You're listening to CLSC dialogues, Landpower in the Indo-Pacific. A China Land Power Study Center production. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests, and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I am Colonel Rich Butler, the Director of CLSC.
Today we are talking with Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane, the commanding general of America's I Corps, headquartered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Having served with distinction at all levels of the Army and Joint Force, he now leads the Army's senior tactical headquarters in the Indo-Pacific. Today we'll be chatting about his views of the operational environment and the hard work the Corps is doing across the Indo-Pacific.
Sir, welcome to the podcast. Let's begin by noting you're coming to us not from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, but from South Korea, where you are deployed supporting Exercise Freedom Shield.
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Thanks. It's great to be here.
[Colonel Rich Butler] So let's start with one opening question. Can you describe I Corps and its role in the Indo-Pacific to our listeners? And how does I Corps contribute to U.S. deterrence efforts in the Indo-Pacific?
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] All right. That's, those are two big questions. I'll start with the first one here and break it down for you a little bit, and then, and then hit the second one because we certainly, do a lot of the deterrence, as we operate across the Pacific.
First, U.S. Army I Corps consists of three, divisions. We have the 7th Infantry Division. That's it with the corps headquarters at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. It's got two Stryker brigade combat teams. And then we have the 11th Airborne Division located in Alaska between Joint Base Elmendorf, Richardson, and Fort Wainwright, Alaska. 11th Airborne Division has an airborne brigade and an air assault brigade, and then the 25th Infantry Division located at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. It has two infantry brigade combat teams, which are in the process of transforming now and I know we'll talk more about that throughout the podcast here. But they are our army's jungle experts. They operate and train, certify themselves in the jungle environment. And then obviously operate across the Pacific in the jungle environment.
The 11th Airborne Division that I mentioned is our army's Arctic experts, operating there in Alaska, where they, they are, the subject matter experts at Arctic warfare for Army and share that with their allies and partners. But they also contribute to our efforts across the Pacific at high altitude in India, cold weather in northern Japan. And then, also in the jungle environment, with many of our other partners south of Japan, and their airborne brigade, gives, gives, the army and the joint force a lot of strategic flexibility, if you will, as they can mass combat power quickly and move it quickly across the Pacific if it's needed for crisis.
So a lot of different capabilities across I Corps' maneuver elements, the three divisions. We also have an expeditionary sustainment command that helps ensure, we can, sustain our operations, across the Pacific. Right now, they're in the Philippines, helping prepare for exercises we have, starting this month, going through June; as well as some separate brigades that, provide an enabling capability for the Corps.
We have an engineer brigade, a field artillery brigade, medical brigade, military intelligence brigade, communications brigade, and a military police brigade. So a lot of, different capability within US Army I Corps. The separate brigades are located with me in Washington state. And, we apply all of those formation I just mentioned across the Pacific.
We organize. So for, exercises or operations, we, we align different parts of, the separate brigades with the divisions or subordinates in the divisions, for whatever's needed for a certain exercise. We generate readiness, at home station. Each of the home stations. Jungle readiness in Hawaii. Arctic readiness in Alaska and in in Washington state with their Stryker brigades will train, like, right now at our Yakima training center in Washington state.
Then we'll also generate the readiness, through what we call our combat training centers for the Alaska and Hawaii team. They do that, at in their locations, in their environments, Arctic and jungle to a joint Pacific multinational readiness center, which is, transformation of our combat training centers. But now doing it in those environments. We'll bring in, our observers, coach, and trainers from the National Training Center and Joint Readiness Training Center up to augment, a unit that we have in Hawaii that helps us certify those formations.
And then the Stryker brigades will we'll go to the National Training Center, Joint Readiness Training Center. One of those Stryker brigades will go to the National Training Center here in September. So generating readiness is a key aspect of being ready in the Pacific. And then we'll apply that readiness across the Pacific through what we call Operation Pathways.
