WASHINGTON ― The Pentagon announced it will speed up its delivery of Patriot missiles and M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, opting to send a refurbished older model that can be ready faster and reach Ukrainian troops fighting Russia’s invasion force by this fall.

The original plan was to send Ukraine 31 of the newer M1A2 Abrams, which could have taken a year or two to build and ship. But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved new plans to send the older M1A1 version from Army stocks, which will be easier for Ukrainian forces to learn to use and maintain as they fight Russia’s invasion.

“DoD, in close coordination with Ukraine, made the decision to buy the M1A1 variant which will enable us to significantly expedite delivery timelines, and deliver this important capability to Ukraine by the fall of this year,” said the Pentagon’s press secretary, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder.

The U.S. will refurbish excess M1 hulls and ship them as the M1A1 SA variant, outfitting the 70-ton behemoths with 120mm cannons and 50-caliber machine guns. Poland in January signed a contract for 250 M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks; U.S. Defense Department officials could not immediately say how they planned to juggle the Ukraine purchase and foreign military sales.

The Pentagon is committed to training Ukrainian troops on using and maintaining the tanks, but no details or timeline were forthcoming on Tuesday.

Separately, Patriot surface-to-air guided missile defense systems will be deployed to Ukraine faster than originally planned, Ryder said. That’s because Ukrainian soldiers will complete their training on the systems at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, faster than scheduled.

The U.S. pledged one Patriot battery in December, and Germany pledged an additional Patriot battery.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced in January he would send 31 General Dynamics Land Systems-made tanks to Ukraine, reversing course after Germany cleared the way for Europe to send its own main battle tanks.

Ukrainian leaders have pressed for the Abrams to strengthen their defenses in anticipation of Russia mounting a spring offensive, and earlier this year Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that August would be “too late” for the weapons to make a difference.

After visiting the Abrams factory in Lima, Ohio, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., who co-chairs the Ukraine Caucus, criticized the Biden administration’s pace in deciding to send tanks to Ukraine.

“To folks who think I’m being too strong,” Quigley said, “what do you want the Ukrainians to do? Hurl rocks at the Russian tanks?”

Army officials were saying publicly for weeks that they were wrestling with faster options, once the decision had been made, but it was tough.

“A tank by itself is not a military capability. You have to send the whole package, and that includes ammunition, vehicles to maintain it, fuel, and you have to do the training on the system so that it can be sustained in combat,” Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said at a Defense News webinar earlier this month. “Efforts are underway to do it as quickly as possible.”

Beyond concerns about how quickly the tanks will arrive, it’s unclear whether they will arrive in large enough numbers to make a difference. Thirty-one tanks is enough to outfit three tank companies, said retired Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, former commander of the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia.

“They need brigades, not companies. Right now we’re seeing this kind of ‘drip, drip’ with platoons and companies,” Donahoe said. “If you only give them one battalion, you don’t give them the capability to overmatch the Russians, which a number of Western-style armored brigades would give them.”

State Department and Pentagon officials said in letters to Capitol Hill on Monday that cuts floated by Republicans would harm efforts to deter and compete with China and “effectively zero out” aid to Ukraine.

House Republicans have reportedly pledged to cut federal spending for fiscal 2024 back to their fiscal 2022 levels as part of a January deal to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker. However, Republicans have also since come out against cuts to defense, which makes them less likely but leaves nondefense programs vulnerable.

The House Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, sent a letter in January to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the leaders of all other federal agencies seeking more details on the impact of fiscal cuts by House Republicans. On Monday, she posted the replies.

Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord, in his March 17 letter, stuck up for the nondefense side, saying that even if the department was exempt from cuts, those cuts would be “just as harmful.” The federal government’s response to the Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine shows the value of integrating all forms of assistance, he added.

“No one agency could achieve the effects we are producing as a team, and deep cuts to any one of the agencies would undermine the effort as a whole,” McCord’s letter read.

The State Department ― which requested billions of dollars for Indo-Pacific missions and to counter Chinese influence though security, infrastructure and economic support to U.S. allies and partners around the globe ― said those efforts would be hurt.

A rollback to FY22 levels would include a $2 billion cut to the State Department’s security sector assistance budget, according to the seven-page letter from Naz Durakoğlu and Jodi Herman, the respective legislative affairs chiefs for the department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. It’s a category that includes foreign military financing for partner nations to buy American-made weaponry.

“Such assistance is critical to enhancing military-to-military interoperability, training, and cooperation, as well as fighting corruption, and money-laundering,” the March 17 letter read, adding that such a cut would also be like “opening the door for our competitors.”

To the Pentagon, a rollback to FY22 levels would mean a $100 billion — or nearly 12% — budget cut, compared to Biden’s FY24 budget request of $842 billion, McCord said in his three-page letter to DeLauro.

“The Department of Defense is concerned about both the magnitude and potential method of implementing such reductions, which would have harmful and potentially devastating effects on our people, our mission and our national interests,” McCord wrote.

