In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., asked Army Secretary Mark Esper: Should he be confirmed as the next secretary of defense, would he align his foreign policy views more closely with former Defense Secretary James Mattis or President Trump ― as a rift between the two ultimately led to Mattis’s resignation late last year.

“I don’t know where to pick between the two,” Esper said. “But clearly, I share Secretary Mattis’s views, and I’ve expressed that publicly.”

The Pentagon has been without a full-fledged leader for more than seven months, since Mattis left the building citing disagreements over the importance of strong international alliances to U.S. national security.

“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” Mattis wrote in his resignation letter.

Esper doubled down on those sentiments during the hearing, also echoing a willingness to resign that was laid down last week by Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley in his own confirmation hearing to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I’m fully committed to that,” Esper said of a diplomatic world order led by the U.S. “I think that is the one thing that’s certainly under threat, from Russia, and certainly China. I see the big picture, if you will.”

After Mattis’s exit, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan stepped up into the acting role, and was nominated to replace him permanently. But that plan fell apart in late June, when Shanahan resigned after allegations of domestic abuse surfaced in documents from his 2011 divorce, and Esper spent three weeks as acting defense secretary in his place.

Committee chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., had expressed a goal to hold a vote on Esper’s nomination Thursday, but that could be delayed to next week if any senators plan to vote against Esper.

“Most of us were very discouraged by the resignation of Secretary Mattis,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said. “And what we’ve hoped for is a successor who can show the same level of candor, and principle, and a willingness to remain independent even in the most challenging of circumstances.”

Lawmakers talked up Esper’s vast experience, from serving as an infantry officer on active duty, then in the National Guard and Army Reserve, as well as in national security at a D.C. think tank, as an executive at defense contractor Raytheon, at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

“If you are confirmed, you will help oversee national security policy for a president whose temperament and management skills are challenging, and likely very different from your own,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told Esper. “While I may not agree with the president on many issues, I do want him to be surrounded by leaders who can give thoughtful advice and counsel.”

Esper leaned on the National Defense Strategy, the much-lauded, bipartisan policy put together under Mattis, in his response.

“The goal is to deter war, and this can only be done with a strong, modern, and ready military that has overmatch in all domains,” Esper said. “Our adversaries must see diplomacy as their best option because war with the United States will force them to bear enormous costs.”

But lawmakers also expressed concern about 14 top Pentagon jobs that are still without a confirmed official, including currently the secretary and deputy secretaries of defense.

“I’m concerned that the Defense Department may be adrift in a way I have not seen in my whole time on Capitol Hill,” Reed said. “It is my hope that you will work with the White House to impress upon them the importance of filling these positions.”

Esper has a track record of rooting out waste, starting with dozens of hours spent combing through every Army program with Milley last summer. They adjusted some acquisitions and canceled others, adding up with $25 billion in savings.

And at the unit level, Esper released more than a dozen memos reducing non-mandatory training requirements and other administrative tasks for Army leaders in the field, after years of complaints about their burden on readiness ― up to and including the legendary weekend safety brief, and doing away with glowing PT unless soldiers were running on busy roads or at night.

“The bottom line is this: in an era of mounting fiscal challenges and competing demands, we must actively seek ways to free up time, money, and manpower to invest back into our top priorities,” he said.

And he answered for past actions as Army secretary ― like giving up $1 billion set aside for Army personnel funding to support President Trump’s border wall project.

“I think in many ways, it’s just one of those things we do — whether it’s putting out wildfires in California, helping with hurricane recovery in Texas or Puerto Rico, flooding along the Mississippi,” he said. “It’s one of those things we provide to other parts of the government, to the American people.”

But Reed fired back, asking Esper to recognize the distinction between providing manpower support and shuffling around funds ― funds that the Army had pleaded to Congress would be necessary to grow and support the Army.

Looking ahead, Esper shared some of the plans in the works to address aggression from Iran. That includes Operation Sentinel, he said, which has already been briefed to the Senate Armed Service Committee.

“Whereby we do passive patrolling, if you will, in the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, to deter any provocative acts by the Iranians or the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps].”

