As negotiations between the state and the Army continue over leased training lands, soldiers at Schofield Barracks are gearing up for a training exercise that have “thousands of participants” from across the Indo-Pacific training in both Hawaii and the Philippines.
The Army announced that through Nov. 17, soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division will participate in the annual Hawaii rotation of the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC), a series of training ranges in Hawaii and Alaska. The service said it also will bring in troops from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Maldives, France, New Zealand and “other multinational partners.”
The Army said that on Oahu, training and maneuvers will take place around Bellows Beach, Dillingham Army Airfield, Kahuku Training Area, Kawailoa Mountain Ranges, Helemano Plantation, Ford Island and Schofield Barracks East and South ranges. Training also will take place at the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island, on Maui at the Pu‘unene Hawaii National Guard Readiness Center and Kahului Airport, and at the Laur Firebase in the Philippine province of Nueva Ecija.
This year Army leaders hope to showcase how the service is adapting its arsenal, tools and tactics based on what analysts have watched unfold in real-world battlefields around the globe — notably in Ukraine — and from the experiences U.S. troops have gained training across the Pacific.
The service said that this year’s rotation in Hawaii and the Philippines is “designed to validate the operational readiness of the 3rd Mobile Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, as one of the Army’s first mobile brigades. This exercise highlights the Army’s ability to operate in contested environments, project long-range precision fires, and strengthen joint and multinational interoperability.”
The 25th Infantry Division has been putting a particular emphasis on using drones, 3D manufacturing to quickly make parts in the field and more recently on fielding missile systems with an eye toward countering China in the region. During the spring and early summer, members of the 3rd Mobile Brigade spent months in the Philippines for exercises Balikatan and Salaknib honing those skills.
“Modern Combat requires quick exchange of information, and so it is no longer simply relevant that you have an AK-47, I have an M4 (and) we’re both firing in the same direction,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said. “(There’s) air and missile defense in particular, but if you think of drone and counter-drone — and the autonomy that is going to come with the modern fight — having shared systematic agreement to the exchange of information requires a lot of work on the front end.”
‘Army Transformation’
The Army already had been trending in this direction, but earlier this year Driscoll launched the Army Transformation Initiative, which he hopes will accelerate that process. The initiative shifts Army funds both from several older systems as well as high end new systems the service had been pursuing, with an eye toward getting weapons and equipment off the shelf and into the field with which soldiers can train.
“It cut $48 billion in spending over the next five years from what we would call our outdated systems … (and) things like the RCV, this robotic combat vehicle we were making which was $3 million a copy and could be taken out with $800 drones,” Driscoll said. “It cut that in order to go spend money on things like creating a network that allows our people and our sensors and our things to all connect and share information in near-real time.”
He describes it as an “iterative” effort.
“We are just kicking off acquisition reform of how we buy things,” Driscoll said. “It takes us four to six to eight years sometimes to buy things like a drone, and what we’re learning from Ukraine is the innovation cycle on that battlefield is sometimes two weeks, where software is getting updated and new models are getting subbed in and out of the battlefield. And so our current model fundamentally doesn’t work.”
He said that Hawaii serves as a key training and logistics hub for this transformation as the Army refines its Pacific operations.
Discoll told the Star-Advertiser that when he visited the islands during the summer to talk to troops and commanders, he “walked away even kind of more convinced of what I had heard about our ability to maintain soldiers kind of forward, postured en masse, who can train there and be ready if we ever need them, was critically important for the safety of our nation.”
But key pieces of land in Hawaii the Army uses for training and operations belong to the state, not the federal government.
The Army signed 65-year leases to use those lands for a mere $1, which are set to expire in 2029. Both the Army and the state have faced lawsuits over the years on how several of these parcels have been used, with issues around unexploded ordnance, toxic exposures, endangered species, ancient Hawaiian cultural sites and other issues.
Over the summer, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources rejected the Army’s final Environmental Impact Statements on its proposals for continued training on state parcels on Hawaii island and on Oahu. Among other issues, the board cited concerns raised by staff across the Department of Land and Natural Resources about data gaps and noted environmental incomplete studies.
