Army Europe chief unveils NATO eastern flank defense plan

WIESBADEN, Germany — The U.S. Army and its NATO allies are embarking on the execution of a new “Eastern Flank Deterrence Line” plan that aims to enhance ground-based capabilities and drive military-industrial interoperability across the alliance, the U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander said Wednesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s inaugural LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.

As part of the plan to counter Russian threats and enable scalable, global deterrence, the Army and its NATO allies are urgently developing standardized, data-driven systems, common launchers and cloud-based coordination, according to Gen. Christopher Donahue.

Regional plans have been coming together for some time, but the Army, along with NATO, is first focusing on the Baltic states “to try to get to how do you actually make it so that industry and the nations know exactly what the requirements are — ultimately that is now known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line,” Donahue said.

“We know what we have to develop and the use case that we’re using is you have to [deter] from the ground,” he said. “The land domain is not becoming less important, it’s becoming more important. You can now take down [anti-access, aerial-denial] A2AD bubbles from the ground. You can now take over sea from the ground. All of those things we are watching happen in Ukraine.”

For example, Donahue noted, Kaliningrad, Russia, is roughly 47 miles wide and surrounded by NATO on all sides and the Army and its allies now have the capability to “take that down from the ground in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster than we’ve ever been able to do.”

“We’ve already planned that and we’ve already developed it. The mass and momentum problem that Russia poses to us … we’ve developed the capability to make sure that we can stop that mass and momentum problem," Donahue said.

The plan includes a system to share data. NATO has already procured that system, Donahue said, referencing its choice of Palantir’s Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence platform from Palantir that takes a vast amount of data and rapidly analyzes information to help military commanders make decisions.

“We already know exactly what we have to do with cloud and we know exactly the type of actual unmanned systems, brigades, everything else that we need for that,” Donahue said.

Specifically, the Army wants these capabilities to be interoperable with NATO partners.

The Army also wants a common launcher that serves in both an offensive and defensive capacity, along with a fire control system that any nation can use.

And, Donahue said, “We want everything to be optionally manned,” whether that is an air defense or a long-range fires system.

“We want it to be one system, optionally manned, where we’ll be able to take munitions from any country and shoot through them,” he said.

And the Army wants to lower the cost of systems.

“As a general rule, whatever you’re shooting at, whatever your weapon system or munition you shoot at, another adversary’s capability, it should be cheaper than what you’re shooting,” Donahue stressed.

Donahue acknowledged the obvious existence of bureaucracy but said that on the U.S. side, reform in things like foreign military sales is coming and the Army will be able to move at a much faster rate.

Directly addressing industry, Donahue said, “We have sent a clear demand signal to you of exactly what we need. … If you sell us something, it has to be interoperable. You have to share the [Application Programming Interface]. The cost has to go down.”

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

德国威斯巴登——美国陆军欧洲和非洲司令部司令周三在德国威斯巴登举行的美国陆军协会首届 LandEuro 会议上表示，美国陆军及其北约盟友正在着手执行一项新的“东翼威慑线”计划，旨在增强地面作战能力，并推动整个联盟的军事工业互操作性。

据克里斯托弗·多纳休将军称，作为应对俄罗斯威胁和实现可扩展的全球威慑计划的一部分，美国陆军及其北约盟友正在紧急开发标准化、数据驱动的系统、通用发射器和基于云的协调系统。

区域计划已经酝酿了一段时间，但陆军和北约首先将重点放在波罗的海国家，“试图弄清楚如何才能真正让工业界和各国确切地知道需求是什么——最终这就是现在所谓的东翼威慑线，”多纳休说。

“我们知道我们需要研发什么，而我们采用的应用场景是必须从地面进行威慑，”他说。“陆地领域的重要性不减反减。现在你可以从地面摧毁反介入/空中拒止（A2AD）屏障。现在你可以从地面控制海洋。所有这些，我们都在乌克兰密切关注着。”

例如，唐纳休指出，俄罗斯加里宁格勒宽约 47 英里，四周都被北约包围，而美国陆军及其盟友现在有能力“在史无前例的时间范围内，以前所未有的速度将其从地面摧毁”。

“我们已经制定了计划，也已经开发了相应的方案。俄罗斯给我们带来的质量和动量问题……我们已经具备了应对这一问题的能力，”多纳休说道。

该计划包含一个数据共享系统。唐纳休表示，北约已经采购了该系统，他指的是北约选择的Palantir公司的Maven智能系统。Maven智能系统是Palantir公司开发的一个人工智能平台，能够获取海量数据并快速分析信息，以帮助军事指挥官做出决策。

“我们已经确切地知道我们需要在云计算方面做些什么，我们也确切地知道我们需要什么样的无人系统、部队以及其他一切所需的东西，”多纳休说。

具体而言，陆军希望这些能力能够与北约伙伴国实现互操作。

陆军还希望有一种既能用于进攻又能用于防御的通用发射器，以及任何国家都可以使用的火控系统。

多纳休说：“我们希望所有东西都可以选择有人操作”，无论是防空系统还是远程火力系统。

他说：“我们希望它是一个可选择有人操作的单一系统，我们可以从任何国家获取弹药并进行射击。”

陆军希望降低系统成本。

“一般来说，无论你射击的目标是什么，无论你使用的武器系统或弹药是什么，对方的能力都应该比你使用的更便宜，”多纳休强调说。

多纳休承认官僚主义的存在是显而易见的，但他表示，在美国方面，对外军售等方面的改革即将到来，陆军将能够以更快的速度行动。

唐纳休直接对业界人士说：“我们已经向你们发出了明确的需求信号，告诉你们我们到底需要什么……如果你们卖给我们什么东西，它就必须能够互操作。你们必须共享应用程序编程接口（API）。成本必须降低。”

珍·贾德森是一位屡获殊荣的记者，为《防务新闻》报道陆地战争。她也曾为《政治报》和《内幕防务》工作。她拥有波士顿大学新闻学硕士学位和凯尼恩学院文学学士学位。