Such cuts, he said, would upend congressionally supported efforts to stabilize the defense-industrial base and also stymie modernization efforts. Beyond that, they would mean less money for the Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative and proposed munitions plus-ups at the center of the FY24 request ― both aimed at deterring China in the region.

The U.S. Navy would hypothetically take a $10 billion cut, likely eliminating a Virginia-class submarine and DDG-51 destroyer, and also endanger cost-saving multiyear procurement contracts, the letter read.

A notional 40% cut to the nuclear triad modernization would hurt B-21 bomber production plans and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program.

For planned missile defense upgrades, a rollback means 50% less for space-based missile warning and ground-based midcourse missile defense “at a time when our adversaries are modernizing their offensive capabilities,” the letter read.

“Such ill-advised politics would also have global ramifications,” McCord wrote. “At a time when our allies in NATO and the Indo-Pacific region are increasing their security spending to the levels we have been advocating, a move backward on our part would send the wrong message both to allies and adversaries.”

Furthermore, the Coast Guard would have to cease efforts to buy the offshore patrol cutter and the polar security cutter, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s letter.

That in turn would “create an operational gap and further delay of the U.S. presence in the polar regions and reduce the ability detect, deter, prevent, and disrupt terrorist attacks and other criminal acts in the U.S. maritime domain as well as our National Defense Strategy,” the letter read.

The U.S. State Department approved NATO ally Greece to buy up to 76 Assault Amphibious Vehicles worth $268 million, according to an announcement on Friday. The Marine Corps, which maintains the vehicles are safe, intends to supply the vehicles from its inventory.

Greece, which has sought the deal since at least 2022, has asked to buy 63 of the personnel variant of the so-called AAV, nine of the command variant and four of the recovery variant, with 63 50-caliber machine guns, as well as MK-19 grenade launchers and M36E T1 thermal sights among the related equipment.

After the July 30, 2020 sinking, which killed nine troops, the Marine Corps in December of 2021 restricted its fleet of decades-old AAVs to the land and barred it from deployments or water training except in emergencies. A Marine Corps probe reportedly found that inadequate training, shabby maintenance and poor judgment by leaders led to the sinking of the AAV in one of the deadliest Marine training accidents in decades.

In a statement to Defense News on Friday, a Marine Corps spokesman said that while fleet’s average age is 40 years, the vehicles have undergone “a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP), a Reliability Availability Maintainability/ Rebuilt to Standard Program (RAM/RS), and scheduled cycles through depot-level maintenance” throughout their lives.

“The AAV is a safe vehicle and a viable platform for amphibious operations. As with all combat systems and equipment, strict compliance with maintenance standards is an essential prerequisite to safe and effective operation,” said the spokesman, Maj. Jim Stenger.

According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announcement, the sale to Greece will provide “an effective capability to protect maritime interests and infrastructure in support of its strategic location on NATO’s southern flank.”

It’s the latest in a surge of demand for the Raytheon Technologies-made Tomahawk, after U.S. Navy officials said this week their proposed budget, with foreign military sales, would max out the production line. Japan’s new budget would reportedly bulk-buy 400 Tomahawks for as much as $1.6 billion, among other counterstrike capabilities.

The State Department approved a U.S.-Australia deal for up to 200 Block V and 20 Block IV rounds, plus related support, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announcement.

Canberra has said the missiles would be fielded on its Hobart-class destroyers, enabling them to strike land targets at greater distances, with better precision. Variants of the Block V can change targets in flight and strike moving targets at sea.

Tomahawk’s range of more than 1,000 miles is especially important in the Asia-Pacific region, where China’s rocket force has extraordinary reach as its DF-26 and DF-21 missiles have ranges of 2,490 and 1,335 miles respectively, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The U.S. Navy in 2021 began fielding the Block V Tomahawk for the vertical launching systems on surface ships, but also on attack submarines that can more easily operate within range of China’s rocket force.

The U.S.-Australia deal comes days after the two countries and Britain announced Australia would acquire nuclear-powered submarines by 2040 ― first hosting and later buying U.S. Virginia-class attack subs during the interim.

Canberra in 2021 announced its intent to purchase Tomahawks, along with Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles-Extended Range for its fighter jets and Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, which are both made by Lockheed Martin. It is also participating in the U.S.-led Precision Strike Missile program, or PrSM.

“The proposed sale will improve Australia’s capability to interoperate with U.S. maritime forces and other allied forces as well as its ability to contribute to missions of mutual interest,” the State Department announcement reads.

“By deploying the Tomahawk Weapon System, Australia will contribute to global readiness and enhance the capability of U.S. Forces operating alongside them globally. Australia will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense.”

The Joint Production Accelerator Cell would serve as a new organization for the team of defense officials who helped ramp up production of aid sent to Ukraine ― including Javelins, Stingers and 155mm artillery rounds ― and broaden it to other weapons.

“We are institutionalizing that effort into a permanent production accelerator, instead of it be reactive and standing up in a crisis,” Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante said at the McAleese & Associates conference Wednesday. “The question we are now posing to this new team is how do we ramp production up and down more flexibly and cheaply in the future.”