Lawmakers challenged Esper to a host of other commitments, including:

• Addressing the toxic effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, formerly used in a firefighting foam on bases that has seeped into ground water around military installations.
• The Fairness for Veterans Act, a 2017 initiative to streamline discharge upgrades for service members with a post-traumatic stress diagnosis that could have resulted in misconduct that got them separated from the military.
• Reforming military housing, both in management and in physical condition. Esper began this effort as Army secretary, following widespread reports of dangerous and unhealthy conditions at on-base housing facilities, largely ignored by the private corporations who manage them.
• Extending his recusal from working on deals with Raytheon, his former employer ― as he had during his time as Army secretary. Esper said that he intends to stay within legal and policy ethics regulations if working with Raytheon. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., expressed concerns about corruption involving his relationship with Raytheon, and the possibility that he would return to a defense industry job following his time at the Pentagon.
• Sorting out what shape a Space Force, as a separate military service, will take.
• Making efforts to protect active duty service members and their families from being deported, as well as ensuring transitioning service members know how to apply for citizenship as veterans, if they have not already started the process.

“It’s obvious from listening to both sides of the aisle here, from my colleagues Sen. Kaine and also Chairman Inhofe, that based on their direct observation and work with you, both of them think you’re an all-star. I tend to agree …” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Esper. ” … you’re going to need to be an all-star.”

In a statement, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana W. White indicated Sunday’s attack, which occurred around 9 a.m. local time about 200 miles southwest of Mogadishu, was undertaken as part of the Trump administration’s goal to “systematically dismantle” al-Shabaab. It came in direct response to recent attacks on local forces, she said.

Separately, U.S. officials described the target as a command and logistics node located within one of al-Shabaab’s strongholds where the group has “cemented its control” and established the means to shelter other unidentified “radical terrorists.” Speaking to The Associated Press, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said the operation occurred in Sakow, which is well inland and home to a terrorist training camp.

The Pentagon has come to view al-Shabaab with increasing concern, in large part because the group remains capable of carrying out deadly attacks on civilians and the alliance of African military forces fighting the group. Since late-2016, militants have overrun three bases in Somalia “by amassing large numbers of fighters and attacking in overwhelming numbers,” U.S. military officials said, growing its combat capability in the process by looting heavy weapons and small arms, armored vehicles and explosives.

U.S. officials won’t say precisely how many American troops are in Somalia now. The number is believed to be a few hundred.

But in a sign of how aggressively the U.S. military aims to address this threat, it recently dispatched a one-star Army general to coordinate the campaign there. Brig. Gen. Miguel A. Castellanos was hand selected by U.S. Africa Command chief Gen. Thomas Waldhauser “to help synchronize efforts between international military partners, pull various agencies together and develop momentum to change the dynamic of Somalia,” according to a news release announcing the shift. The Mogadishu Coordination Cell, as it’s called, is based at the city’s airport, it says.

And last month, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis signaled Washington’s willingness to consider deploying additional U.S. troops to Somalia should the troubled African nation seek greater military aid to combat al-Shabaab. At the time, no such request had been made by the Somali government, but Mattis’ openness about entertaining such a possibility highlights the Trump administration’s evolving perspective on how aggressively it should support indigenous forces willing to fight mutual adversaries.

The Pentagon’s strategy there, as with other regions where a lack of governance has allowed terror groups to take root, centers on training and advising — or “working by, with and through our allies,” as officials now characterize it. It also entails direct counter-terror assistance, a more-dangerous mission led by elite special operations forces. On May 5 it resulted in the first American combat deathin Somalia since the early 1990s.

Andrew deGrandpre is Military Times’ senior editor and Pentagon bureau chief. On Twitter: @adegrandpre

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Mattis addressed the Pentagon press corps to explain how the U.S.-led coalition has endeavored to meet President Donald Trump’s directive, issued at the beginning of his administration, to bring greater force to bear on ISIS in Syria and Iraq and, it is hoped, to disrupt the group’s ability to gain a foothold elsewhere. The secretary was flanked by his top general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, and the ISIS coalition’s presidential envoy, Brett McGurk.

The trio cited data points intended to showcase progress: more than 55 percent of ISIS territory has been retaken in Syria and Iraq; more than 4 million people have been liberated. “And not one inch of territory seized from ISIS has been recaptured by them,” they noted.

