicit and public exchanges of oaths of loyalty and command between Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri, on the one hand, and the leaders of overt franchises on the other.

Many experts disagree about the extent to which locally oriented militants are officially part of al-Qaeda. The White House has focused on terrorists currently targeting the United States, which form a small subset of the overall al-Qaeda movement. In the course of the debate over Benghazi, that focus has narrowed further to the question of whether “al-Qaeda core” ordered a specific attack.

There is even disagreement over the definition of “core” al-Qaeda. Most administration officials suggest that it is the small group keeping company with Zawahiri in Pakistan. Others define it as veteran members of the al-Qaeda network, active before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But this core has long been dispersed, with only a small part still in Pakistan. Some members now lead regional franchises: Nasir al-Wuhayshi , bin Laden’s former secretary, is both emir of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qaeda’s general manager.

In reality, al-Qaeda’s goals are furthered by the so-called core, affiliates and local groups that enjoy no formal relationships with the Zawahiri contingent. The Jamal Network in Egypt, al-Mulathamun in the Sahel and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have a direct but informal relationship with al-Qaeda. The TTP poses a particular definitional problem because it has neither sought nor received formal membership in al-Qaeda, yet it conducted the attempted Times Square bombing in May 2010.

By: Brant

Graf Gets Their Own "Dustbowl"

And American tanks return to Europe...

Less than a year after they left European soil, American tanks have returned to military bases in Germany where they had been a heavy presence since World War II.

In April last year, the last Abrams tanks left Germany, coinciding with a drawdown of U.S. forces that saw the inactivation of two infantry brigades — the 170th and 172nd.

When the 22 M1A1 Abrams departed the continent it was seen as the end of an era, as tanks had been a fixture on American bases in Europe since landing at Omaha Beach in 1944.

Now, it appears that chapter of history may have been closed a bit prematurely.

On Friday, the last of 29 M1A2 SEPv2 Abrams tanks were offloaded at the railhead at the Grafenwöhr training facilities. These heavily armored vehicles are upgraded versions of the older Abrams that left 10 months ago and will become part of what the Joint Multinational Training Command at Grafenwöhr is calling the European Activity Set.

“The EAS is a pre-positioned, battalion-plus-size equipment set with headquarters pieces and command-and-control elements,” said Col. Thomas Matsel, operations officer with the JMTC. “Units that utilize the EAS will have access to the entire breadth of military operations they may have to conduct.”

The Abrams tanks will join 33 M2A3 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and dozens of other heavy support vehicles that will be positioned at Grafenwöhr to be used at the training facilities there, at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center at Hohenfels and at other training areas across Europe.

The concept of the EAS envisions units using the equipment in short stints before turning it over to the next group of troops.

By: Brant