The organization, to be led by Pentagon industrial-base policy adviser Erin Simpson, stems from the Munitions Industrial Deep Dive team, which helped channel more than $2 billion in Ukraine-related appropriations and mitigate workforce and supply chain issues. One focus, LaPlante said, will be the potential use of advanced manufacturing techniques.

The move comes as the Pentagon aims to restock billions of dollars in munitions and other equipment sent to Ukraine ― and as its budget proposal offers $30.6 billion for missiles and munitions and an initiative to max out several munitions production lines.

According to a March 10 memo from LaPlante, the organization will develop actionable recommendations to build production capacity for specific systems. The systems “may evolve with the threat environment” and would be selected by the acquisition office “based on periodic deliberate processes with senior Department leaders,” the memo reads.

On Wednesday, LaPlante linked long lead times for weapons to a post-Cold War efficiency drive that shut down many excess production lines in the defense industry. At the same time, he said, the industry cannot easily stop and start complex production lines and is justifiably reluctant to invest in expanding capacity “until they have a clear, consistent demand signal or business case from the DoD.”

“While I’m confident we will manage our way out of this current crisis, we cannot stop managing this once fighting in Ukraine ends, we need to change,” he said. “To ensure we pace the threat posed by China throughout the Indo-Pacific, we cannot return to the feast or famine behavior which is typically employed as the crisis comes and goes.”

Speaking to reporters, Mike McCord said the Pentagon, which proposed an $842 billion budget on Thursday, is drafting a letter to explain several examples of how the department would absorb a potential defense cut. Though only a handful of Republicans lawmakers publicly favor the idea of a defense cut, the letter would likely become ammunition in the Capitol Hill budget battles to come.

“I don’t rule out the possibility the House will produce a budget resolution that implements that policy and tells the appropriators to go figure it out ― [whether to] exempt defense, don’t exempt defense [from cuts],” McCord said on the sidelines of the McAleese and Associates conference. “We do take it seriously. I wouldn’t say it’s a super likely outcome, but that’s not the same as not-worried about it.”

The House Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, sent a letter in January to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the leaders of all other federal agencies seeking more details on the impact of fiscal cuts by House Republicans.

The letter to Austin is identical to the ones DeLauro sent to all other agency heads, which include the same queries, one of which asks: “How will these cuts affect our national security and global interests around the world?”

McCord said he hopes to issue a response this week after it was delayed amid the budget rollout and after White House input.

“We are going to respond to Congresswoman DeLauro’s letter with some illustrative examples and make clear our opposition to the idea,” McCord said, adding that it would not be a comprehensive report.

However, Republican leaders and the vast majority of the caucus have insisted they will slash discretionary spending without cutting the defense budget — though it’s unclear how they intend to follow through on that pledge. In fact, several lead Republicans in Congress blasted the Biden administration’s proposed 3.3% defense budget increase as “inadequate” last week.

Although lead Republicans have been saying defense cuts should be taken off the table, the idea of lowering nondefense accounts alone is “totally unrealistic,” McCord said.

He added that President Joe Biden’s proposed defense budget increase helps the Pentagon absorb a mandatory annual pay raise for troops, which accounts for roughly $10 billion of proposed new spending.

Because shrinking the military quickly is logistically difficult, readiness accounts ― proposed at $146 billion ― would be the likely target for such a cut, he said.

“If you have to eat ten, fifteen or twenty billion dollars of compensation costs, with a flat top line, where does that come out of, right?” McCord said.

The MQ-9 Reaper drone was flying a routine surveillance mission in international airspace when it crossed paths with two Su-27 fighters around 7 a.m. local time, according to U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

The Russian jets began antagonizing the unmanned aircraft, repeatedly dumping fuel on and buzzing in front of the much smaller Reaper, the Air Force said. One Su-27 drew close enough to hit the drone’s tail propeller, causing its remote operators to lose control of the plane.

“Because of the damage, we were in a position to have to essentially crash it into the Black Sea,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters at a briefing Tuesday afternoon. “It was unflyable and uncontrollable, and we took it down.”

He declined to answer whether the drone was armed at the time.

The incident resulted in a “complete loss” of the MQ-9 and nearly caused the Su-27 to crash as well, USAFE Commander Gen. James Hecker said in a release. The command declined to answer further questions on Tuesday.

Ryder said the Russians have not recovered the MQ-9, referring questions about American efforts to find the aircraft to the U.S. Navy. The Navy referred questions to U.S. European Command, which said it had no further details to offer.

Ryder confirmed that the Russian pilot landed after the collision, but did not say where. The Defense Department is working to declassify imagery of the incident.

It’s the first time an unsafe interaction with Russian aircraft has downed a U.S. drone, according to John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

“U.S. and allied aircraft will continue to operate in international airspace and we call on the Russians to conduct themselves professionally and safely,” he said.