“Our strategic approach,” Dunford said, “is to cut the connectivity between ISIS affiliates and associates, … their illicit resources and their message. Our objective is to drive down ISIS’s capability to a point where local forces, with tailored support from the international community, are able to provide security. And we’re doing this today in Libya, Somalia and Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.”

Yet despite their confident tone, some important questions remain.

It’s unclear, for instance, the extent to which U.S. troops will be needed long term. There are fewer than 10,000 Americans spread between Syria and Iraq, with thousands more deployed close by in Jordan and Kuwait. Mattis is said to be negotiating plans for leaving a residual force spread between various Iraqi military facilities, but he indicated Friday a desire to avoid an open-ended commitment in Syria where, combined with the Islamic State’s murderous tyranny, a ferocious civil war has displaced millions.

“I’m not willing to sign up for that. That’s not our intent,” Mattis replied when asked whether American personnel could remain in Syria indefinitely. “We’re there to drive ISIS to its knees. … There’s got to be a political solution to the larger issues there. It’s not going to be U.S. troops at the point of a gun making that happen.”

It’s also unclear when the group’s de facto capital in Raqqa might fall, an eagerly awaited development that would be seen as a symbolic victory for the coalition and a blow to ISIS given its ambition to establish a caliphate. Backed by U.S. military advisers and American firepower, thousands of Arab and Kurdish fighters have nearly encircled the city, but Mattis declined to offer an assessment beyond to say it will be difficult once local forces enter Raqqa, and that he intends to afford commanders the time they need to completely isolate those inside so they cannot flee.

“What will it look like when we say that we’ve got success?” Mattis said. “I think what we’ll see is the local security forces, police, that sort of organization that can handle it. … Police can’t handle a force that’s driving tanks and using artillery, or has thousands of fighters in mobile vehicles that allow them to range far and wide.”

And there’s also the matter of stabilizing these areas once ISIS is gone. Again, though, no easy answers.

Such planning is underway, McGurk said, but there is much that’s yet to be resolved. The focus, he said, is on low-cost, locally led projects that will enable displaced people to return home. Establishing local police forces will be an important piece of that, but so will restoring water and electricity.

“Stabilization is not nation building,” McGurk added, using a term that’s become synonymous with the mostly fruitless, years-long military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We’re not attempting to dictate political outcomes nor is it long-term reconstruction where projects are chosen by outsiders often with no connection to the local community, costing and often wasting billions of dollars.”

Like the Islamic State’s stronghold of Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa is heavily fortified and the coalition is bracing for a gritty, months-long fight through dense urban neighborhoods. After those cities are liberated, commanders will turn their attention to other areas where ISIS has amassed. In Syria, that includes a swath of territory stretching to the southeast from Deir el-Zour, through an open valley along the Euphrates River, to the Iraqi border town of al-Qaim.

Syria’s embattled president, Bashar al Assad, has indicated he intends to reassert government authority in that region, making the Russian military vitally important to ensure the anti-ISIS campaign can continue without interference, officials said. Russia and the U.S. have established deconfliction zones throughout the country. The phrase refers both to times and locations where both militaries agree not to impede one another’s objectives.

“We are looking for the Russians to work with the regime” as the U.S. and its allies begin to concentrate on ISIS territory in the mid-Euphrates valley, Dunford said. The chairman alluded to a plan that’s being co-developed among officials in Washington and Moscow to further “ensure that we can continue to take the campaign to ISIS and ensure the safety of our personnel.”

He declined to elaborate, but characterized Russians’ response as “enthusiastic.”

Another area of increasing concern is in southern Syria, where on Thursday the U.S. struck Assad loyalists as they advanced on an American training camp — apparently in defiance of Russian demands for them to stand down. Mattis said Friday that it appears these fighters were affiliated with Iran, which along with the militant group Hezbollah continues to back Assad in his conflict with an anti-government opposition. “I don’t know there were Iranians on the ground, but Iranian-directed forces,” he added.

“Iran’s activities [in Syria] have not been helpful. They’ve been hurtful,” said Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general whom many believe was forced out as the head of the U.S. Central Command because he objected to President Obama’s pursuit of a nuclear accord with Tehran. “They’ve extended a war that should have ended long ago.

“I’ve been in a lot of refugee camps over my years on active duty from — from the Dalmatian Coast to Africa and other places, seen boat people pulled out of the water off Vietnam. I have never seen refugees as traumatized as I’ve seen come out of Syria. Never. And Iran bears no little responsibility for that situation.”