I Corps organize and execute some 40 plus exercises over the course of the year with 20 some different partner nations. We work closely with them and our work with them drives the deterrence. The question you mentioned before, deterrence against the PRC, deterrence against Russia and other adversaries in the area. And as we do that, we build joint interior lines, which are incredibly important in the Pacific if you look at the long lines of communication. So our ability to sustain ourselves, protect ourselves, test and prove our equipment that can operate in that environment and interoperate with our partners. So that was a long answer to your question. But I wanted to [provide] a fulsome response based on all that U.S. Army I Corps does and the important area that we do it and that's in the Pacific.
[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, I really appreciate you making linear of what is a really complex organization for folks to understand and hopefully, you know, the Army and your website, and other things that have been written about what Corps do in the Army is important. So hopefully our listeners, if they want to do a little bit of deeper dive, can look into that and contact us through the CLSC and we can put them in touch with the right people too. Based on that, and I know you're in touch more on how the Army and the Corps, how you're transforming the Corps and the corps echelon. But we're preparing, you know, for a war fight at the you know, at the end of the day, there's a lot of missions that we do related to things that are less in war. But ultimately, the Corps is a warfighting organization. And obviously, you don't need to be living under a rock to know that we've been working to transition into the Indo-Pacific greater, into greater and greater strength over the last decade plus. So noting that China's rising, can you put things a little bit into the context of how you see is the U.S. Army being prepared for a potential conflict with China?
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] That's what we think about every day. You know, we are prepared, but we've got to be more prepared to dominate. If you think about, the evolving character of war that we're seeing around the world right now. The army's undergoing transformation, this transformation that our Chief of Staff of the Army is driving. So it's in how we operate. It's how we train, to get ready. It's how we organize our forces for Indo-Pacific. In any environment, but especially in the Pacific, as we have not operated, in the Pacific, in terms of conflict, you know, since, since Vietnam. And so, we are continually looking at how we can gain technical advantage, and adjust how we operate based on lessons we're learning as we do exercises and lessons we're learning as we watch, conflict in the Ukraine, conflict in Gaza.
Lessons that I learned when I was in in charge of Operation Inherent Resolve, in terms of our forces in Iraq and Syria. And so we continue to, to drive foundational readiness, for soldiers, and then adjust how we're organizing, and operating, based on emerging technology. An example that would be we're much more distributed now. And so we know we need to, to drive, our technology to allow us to have multiple command and control nodes, command posts on the battlefield, distributed over long distances. We need our firing positions, from our artillery distributed, operating in smaller nodes, but still being connected, to understand, where we are and more importantly, understand where the enemy is so we can bring, precision effects on them, both lethal and non-lethal.
And, we are, continuing to drive this effort along with the rest of the army, to share lessons with what we're calling transformation in contact. We have a brigade, the second Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. That is one of these transformation and contact brigades for the army. There's one in the 101st, one in 10th mountain and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment... and we're starting a second iteration of that. But these brigades are spearheading experimentation with technology and organization to help us see and understand the best way to operate, optimizing the technology that's available to match and dominate against threat capabilities that we are watching very closely. And so we leverage our Operations Pathways to make sure we can not only transform, but when we apply it in the Pacific, we are doing it in a way that we are testing our way of war and our technology to ensure it can work.
So every exercise we do in the Pacific is a rehearsal. And every rehearsal is also an experiment to make sure we are stretching the limits of what we have, to optimize our ability to dominate on the battlefield.
[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, a quick follow up on that. So you bring it into the field. Are you able to pull some of our allies and partners into those types of new tech, to see how that works, with them. So it becomes a more of an integrated, type picture and interest them in, in, investing with us.
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Yeah, that's a great question. We certainly do. If you look at the Australian Army right now undergoing the largest modernization they've had in recent history. As we work with our Japanese partners, the Koreans that we're working with right now, making sure they are learning about what we're doing, we understand about their modernization. The Koreans are modernizing as well. I just got briefed on that today. And so we're able to, but every nation has their own budgetary concerns. Some are much further along, technology wise, than others. We're deliberate, though, about making sure, we are interoperable as much as we can be with those partners. And that's technology interoperable. That's procedural understanding. And, their systems and processes for organizing and executing the fight. And then the human aspect, which is the partnership, understand our culture, the environment which they live in, to make sure we are ready to operate with any of our partners in any of their countries, if needed.