American and European air forces routinely intercept Russian aircraft that encroach on NATO airspace and push the limits of risky maneuvers. MQ-9 drones — known for their “eye in the sky” role in counterterrorism operations — have been a key part of U.S. efforts to surveil Russia’s war in Ukraine for more than a year. The U.S. has flown Reapers from Poland, Romania, Greece and Estonia.

“These aggressive actions by Russian aircrew are dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation,” USAFE said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has not talked to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, about the collision, Ryder told reporters. The State Department said it would personally complain to Anatoly Antanov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the incident by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan earlier in the day, Kirby told reporters.

“This MQ-9 was operating in international airspace over international waters and posed a threat to nobody,” Kirby said.

While Kirby acknowledged that intercepts between American and Russian aircraft over the Black Sea are common, especially in recent weeks, he said Tuesday’s run-in was “unique” and “noteworthy” for its disregard for safety and professionalism.

The U.S. has been consistently flying over the Black Sea’s international airspace and will continue to do so, Kirby said.

In 2019, Iran shot down a U.S. Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance—Demonstrator drone, a version of the Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk, in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting then-U.S. President Donald Trump to consider a retaliatory strike. He later backtracked, citing potential civilian casualties. The two countries made contradictory claims, and U.S. military officials ultimately downplayed the incident.

The same year, the U.S. military alleged Libyan forces using Russian air defenses brought down a drone near Tripoli.

With an eye on Russia and China, the Pentagon in fiscal 2024 would spend $30.6 billion for missiles and munitions ― 12% more than last year and 50% more than five years ago, when the U.S. was still fighting the Islamic State and Taliban.

The Pentagon budget would also break new ground by using multiyear procurement authorities generally reserved for ships and aircraft to buy munitions and expand production capacity over several years.

At Monday’s budget rollout, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady did not answer directly whether the Pentagon, like the NATO alliance, is raising stockpile targets due to the war in Ukraine. The move was aimed at deterring China and ensuring the health of the U.S. defense industrial base, they said.

“This latest budget expands production capacity even more, and procures the maximum amount of munitions that are most relevant for deterring and, if necessary, prevailing over aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” said Hicks, adding that one-third of the munitions budget request is for long-range fires.

Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord said the munitions request was “Ukraine informed, even if not Ukraine specific.” To replenish U.S. stockpiles depleted by the war in Ukraine, Pentagon officials said they will rely on supplemental appropriations from Congress, which granted the Pentagon $35.7 billion for FY23.

“These are not the kind of missiles that are key to the Ukraine fight, they are key to Indo-Pacific deterrence,” McCord said. “What [Hicks] has been pushing us to do is to think about lessons we’re learning today and apply them to future scenarios, think about what would I have done four years ago if I had a crystal ball, to think about things that might be coming.”

The Pentagon’s $170 billion procurement budget request ― touted as the largest ever ― would use a new “large lot procurement pilot” strategy to maximize production capacity for several munitions used across the services: Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) ― and the Raytheon Technologies-made RIM-174 Standard Missile (SM-6), AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AAMRAM).

Though not in the pilot program, the Pentagon is also using multiyear contracting to buy roughly 103 Naval Strike Missiles at $250 million. The Marine Corps’ new, low-signature Marine Littoral Regiments and their Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System are slated for 90 of the ground-based missiles, which Raytheon manufactures.

Of the $30.6 billion for munitions, more than half ― $17.1 billion ― is for tactical missiles, while $7.3 billion is for strategic missiles, $5.6 billion for conventional ammunition and $600 million for technology development. The plans separately call for $15.1 billion more spread across the next five years to cover upfront costs for long-lead item procurements.

Another $1 billion would allow industry to procure long-lead items for the weapons, and otherwise “put that money up front to send the demand signal to our industry partners,” according to Maj. Gen. Michael Greiner, the Air Force’s deputy assistant secretary for budget.

To further spur defense firms to expand production capacity, defense officials said they will seek congressional approval for future multiyear buys of the Raytheon-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile system and the Lockheed-made Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, a surface-to-surface medium-range rocket fired from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. The U.S. has given all three systems to Ukraine.

U.S. Army officials have said their 2024 budget will request authority to buy more munitions in bulk over multiple years as the U.S. and its allies work to refill their inventories and help Ukraine’s forces defend themselves.

“In these ramp-ups, the reason we’re taking a really maximalist foot on the floor all the way down approach is that we don’t know how long the conflict will last, we don’t know how low our stocks will be, we don’t know the full amount we will have to help replenish,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush said earlier this month.

The Air Force budget proposal would double missile spending, from $2.3 billion in 2032 to $4.7 billion in 2024. “The munitions buys are focused on … the targets that we would have to be concerned about in a China scenario of some kind,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters in a March 10 briefing at the Pentagon.