Andrew deGrandpre is Military Times’ senior editor and Pentagon bureau chief. On Twitter:

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Thursday’s incident underscores, once again, the complex dynamic facing U.S. forces inside of war-torn Syria. It comes six weeks after President Donald Trump ordered a retaliatory attack on Assad’s military for its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. At the time, U.S. officials accused Russia of being complicit but have since begun to work more closely with Moscow hoping to establish areas that are protected from violence. For now, both sides appear to be taking that seriously.

“We are not increasing our role in the Syrian civil war, but we will defend our troops,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters Thursday at the outset of a meeting with the Swedish defense minister.

This was despite #Russian attempts to dissuade pro-regime movement towards At Tanf, #Coalition aircraft show of force, & warning shots2/3

— Inherent Resolve (@CJTFOIR) May 18, 2017

There are believed to be approximately 900 American military personnel in Syria. Most are concentrated in the north, assisting local forces who are focused on liberating cities and towns occupied by the Islamic State. U.S. officials said Thursday that the Americans on the ground in At Tanf were training anti-ISIS units.

But some clandestine American units are training entities who oppose Assad as well, and it’s believed some of that work occurs in At Tanf. The border town is the site of significant activity dating back more than a year. Just last month, for instance, ISIS militants attacked a facility housing U.S. special operations forces as they trained opposition fighters. With the aid of airstrikes, the Americans repelled the attack, killing between 20 and 30 attackers.

Many analysts believe the town is a transfer station connecting the Syrian government with its supporters in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. Linking the corridor would provide a stable land transit route to resupply the regime and bolster its proxies.

“The stated intent of that pro-regime convoy was to reopen the Damascus-Baghdad highway,” said Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria expert at the Institute for the Study of War. “I think [they] intended to test U.S. resolve and found it appropriately intact when it comes to force protection.”

Andrew deGrandpre is Military Times’ senior editor and Pentagon bureau chief. On Twitter:  @adegrandpre.  Shawn Snow is a staff writer and Military Times’ Early Bird editor. On Twitter:  @SnowSox184. 

Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the military’s General Staff said the coalition was trying to “completely destroy critical infrastructure in Syria and complicate post-war reconstruction as much as possible.”

A U.S.-backed Syrian opposition force has insisted it is taking care to preserve vital infrastructure as it steps up military operations in northern Syria ahead of a push on Raqqa, the de facto capital of the ISIS group’s self-styled caliphate.

Rudskoi further claimed that coalition jets had destroyed four bridges over the Euphrates River in Syria and hit the Tabqa dam to the west of Raqqa.

The collapse of the dam would cause an “ecological catastrophe” and lead to “numerous” civilian deaths, he said.

On Monday, the U.S.-led coalition reiterated that it is taking every precaution to ensure the integrity of the dam. “To our knowledge, the dam has not been structurally damaged,” it said on its Twitter account.

A spillway north of the structure is under control of the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led opposition group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, and can be used to relieve pressure behind the dam, the coalition told The Associated Press in an email on Sunday.

Engineers who used to work at the site have expressed doubt that the spillway could accommodate the water flow but said it will still take at least a month for the lake to reach critical levels if the gates are not opened. IS has warned that the dam’s main gates are out of service, causing water levels to rise.

Pressure on ISIS has intensified in recent months as the group has suffered a series of battlefield reverses in both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

This still image taken from drone footage posted online Monday, March. 27, 2017 by the Aamaq News Agency, a media arm of the Islamic State group, shows the Tabqa Dam, in Raqqa, Syria.

Photo Credit: Aamaq News Agency via AP

With SDF forces to the north and west of Raqqa, a push on the city is shaping up to be the next major battle. Last week, U.S. aircraft ferried hundreds of SDF fighters, as well as American artillery and military advisers, behind ISIS lines.

President Bashar Assad’s government has objected to U.S. involvement, saying that American forces are not authorized to be on Syrian soil. For its part, Moscow prefers seeing Syrian government forces leading the assault on Raqqa.

Activist groups said Monday the city itself has been without electricity and municipal water for three to five days.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the cuts are due to the fighting around Tabqa Dam, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Raqqa.