[Colonel Rich Butler] As you work and push the Corps into, you know, new warfighting concepts, in your mind, can you sort of, open your brain to us a little bit and describe how you see the character of war evolving? You mentioned that a little bit earlier.
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Well, I talked, about, the importance of, you know, decision dominance. You know, whoever has the information the quickest and makes the decision the fastest, is going to, has a much higher chance to prevail. It's like a bar fight. Usually the person that gets the first punch in wins that fight. And that's what we want to make sure we're able to do. And so if you look at our convergence that we do or our multi-domain operations that we have, making sure, we optimize our ability to, to see the enemy deeper, quicker than they can see us and then strike with precision, lethal [or] non-lethal, quicker to do either open up for the joint teammates we have. To operate, or to ensure we can finish on the ground. And so, an example of that would be, for, you know, transformation would be the decision dominance, the data processing or, or staff process. First, we organize with what we call a multi-domain effect cell. That'll help us, pull in, all the multi-domain effects from the joint team and organize it and sequence it so we can create windows of opportunity, to, either, strike deep, or see further or, or maneuver where they can't see us or we don't want them to see us.
So then we can have a position of dominance. So the multi-domain effect cell is something we worked on during an exercise in December. And we are now applying that and improving that, refining, the manning of that organization, the tools that they have in that organization, to, better and quicker, you know, more quickly, coordinate with different entities on the joint team and in our multinational partners to achieve the effects we want.
[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, as a quick follow on. All over the world, everyone talks about what do you think we're learning about war fighting between looking at what happens in Gaza and places like Ukraine and, and the way the authoritarians are sort of colluding with each other. And you've sort of mentioned both the, the capacity of the Army to do, rapid operations to the joint force and also the staying power of the Army. Are there any specific things you think we're learning out of Gaza, in the Ukraine, that portend what the future of warfare looks like?
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Absolutely. I mean if you just look at the number of drones flying every day in the Ukraine. It's unbelievable. And so there are low cost ability to, see further, drop munitions and, you know, first person view drones. I just saw on YouTube here last night, you know, first person view drones, attack on Russian soldiers or North Korean soldiers. So the evolution of drones, swarms of drones, which I saw was when I was in, Operation Inherent Resolve. Same thing there, except in a much larger scope and scale. You look at the electromagnetic environment, so the ability to get jammed, not have the use of GPS, degraded, denied communications.
The consistent contact you're in because of satellites, in different ways that adversaries can collect information on you, has a requirement for you to continually reposition, you know, command post are repositioned multiple times a day just to survive. The importance of resilient logistics, making sure you are thinking through how to sustain yourself, across all the different classes of supply, as we call it in the Army.
So that that the evolution of warfare, of the character of war is real and, staying in front of that is going to be a continuous race we're on. And we're driving that way, across the joint force within Indo-Pacific with Admiral Paparo and certainly in the Army and with General Clark in the Pacific, and General George, leading the Army with our transformational contact. A key aspect of our transformational efforts here with the character warfare changing is, the transformation contact allows us to get bottom up feedback and from the environment where we're going to operate.
So we will take, you know, that brigade I mentioned from the 25th ID is going into the Philippines. They're learning about and providing bottom up feedback on, you know, power generation. Battery life at 110 degree heat index is something we've got to think about. We put batteries on drones, we have in our radios, we have in our vehicles now.
And so thinking through how we generate power, so that's important. As you talk about technology transformation, we also have to make sure as we're transforming and preparing for conflict anywhere, we understand the impact on human beings at 110 degrees heat index in the Pacific. And so the physical stamina you need to have is part of the foundational readiness I mentioned for soldiers. The 25th Infantry Division has a specially built incline skills trainer. So every organization can get ready to walk up a gulch and does it for physical training every day, up a hill. They a different size steps on their trainer, which is a great way to stay ready for what you might have there.