The Air Force would include $161 million to buy 48 Joint Strike Missiles, made by Norwegian firm Kongsberg Defence Aerospace and Raytheon, for the first time. A top Air Force budget official, Maj. Gen. Michael Greiner, said those long-range missiles, which can be fired from the F-35 against land and ship targets, will help bridge the gap as LRASM continues to come online.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies report last month found the U.S. defense-industrial base is unprepared for a notional battle with China over Taiwan, as it would run out of key long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than a week. The report spotlighted U.S. military aid to Ukraine and criticized bureaucratic hurdles for defense contracting and U.S. arms sales overseas.

Other highlights from the budget proposal include:

– $1.8 billion for 550 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range, more than twice the $902 million Congress enacted for FY23.

– $1.2 billion for 830 AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, up from $740 million in FY23.

– $1 billion for 118 Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles, up from $550 in FY23.

– $386 million for 1,165 Joint Air-to-Ground Muntions, up from $297 million in FY23.

– $447 million for 1,170 of the Raytheon-made Small Diameter Bomb II, down $555 million for FY23.

– $1.6 billion for 125 of the Navy’s RIM-174 Standard Missile, up from $799 million for FY23.

– $1 billion for 5,064 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, down from $1.3 billion in FY23.

– $934 million for 34 Raytheon-made Tactical Tomahawk Cruise missiles, down from $905 million.

– $206 million for 3,236 Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions, down from $328 million.

– $30 million for 40 Lockheed-made Hellfire missiles, down from $116 million.

Jen Judson and Megan Eckstein contributed to this report.

First, the ship sped near the Philippine patrol vessel Malapascua close to the Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the hotly contested South China Sea. Then, it allegedly came within 150 yards, blocking the Philippine ship’s path in what government officials later described as “dangerous maneuvers,” before the Chinese crew pointed what Manila called a green “military grade” laser at some of the Philippine crew, temporarily blinding them.

China denied it was operating unsafely, but Philippine officials were unassuaged. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. summoned Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian to express “serious concern.”

In the days before the alleged Feb. 6 incident, the United States and the Philippines had announced an expansion of their 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Instead of periodic access for U.S. forces to five Philippine installations, they will have access to nine. The U.S. Navy’s top admiral has since offered Manila a chance for joint patrols: Philippine vessels cruising side by side with their American allies in the face of Chinese coercion.

The agreement marked a striking reversal from Manila’s flirtation with ending most military cooperation with the U.S., as it sought to balance relations with Washington and Beijing. It capped a wave of personal diplomacy, in which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited the Philippines in 2021, President Joe Biden called Marcos to congratulate him on his election and Vice President Kamala Harris visited Manila in November.

And now the newly strengthened defense relationship was on full display. Austin called his counterpart days after the reported incident to reiterate that “an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, aircraft, and public vessels, including those of its Coast Guard, anywhere in the South China Sea, would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments,” according to an official readout.

The Pentagon’s efforts to improve U.S. force posture in the Pacific have yielded a flurry of major agreements in recent months, with allies motivated by China’s aggressive behavior to embrace the U.S. With new arrangements, the Pentagon aims to spread what it calls “combat credible” forces closer to Taiwan as a way to deter China from invading the island and ― if deterrence fails ― win any resulting fight.

The U.S. military’s problem is that heavy concentrations of its forces in Northeast Asia ― 50,000 in Japan and 28,000 in South Korea ― offer fat targets for China’s long-range missiles, which can reach areas as far away as Guam. Shifting to smaller, more distributed groupings not only complicates Chinese targeting, but increases the presence of U.S. troops in the arc of islands east of Taiwan. China considers Taiwan a rogue province, and has threatened to take it back by force if necessary.

In early December, Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, publicly pledged that 2023 would be a “transformative” year for U.S. force posture in the Pacific, and in the eight weeks that followed, the Pentagon made good with moves Ratner has said “will make our forward posture more distributed, resilient and lethal.”

Beyond increasing access to sites in the Philippines, the U.S. military is transforming a Marine regiment in Japan into a quick-reaction force. At the same time, Australia rotations for U.S. Air Force bomber task forces and fighters are due to increase this year, in addition to newer Army and Navy rotations there. Australia is also expected to agree to host U.S. submarines when it announces March 13 the type of nuclear-propelled submarine it will obtain.

With tension over Taiwan escalating in recent years, amid Chinese military flights near the territory and controversial visits by U.S. politicians, the Biden administration has pushed for deeper ties in the region. Three months after Ratner forecast the new arrangements, he said on March 2 that “it’s already been really a breakthrough year for U.S. alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.”

“The story of the U.S. position in the region, the degree to which we are deepening our partnerships with our allies and partners, the degree to which they’re investing in their own capabilities, their ability to contribute to regional security and the degree which they’re working with with each other is really cause for optimism,” Ratner said in at event sponsored by the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. “It is creating a more stable and enduring security environment, even as these challenges from [China] become more intense.”

Avoiding a conflict with China over Taiwan before the end of the decade is “doable,” Ratner added. “It’s going to be really hard, but I think we’re getting after it with urgency, but also with confidence that we can do it.”

A change of pace in Manila

The Philippines is a case that might give a defense watcher whiplash.

