PACOM Commander Calls for More Army/Navy Integration


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On February 21, ADM Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, called for greater integration of joint forces so that Army platforms can target threats identified by Navy radars and vice versa. Harris, talking about the future of PACOM, said that he’d “like to see the Army’s land forces conduct exercises to sink a ship in a complex environment where our joint and combined forces are operating in other domains.” In pursuit of this effort, Harris called on Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift and U.S. Army Pacific commander Gen. Bob Brown to integrate the Army’s future Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) land-based missile defense network into the Navy’s Naval Integral Fire Control-Counter Air system. Harris discussed his desire for the systems to act more complementary, noting that he wants “them to deliver a missile on target, and [he] want[s] them to do it interchangeably… so the E-2D [Advanced Hawkeye] and the Aegis destroyer and the Army counter-air are integrated together.”