And then as are also bottom up feedback for our health team. You know, we have a medical brigade. Health of the force is important. We learned during World War II, disease, non battle injuries were a real degradation on our formations because of, you know, malaria and other things, disease that can float around. And so being conscious of that, figuring out how to make sure we stay ahead of that during our, our exercises.
Operation Pathways is another, you know, readiness builder we have for being ready for the Pacific. But the technology and the character of war is, is something, the team is, is focused on. We get updates from the Ukraine often, and we share them quickly across the formation. So it helps us think and inform every, every level that's, that's transforming.
And we want everyone to have a transformational mindset. But so they are they were thinking that even without the technology, how do we got to stay ahead of adversaries that may have the satellites, the cyber, the EW capability and long range fires to make sure we can, we can dominate.
[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, thanks. You brought a lot to that, that discussion. You started with robotics, which everybody keys in on.
And it's not just the UAVs. It's robotics that assist human beings or do things that supplement human beings. And then you tied it to human beings, and you also tied it to the knowledge and the decision making tools that commanders are going to need at all echelons. That's aacritical thing that I think people who live in the ground terrain tend to think about more.
So thanks for that, because one of the things that's important to me, as I sort of watch the way the strategic and operational environment are playing out in conflict, is that drones have done, a wonderful job enabling defense, but we haven't quite figured out how do you transition things that are robotic with faster decision making tools to offense and those hard missions that really only ground forces, armies and Marine Corps on the ground and special operators can do related to a large scale land based breakout in each operation, a large scale amphibious assault, a large scale airborne operation, a large scale air assault. Those are only things that that an Army tied to the Joint Force can do, which require offensive operations and w'ere inherently an offensive oriented army. So you just you described a whole lot, there, that from a strategist standpoint of watching what the Chinese are up to and what the American forces and our allies and partners need to do, you know, to all come together to make sure you can not lose the first battle but win the final campaign.
All ties this together from technology to people. And it's the people that become the foundation of all that still.
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Yeah, I love it. You know, the last hundred yards is a thing, and we've got to be ready for the last hundred yards and making sure, we understand that and that that gets to the criticality of the home station training and in leveraging every day, even when we're not forward on pathways.
But [also] what are we doing to make sure we're ready? You know, physically, mentally, to outthink, and persevere here in the, the rigors of combat, is something we have to think about because, there is no greater challenge in my eyes based on what I've seen over my career. For human beings to be able to do that, and, you know, it starts with cohesion and having trust in those on your left and right, in your leaders, and then having confidence and belief in your own skills, and the desire to take, to do what's necessary to prevail on the battlefield.
And, you're right. It doesn't get talked about as much.
[Colonel Rich Butler] You also mentioned multi-domain operations. Let's talk about that a little bit, if you don't mind. Can you describe a little about what's role the I Corps plays in multi-domain operations?
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] That is a, a great question. And, you know, we are experimenting with that, with every exercise on how we organize the command relationships for our multi-domain task forces.
And like I said, within, the Corps headquarters, we have a multi-domain effect cell. And so Corps integrate the joint capabilities, all domain effects from the joint force to enable a ground maneuver, and sometimes enable maritime maneuver or air maneuver. And so we employ those capabilities to achieve what we call convergence in that is, combining it all to create a, a window of opportunity for us or, prevent the enemy from achieving what they want to achieve.
And so it really allows us to preserve combat power and exploit these opportunities to gain marked advantage. And sometimes that marked advantage may start with, a convergence window to allow an air, deep air strike, which then allows us to see and understand where enemy long range fires, air defense capabilities are, where the radars are.