In 2020, then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced plans to cancel Manila’s 1999 agreement to allow U.S. forces to visit, but he reversed course when Austin visited in June 2021 following a series of incidents that included a standoff with China over the contested Whitsun Reef. Fast forward to Austin’s visit with Marcos in February, where the two nations agreed to expand U.S. military presence there with access to four more bases.

The Philippines has long been a target of China’s maritime coercion in the resource-rich, busy South China Sea. There, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan are among the countries involved in a tense, decades-long territorial impasse.

It’s unclear how a greater American presence will impact that dynamic. But the U.S. and the Philippines are planning high-level talks this spring to clarify the locations of the newly accessible sites — potentially in the northern Philippines, near Taiwan and the South China Sea. (The 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, or EDCA, authorizes U.S. military use of Philippine sites, but rules out permanent basing.)

The Philippine government said it earmarked $66.5 million to construct facilities for training, storage and more. Further infrastructure improvements, including airfield repairs and pre-positioned fuel supplies, are on the table.

“U.S. access to Philippine bases will offer a new level of training, exercises and interoperability between forces to modernize and develop the Philippines military ― to enable us to respond to events more quickly,” Ratner told Defense News. “Meetings in the spring will afford an opportunity to clarify which airfields may need repairs or be suitable for pre-positioned equipment so that we can respond to contingencies in the South China Sea or conduct joint disaster relief missions.”

Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security think tank, said that because the existing sites have languished, it’s unlikely that, without more investments, the runways or aprons are strong enough to support fully loaded U.S. fighters or bombers. The two countries also may be considering modest locations from where U.S. Marine or Army forces could operate surveillance drones or launch less expensive, mobile missiles.

There are several questions involved in the site selection process, according to Pettyjohn: “Is it a mountainous area? What can it range from that place, and can they actually reach the targets the U.S. wants to be able to hold at risk or that they want to be surveilling if they have unmanned or manned aircraft conducting surveillance in that area?”

U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said she’s hopeful the Philippines, alongside Australia, Guam and Japan, will host logistics hubs for pre-positioned fuel and other supplies the Army wants to bring to the region. The service’s role in a Pacific fight would be to furnish the joint force with long-range fires, as well as secure staging sites and communications.

“The folks in the Philippines have expanded the EDCA sites because of their concerns about what they see [China] doing,” Wormuth said at a Feb. 28 event in Washington. “I would like to see us continue to have wins like those four new sites. Our job in the Army certainly is to just be as ready as we can to take advantage of those agreements when they get signed.”

U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said in a Feb. 22 visit to Manila the U.S. is “committed” to joint maritime patrols with the country in the South China Sea, and that details will likely emerge from broader bilateral talks.

In the meantime, the U.S., the Philippines and Australia plan to show off their strengthened ties with a bigger version of the joint Balikatan exercise, set for April. Last year’s exercise with the U.S. and the Philippines was billed as the largest since 2015, with a combined 8,900 troops.

“You’re going to see an increase with respect to the numbers. I think you’re going to see an increase with respect to the joint mix of capabilities that we bring together this time in Balikatan,” Gilday told reporters, adding that the drill “would provide a very powerful optic of assurance.”

Watching Taiwan from Japan

When the Chinese military’s large-scale drills near Taiwan last August managed to send some missiles into the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Japan saw it as a warning. And it reacted.

In January, Washington and Tokyo announced a new U.S. Marine quick-reaction force on Okinawa and unveiled plans to deepen military cooperation on Japan’s other southwest islands near Taiwan. The Okinawa-based 12th Marine Regiment, an artillery unit, will become the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment ― with advanced intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, anti-ship and transportation capabilities.

Japan has also announced it will acquire new counterstrike capabilities and raise defense spending to 2% of its gross domestic product, which would total about 43 trillion yen (U.S. $315 billion) through 2027. This marks a dramatic change for a nation that forged a pacifist approach to its defense after World War II and historically kept defense spending below 1% of its GDP.

Japan wants to buy American-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles that can reach potential targets in China ― and extend the range of its Type 12 land-based anti-ship missile. Tokyo also announced plans to buy all 400 of the Raytheon Technologies-made Tomahawks it is seeking from the U.S. at once this year, rather than over several years as initially planned.

The U.S. and Japan also agreed to the shared use of U.S. facilities on Okinawa. Marine officials say the littoral regiment will bolster the U.S. presence beyond Okinawa, into the first island chain, which stretches from Japan’s East China Sea islands through the Philippines.

Japan may use Okinawa as it adds bases, radars and air defense units on its chain of southwestern islands, which extend from Japan’s largest island to Yonaguni, which is 70 miles east of Taiwan. The deal also opened up these islands for joint training ― offering U.S. forces a greater familiarity with the terrain on which they’d operate in a confrontation over Taiwan.