Rudskoi said Tuesday that Syrian government forces, with Russian military assistance, are making progress against ISIS. Russia has been Assad’s main backer and has played a key role in turning the tide of war in his favor.

Syrian forces now control of territory up to 16 kilometers (13 miles) around the historic town of Palmyra, Rudskoi said, adding that they recently seized control of high ground held by ISIS along a highway connecting Palmyra and the capital, Damascus.

Syrian troops fully recaptured Palmyra earlier this month after a push that saw ISIS defenses crumble and their fighters flee in the face of artillery fire and intense Russia-backed airstrikes. The Syrian government had seized the town from Islamic State militants last March, only to lose it again 10 months later.

Separately on Tuesday, reports emerged that an agreement has been reached for the surrender and evacuation of four besieged areas in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the agreement stipulates the evacuation of the rebel-held Damascus suburbs of Madaya and Zabadani, besieged by government forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters for the past two years, in return for the evacuation of the northwestern villages of Foua and Kfarya, which have been besieged by insurgents since early 2015.

Some 60,000 people live in the four besieged areas, according to the U.N.

Muhammad Darwish, a doctor from Madaya, confirmed an agreement to evacuate rebels had been struck and that it would likely be implemented a week from now. He said the evacuation was voluntary, and that civilians could stay.

The Washington-based Siege Watch monitoring group said in a series of Tweets that the deal, which would result in massive forced population transfers, was mediated by Iran and signed in Qatar.

Such deals have become common in Syria, where rebels surrender following years of siege and bombardment, and are allowed safe passage to opposition-held areas further north in return.

The Syrian government has rejected allegations that such deals amount to the forced displacement of civilians.

Associated Press Writer Philip Issa in Beirut contributed to this report.

“Obviously, having a revanchist Russia and a surging China concentrates the mind,” said Col. Dan Sullivan, chief of staff for the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.

This April, the Navy and Marine Corps will hold an exercise at Camp Pendleton, California, that will test more than 100 proposed technologies to help Marines find and exploit gaps in enemy defenses as part of amphibious operations, which will include drones, communications equipment and remote-control amphibious vehicles, officials said at a media roundtable on Thursday.

When Sullivan joined the Marine Corps, he said, the U.S. military had a monopoly on precision-guided munitions and unmanned aircraft and it took both air and sea supremacy for granted. 

But as the U.S. fought lengthy counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, its adversaries surged ahead technologically.

“Certainly, there was no deliberate negligence on our part,” Sullivan said. “It’s just that we kind of had our hands full there for a while. When the Soviet Union collapsed, China was still poor, that was an anomaly of history in the 1990s. History is back.”

A joint Navy-Marine Corps task force will determine which technologies the Marines will further test during a military exercise this fall at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, officials said.

Modern weapons can destroy ships and landing craft hundreds of miles from shore, and now even non-state actors such as Houthi rebels in Yemen have access to anti-ship missiles, remote control boats and other weaponry that could pose a major threat to any Marine amphibious operation.

The Marine Corps Operating Concept released in September indicates how the Corps plans to challenge such weapons. The concept includes a vignette to show what an amphibious operation would look like in 2025.

In the vignette, the Marine aviation commander says he knew that the Marines could not destroy all of the enemy’s coastal and air defenses, “But we could create ‘bubbles’ for small periods.”

The intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technology being tested in April is meant to help create such bubbles by finding gaps in enemy defenses where Marines can send manned and unmanned forces, said Maj. Jim Foley, with the Ellis Group, the Marine Corps’ think tank that explores future warfighting scenarios. 

Another tactic would be to use a “swarm” of unmanned aircraft, submarines and vehicles as decoys to tie up the enemy’s resources in a diversion while Marines land elsewhere, Foley said.

With the types of unmanned systems and sensors being tested, the Marines can greatly increase the number of places where they can come ashore, said Doug King, director of the Ellis Group. Swarms of unmanned aircraft can also protect Marines as they land on enemy beaches, he said.

“Think about it this way: I’m maneuvering ashore, potentially in a boat,” he said. “What’s flying overhead is an unmanned swarm, that as soon as somebody radiates, gives off a signature, that swarm is just going right after them.”

Tillerson alluded to the intensified campaign, but said the Trump administration was still refining its strategy.