And then we, the next iteration, we've since we've been able to see and detect, we'll destroy them and then so on. And so it is, it's incredibly important for a Corps to provide that for divisions, but also for our joint partners, that we're fighting with. I mentioned what we've done with, multi-domain effects cell, and, you know, we have reps from all the domain space, cyber, to drive those effects. For me, until you see it in action and understand the different capabilities and the different coordination, to, synchronize the timing of them to create a convergence window is what we call it. Some call it pulse. It just takes practice. And because, we're co-located with a multi-domain task force in the Pacific, where we are wrapped by joint partners, that's the benefit of being stationed in Hawaii and Alaska and on Joint Base Lewis-McChord is where we're inherently at least with one partner.
We've got the Navy right up the road with two carrier strike groups now. Right up the road from us north to Seattle [and also] in, Pearl Harbor, Hickam and Schofield. So when we do our Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotations, the joint wrap is much larger than you have at the classic CTCs the armies run because they're located right there with them. And then when we do our joint exercises, I know you're familiar with from your time at INDOPACOM. That is a significant joint force that's there ensuring we're taking the time to connect, share, make sure we can share data quickly, have a common understanding of the fight with, you know, transformational technology to allow us to have the same common operational picture, same common intelligence picture, and kill chain, and actually rehearse and connect them during these exercises all contribute to our ability, to have multi-domain dominance.
And so as you think about the importance of the Pacific. A lot of people think, it's just a lot of water, but it is a joint theater. As I know you know, having been at the joint headquarters there and the joint theater, every member is critical for the for the fight. And everyone's bringing resources you need.
If you don't have joint fires, it's going to, it's going to be a quick fight. It won't go well unless you are wrapped in tight with your partners in the Pacific. And so our ability to do those exercises and rehearse with those joint partners and execute multi-domain operations is a huge opportunity for us that we can't pass up. And we get to optimize every time we do a joint exercise.
[Colonel Rich Butler] One final question. And, not to scare the listeners, sort of the question about, like, what keeps you up at night? But what about a potential war in the Indo-Pacific are we not paying close enough attention to?
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] This isn't going to be earth shattering, but it's based on my personal scar tissue having operated operational in Europe and the CENTCOM area. But the Pacific environment is like no other. The extended lines of communication across the Pacific, the contested logistics, but the extreme terrain on land, the humidity, the heat index I mentioned, you know, here in Korea, the, the mountainous terrain, often, you have to be ready for it.
And you have to understand the effects on your equipment. Both the equipment you ride in or transport on, as well as, you know, what you communicate with and the effects on, on your comms for that. And so being deliberate about understanding the environment, and making sure your equipment can operate can function in, in the environment, the high humidity, the winds.
So UAVs in the Pacific, you know, have to be rated for higher winds just based on, the winds coming off the sea when you hit an island. And so I think, that's what we need to be thinking about is, is being ready for the environment, making sure our transformational effort is tested and proven in that environment as we go to scope and scale with the technology. But also with just how we organize and operate, getting used to doing that.
If you look at history Rich, you know, look at the Battle of Buna and what the environment did to the formation of World War II. You we will [see what we] take for granted. And we can't [do that]. Then, sustaining ourselves in this environment is extra hard. You know, we're learning that and we're going to use robots if we can [and] build their capability to operate on the land. But in this environment, you know, we may have to use water buffalo at times, because vehicles won't make it up some of these hills, down some of these small paths. Certainly some of our vehicles are too big for the roads or heavy for the bridges. So conscious on how we've got to operate in that environment.
[Colonel Rich Butler] Sir, thanks for that and appreciate your time coming on the podcast today. And with that, we'll call it a wrap, sir. Thanks for your for your time. And listeners, you can learn more about the China Landpower Studies Center at https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/CLSC. For more Army War College podcasts, please check out Conversations on Strategy, Decisive Points, SSI Live, and A Better Peace. Sir, with that, thank you very much.
[Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane] Thank you.
Keywords: jungle environment, Arctic warfare, strategic flexibility, Indo-Pacific, Indo-Pacific, decision dominance, multi-domain operations, drone swarms, satellites, Operation Pathways, strategic and operational environment, China, PRC, PLA, cyber, CENTCOM, CLSC Dialogues