“These islands are proximate to where the [Taiwan] conflict would be playing out, and in concept at least they would allow these small [American] units to place Chinese naval assets at risk,” said Christopher Johnstone, a former White House director for East Asia who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “The idea of this distributed presence with self-reliant comms, ISR capabilities and weapons has a pretty strong logic if it plays out according to concept.”

Marine littoral regiments are designed with stealth, speed and military prowess in mind. From beaches and straits throughout the region, they’d have naval strike missiles with 100-mile ranges capable of conducting anti-ship strikes or gaining sea control with just the threat of being able to target enemy ships.

“Having the [Marine littoral regiment] outfitted with anti-ship cruise missiles would allow them to really go after a potential Chinese invasion fleet, if China were to launch an amphibious invasion of Taiwan,” said Becca Wasser, who leads the Center for a New American Security’s gaming lab. “In line with the Marine Corps concept of stand-in forces, the Marines are supposed to be able to conduct sea-denial [missions] and be able to bottle up Chinese forces to ensure they don’t go outside the first island chain.”

Marine littoral regiments are also designed to use MQ-9A Reaper drones for extended-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ― sensing what’s happening in the region and passing those findings to joint force commanders in the theater or directly to Marines with the anti-ship missiles to take immediate action.

According to a Marine Corps spokesman, Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, will be home to two General Atomics-made Reapers later this year, and six by fiscal 2025 ― replacing the smaller Boeing Insitu RQ-21 Blackjack.

A new squadron on base and activated in January, Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 153 will this year absorb the first of six KC-130J tankers. The aerial refueling aircraft are meant to allow more Hawaii-based Marines to move throughout the vast region in the event of a crisis.

Speaking at the West naval conference in February, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric Smith, teased that the Reapers and refueling aircraft were just two on a “laundry list” of U.S. military moves in the Pacific that “gets a lot longer and a lot sexier” at the classified level.

Australian modernization

Australia is expected to announce this month how it will acquire a fleet of submarines powered with U.S. nuclear technology as part of the trilateral AUKUS pact. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently called the program “the single biggest leap in our defense capability in our history.”

Options to replace the Australian-built Collins-class diesel-electric submarines that went into service more than 20 years ago include a next-generation U.S. Virginia-class sub, a British Astute-class boat or a new hybrid design.

But whatever the decision, Australia is also expected to host new rotations of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines as it begins a long ramp-up to 2040, when the plans call for the boats to arrive. That would give Australia’s naval personnel a chance to acclimate themselves to operating and maintaining the complex submarines.

“The rotation issue, I would be shocked if that’s not openly discussed in the next couple of weeks,” Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, the top Democrat on the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, said during a March 3 interview.

Eric Sayers, a former staffer for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command during the Trump administration, said he also expects U.S. and U.K. naval nuclear power schools to welcome Australians, who will “have to get on our nuclear submarines, deploy and learn.”

“It’s already going to be a long pathway to deliver this capability; it’s better to start that training now,” Sayers said.

Also likely, according to Pettyjohn, is that the Pentagon acquires rotational basing for its ships and submarines in locations like Perth, the Western Australian city that houses Australia’s Collins fleet. By her thinking, the U.S. could seek to build Australia-based stockpiles of missiles for its ships and submarines with vertical launching systems, especially if the Pacific ally operates the same kinds of munitions.

Amid criticism that Australia’s lack of nuclear expertise will leave it heavily reliant on nuclear-armed partners, Austin has vowed Australia will not face a capability gap as it waits for nuclear-powered subs. Without disclosing details, the defense secretary also pledged to increase U.S. rotations of bomber task forces and fighters in Australia in addition to bolstering Army and Navy rotations there.

The moves in 2023 dovetail with rotations in 2021 of F-22, B-2 and B-1 aircraft, and with fuel, runway and ordnance storage infrastructure projects underway at the Darwin and Tindal airfields in Australia’s Northwest Territory. The U.S. spent millions of dollars in recent years to build ramps and storage for munitions and fuel so that, in a crisis, American refueling aircraft could use Darwin and bombers could use Tindal.

Last year, the U.S. announced plans to accommodate up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers by upgrading facilities at Tindal by 2027. The project, expected to cost as much as $100 million, would build a new concrete apron and squadron operations facilities as a means to better host bombers, tankers and fighters.

“We’re building physical bases in places like Japan and Guam, but we’re also building infrastructure that we could quickly fall in on, that has what we need to scale up quickly ― in the Philippines and northern Australia,” Sayers said. “Some of these things are permanent for a heavier presence, while others are lighter so that we can go there if we need to.”

Military construction

Defense experts and at least one key lawmaker believe the recent moves are positive steps, but that the U.S. must make more investments in military construction. Budget watchers will be looking at the Pentagon’s military construction budget, known as MILCON, and the separate Pacific Deterrence Initiative for new proposals.

“If we’re going to be serious about pre-positioning Marine Corps, Navy and air assets, it goes hand and glove that you’ve got to build support for it, which obviously is airfields,” Courtney said.

A recent Center for Strategic and International Studies war game for a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan highlighted the vulnerability of allied aircraft. It found that most would be destroyed on the ground as China launches missile attacks on U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.