“A more defined course of action in Syria is still coming together,” he said. “But I can say that the United States will increase our pressure on ISIS and al-Qaida and will work to establish interim zones of stability, through cease-fires, to allow refugees to return home.”

The reference to “zones of stability” appeared to stop short of “safe zones,” which the U.S. military has been extremely reluctant to commit to enforcing in Syria, even as Trump and others have raised the idea at various times.

A member of the Iraqi counter-terrorism service (CTS) engages in combat with jihadists at al-Dawasah neighborhood in west Mosul, on the outskirts of the old city, on March 21, 2017, during the government forces’ ongoing offensive to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters.

Photo Credit: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images

Nothing Tillerson outlined departed significantly from the Obama administration’s approach, which focused on using local forces to retake territory along with efforts to disrupt ISIS recruitment and financing, and the blueprint of the multilateral effort seemed unchanged. The strategy is complicated in Syria, where a partnership with Kurdish forces has prompted difficult discussions with Turkey, which sees the militants as a national security threat.

Tillerson said the United States would play its part and pay its fair share of the overall operation. But he said other nations, particularly those which have faced ISIS or ISIS-inspired attacks, must do more. He said increased intelligence and information sharing could overcome traditional rivalries between agencies and governments, and advocated an enhanced online effort to halt the spread of extremist views, especially as ISIS loses ground in Iraq and Syria.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hungary’s foreign minister said he liked what he heard.

“We are enthusiastic about the new U.S. strategy,” Peter Szijjarto said, adding that he saw Trump’s administration determined “not only to fight against ISIS, but totally eliminate ISIS.” He said his country would send 50 more soldiers to Iraq, taking its contribution to 200.

As the militant organization becomes more encircled, the mission will change. Officials expect in the coming months to see the dissipation of surviving fighters into underground cells that could plan and mount attacks throughout the Middle East, South and Central Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States.

“As we stabilize areas encompassing ISIS’ phony physical caliphate in Iraq and Syria, we also must prevent their seeds of hatred from taking root elsewhere,” Tillerson said. “We must ensure ISIS cannot gain or maintain footholds in new regions of the world. We must fight ISIS online as aggressively as we would on the ground. A digital caliphate must not flourish in the place of a physical one.”

The officials in Washington also hope to figure out how best to deal with the inevitably messy humanitarian and political aftermath of the anticipated ISIS battlefield defeat. There are widespread fears of chaos, such as what emerged after NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011, that could further fracture the region’s deep ethnic and religious splits, and complicate the stated goal of preserving the Syrian and Iraqi states.

Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.

The Marine Corps plans to field 144 utility task vehicles to infantry regiments between February and April 2017, said Emanuel “Manny” Pacheco, a spokesman and congressional liaison for PEO Land Systems Marine Corps.

Until now, forward deployed infantry Marines have had to carry all of their gear on their backs while operating in remote locations, but the utility transport vehicle fits onto the MV-22B Osprey so it can go into the field with infantry units, Pacheco told Marine Corps Times.

“The vehicle will provide logistics support to ground combat units that are operating independently across dispersed areas, while conducting distributed helicopter-borne and tiltrotor operations,” Pacheco said.

The Marines are fielding 144 utility task vehicles to infantry units.

Marine expeditionary units and Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Forces will use the vehicles when deploying in austere environments, he said. Each infantry regiment will have 18 of the four-seat vehicles, which can be driven by a single Marine.

This is the first such vehicle designed specifically for infantry Marines, Pacheco said. The Marine Corps has another all-terrain vehicle, but it is for specialized tasks, such as towing howitzers.

The fact that one utility task vehicle can fit on an MV-22B Osprey is critical because the Marine Corps can use Ospreys to launch a unit more than 100 miles from shore to avoid enemy cruise missiles and other defenses that can destroy ships and landing craft.

Ospreys can fly at 240 knots and they are able to refuel in midair, allowing them to carry Marines up to 6,000 miles in 24 hours, compared with most helicopters, which typically have a maximum range of 200 miles.

The Marine Corps has used Ospreys to rapidly move humanitarian relief supplies, such as in April following two earthquakes in Japan. It’s also used to respond to crises quickly, such as when a quick reaction force deployed from Sigonella, Italy, in July 2014 for the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Tripoli.