The military as a whole has face heightened scrutiny over its footprint in Hawaii since the 2021 Red Hill water crisis, when fuel from the Navy’s underground Red Hill facility tainted the service’s Oahu water system that serves 93,000 people. The World War II facility — which the Navy is now working to shutdown — was built just 100 feet over a key aquifer that most of Oahu relies on for drinking water.
In July, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply filed a federal civil tort complaint in the U.S. District Court of Hawaii in which it said it is suing the Navy over its handling of the leaks at and around Red Hill, particular harm that may have come to the aquifer. BWS has estimated the cost of past, current and future impacts from fuel leaks at $1.2 billion.
Driscoll has said that he hopes to expedite the negotiations to conclude well before the leases expire in 2029. He and Gov. Josh Green have held several meetings this year and both say their staffs are in regular contact.
On Sept. 29 they announced that they had signed a nonbinding “statement of principles” on negotiations, with Green’s office saying that they “anticipate working toward a Memorandum of Understanding by the end of this year, with the goal of outlining clear parameters for a suitable land arrangement and addressing the issues most important for Hawai’i’s communities.”
Growing exercise
The Army has said that on Oahu it prefers to renew only 450 acres it uses at Kahuku and not pursue lease renewals on any state land in Makua Valley or the Kawailoa-Poamoho Training Area — a roughly 93% reduction. But the Army still maintains large swaths of federal land on Oahu and also seeks to continue using a state-owned parcel on Hawaii island that connects the federal lands making up PTA.
The state and the Army have discussed the possibility of land swaps, with Green suggesting the return of federally owned portions of Makua Valley to the state — land held to be particularly sacred to many Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners — could be on the table. Green’s office also has said that the Army and the state would work together to explore ways to clean up unexploded ordnance, improve environmental stewardship and discuss potential federal support for housing, infrastructure and energy in the islands.
But ultimately, any deal Green and Dricoll come up with will have to go before the BLNR for approval.
Critics have accused Green of kowtowing to the Army, but the governor has defended his approach. In a statement released by his office in August, Green said “federal leaders have stated there are national security considerations at stake and they’ve made clear they could act through eminent domain, which would take the land without giving Hawai‘i anything in return.”
He argued that “while some may say we are being too accommodating, the truth is this path ensures that Hawai‘i’s people and values come first. By negotiating firmly and fairly, we can secure real benefits for our future while maintaining national security.”
The Army stood up JPMRC to certify units for deployment using training areas that more closely resemble potential Pacific conflict zones rather than flying troops from Hawaii and Alaska to training centers in California and Louisiana. Since then, the exercises already have grown significantly in both number of troops and scope of training.
Last year’s Hawaii rotation brought 900 foreign service members to the islands to train alongside 9,000 American troops — the largest yet. Col. Paul Hayward, a New Zealand army officer stationed at Schofield as the 25th’s head of interoperability, told the Star-Advertiser at the time that “from a multinational point of view, that’s double what we had last year.”
The largest continent was from the the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which made its debut at the exercise with 320 troops and 80 vehicles. They shipped their hardware in advance on a chartered commercial freighter that brought them from Japan to Hawaii before navigating Oahu’s roads to make their way to Schofield Barracks.
Lt. Col. Kazuhisa Yoshio, who led those troops, said that Hawaii’s training grounds offer opportunities that his troops wouldn’t have back home, particularly with electronic warfare — which is used to disrupt enemy signals or track them. He said that under Japanese law they cannot use the “full spectrum” of their equipment for training within Japan’s islands, explaining they cannot use their “maximum capability,” but that in the Hawaiian Islands there are currently no such restrictions.
“We are incredibly invested in that center and those exercises, and I would expect them to continue to grow,” Driscoll said. “I would not be surprised if in the coming years, the number of participants were doubled or tripled.”
To report concerns related to noise, training or other issues around the exercise, island residents can call the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii Community Relations office at (808) 787-1528 or email usag.hawaii.comrel@army.mil.
Source: The Garden Island
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