Cognizant of the threat, the Air Force wants to establish a system of resilient basing that relies less on established forward bases that are well known to enemies and more on the “agile combat employment” concept of flexible satellite bases dispersed in a “hub-and-spoke” system.

Wasser is among the experts calling for the military to invest more in passive defenses by building hardened aircraft shelters, particularly on Tinian in the Mariana Islands and on Guam, which has none.

“Looking at some basic resiliency efforts, there are things that you need to do to create passive and active defenses on U.S. air bases,” Wasser said. “We announced these EDCA sites, but the state of the sites is unclear at the moment. All this suggests you’re going to want to see a request in MILCON or line items in [the Pacific Deterrence Initiative] for base resilience or infrastructure enhancement.”

Another expense is coming as the U.S. military shuts down a major fuel storage facility — Red Hill in Hawaii — after it leaked petroleum into Pearl Harbor’s tap water last year. Because Red Hill supplied fuel for Navy jets and surface combatants, the public health disaster may also hamstring U.S. operations in the Pacific, Sayers said.

“We basically didn’t address the issue of critical aviation and surface combatant fuel storage at this location for years. We just didn’t resource it properly,” Sayers said.

The Red Hill underground fuel storage facility consists of 20 steel-lined underground storage tanks encased in concrete, which together could store up to 250 million gallons of fuel.

“This fuel was not just protected, relatively safe, but huge portions of it are necessary to be able to sustain a maritime fight, not just for days, but weeks and months,” Sayers said. “We basically shut all that down without a clear plan or a budget for how we would disperse it.”

While stateside military construction funding is popular on Capitol Hill because it provides local economic boosts, military construction overseas can be a tough sell. It remains to be seen whether the tab for these moves would be picked up by or shared with host countries ― or be small enough, given the modest footprint for the forces involved, to fall under the budgets for training and military exercises.

Courtney predicted that a request for more military construction funding to support the plans would be “well received” by centrist Democrats and Republicans.

“Despite the fact that maybe some people think members of Congress view MILCON as earmarks for their district, I think the drumbeat of briefings on new dispersed presence is really sinking in, and people get it,” he said.

Megan Eckstein, Geoff Ziezulewicz and Jen Judson contributed to this report.

The command’s congressionally-ordered assessment delivered Wednesday calls for more than $87 billion in spending between 2024 and 2028; with $15.4 billion for fiscal year 2024 alone. That represents a significant jump from last year’s $9 billion request for FY23 and five-year projected spend of $77 billion.

With China competition a bipartisan priority on Capitol Hill, the Indo-Pacific Command assessment of its needs offers a blueprint for China hawks to add to President Joe Biden’s $842 billion defense budget for FY24, which requests $9.1 billion for the Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative.

The report drafted by INDOPACOM chief Adm. John Aquilino calls for new space capabilities, missiles and air defenses, radar systems, staging areas, intelligence-sharing centers, supply depots and testing ranges throughout the region, as well as exercises with allies and partners.

“The U.S. must focus our efforts to present persistent, lethal and integrated Joint Force west of the [international date line] that can impose out-of-proportion costs and complicate any adversary’s ability to effectively compete with the U.S. military while simultaneously demonstrating U.S. commitment and resolve to our allies and partners,” reads an unclassified executive summary obtained by Defense News.

The command continues to call for a 360-degree persistent and integrated air defense capability on the U.S. territory Guam by 2026, as Aquilino has said his No. 1 priority is establishing an Aegis Ashore system there. The effort, underway for several years, would help protect U.S. citizens and forces.

Amid the Pentagon’s plans for more distributed forces in the Pacific, the largest portion of the assessment ― $10.8 billion ― would be to “improve the posture and presence” in the region. More than $2 billion would build aircraft parking, fuel stores and other facilities on Tinian Island, Pulau ― and Guam, where the Marine Corps is moving 5,000 Marines of III Marine Expeditionary Force, based on Okinawa, Japan.

More than $8 billion would fund research and development efforts across the services, including $1.3 billion for space technology prototyping and more than $400 million for “offensive cyber,” the report says.

A $5.3 billion “persistent battlespace awareness” project, the Space Force’s Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program, would offer an orbiting missile warning system that includes the Arctic. Another $1 billion would fund a network of space-based sensors to cover air, sea and ground-launched missile threats.

A $2.8 billion wedge in the plan for “integrated maritime fires” includes hundreds of millions of dollars for Maritime Strike Tomahawk Missiles for the Navy and Army; sea mines and for the Navy’s long-range anti-ship missile. Also included is $170 million for the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, meant to be used by the new Marine littoral regiments for ship targeting and sea control.

As the Pentagon works to improve alliances in the region as a counterweight to China, Indo-Pacific Command also sees a need for $700 million to “build defense and security capabilities, capacity and cooperation of allies and partners.” The lion’s share of that proposal, roughly $530 million, would go toward Defense Security Cooperation Agency programs.