I Corps adapts to meet modern challenges in the Indo-Pacific

The U.S. Army’s I Corps is at a moment of strategic transition, shouldering the responsibility of shaping the service’s readiness across the vast, complex Indo-Pacific theater.

Overseeing that effort is Lt. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, under whose command the Corps, through continuous exercise and training, is rethinking itself as both a forward campaign-capable headquarters and a practical force provider for homeland defense.

The Corps has adopted innovation from the top to the bottom, working to modernize networks, integrate long-range precision fires and manage how unmanned systems in formations will transform the force.

Defense News sat down with McFarlane in a recent interview to discuss how the Corps is preparing for various phases of conflict and recap lessons from its expansive training campaign.

Portions of this interview have been edited for clarity.

DN: The Pentagon is placing a greater emphasis on homeland defense but is also focused on China as a pacing threat. I Corps is focused on both. How has this shift in emphasis affected I Corps?

McFarlane: I Corps is undergoing significant transformation, purposely evolving to meet complex challenges of the 21st-century battlefield.

This isn’t simply about adopting new technology. [It’s] fundamentally reshaping how we think, train and operate, building a more agile, resilient and lethal force capable of rapidly responding to a wide spectrum of threats and contingencies across the Indo-Pacific region.

This transformation is driven by clear understanding of the evolving strategic landscape and a commitment to maintaining our competitive edge.

Central to that is a focus on modernizing our capabilities in key areas like network integration, long-range precision fires and unmanned systems. We’re actively experimenting with emerging technologies and integrating them into our formations as we campaign forward in the Indo-Pacific to enhance our situational awareness, decision-making and overall combat effectiveness.

Simultaneously, we’re refining operational concepts to ensure we can effectively employ new capabilities in a joint, combined, all-domain environment. This isn’t a future aspiration. We’re actively integrating advancements in our current training, campaign operations, forward and operational plans.

[U.S. Pacific Command commander] Adm. Paparo recently emphasized a strong connection between the Indo-Pacific and homeland defense. As he spoke earlier in September, the homeland is the Pacific.

How are you developing contested logistics capabilities, distributed operations and access to islands?

I Corps as the operational headquarters [is] very focused on enabling our divisions with command-and-control, fires and sustainment, key aspects of operations in the Pacific.

We’re conscious in ensuring we are rehearsing those activities that are part of that set theater. We’re working closely with Army Material Command and 8th Theater Sustainment Command as they establish Joint Theater Distribution Centers in Japan, Australia, Philippines, Guam and others in development.

U.S. soldiers fire an M142 HIMARS during Exercise Balikatan 24 at Rizal, Philippines, May 2, 2024. (Cpl. Kyle Chan/U.S. Army)

They enable us to operate forward, and we’re deliberate about exercising those processes to move supplies from those theater distribution centers to places where we’re exercising.

All of our exercises generate readiness at home station and forward in certain areas during Pathways. ... We apply those ready forces forward and establish what we call Joint Interior Lines to make sure we understand how we can sustain forward operations wherever we’re conducting the Pathways event. It is a continual focus.

We continue to refine and validate pre-positioned stocks and systems we need to get what’s in those stocks into soldiers’ hands so they can apply them in whatever manner for the Pathways event.

How is I Corps enabling innovation at small unit levels?

Transformation is a key line of effort for I Corps across all of its down-trace units. All divisions have innovation labs. The key is how we integrate the progress each division is making with less redundancy and an optimized learning from each other.

We’re conscious about integrating [innovation labs] and are being deliberate about sharing lessons with the 25th Infantry Division and 4th Infantry Division as we experiment with everything from unmanned aircraft systems and counter-UAS to next-generation command-and-control.

Through that, we are helping them exercise with new technology in the field. The Pacific is a key aspect of that.

What are some examples of capabilities gaining traction in the wider Army?

3D printing is a big one, UAVs, spare parts, coding different AI aspects.

Just in this headquarters, we coded an ability to ingest subordinate situation reports to create a comprehensive roll-up, highlighting opportunities and risks and recording command updates to provide an [executive summary] that aligns the team. That helps me understand risks and opportunities.

At every echelon we’re doing it and getting better. The key is harnessing all that to make sure we’re efficient.

How are the Pathways exercises in the Pacific evolving?

We’re optimizing what we’re doing with each of our partners based on where they are. Our partners have sovereign defense desires. We’re keen on addressing those as part of the Pathways events.

We have three focus areas: what we’re building in terms of multilateral training tasks with partners participating in that event; building our own readiness for our tactical units and operational tasks; and experimentation to give feedback on new technology.

Across the board, the Philippines are shifting from counter-insurgent to large-scale combat operation focus. They’re reorganizing their army to focus on homeland defense.

We’re helping them do that as they’re looking at some type of land component command, which is the operational level headquarters that we’re working on with the Japanese and the Koreans as well.

The Army's Precision Strike Missile launching for the first time outside of U.S. territory during Valiant Shield in Palau. (U.S. Army)

In Japan, we continue to do Yamasakura and other events that focus on the defense of Japan. We’ve been really deliberate about focusing on how we integrate networks based on where their military is, so we can communicate and share data. That’s the key aspect.

The integrated command-and-control systems is a focus for us right now as we look at the Indo-Pacific Multinational Network. The development of that system enables us to work with any of our partners, based on where they are, to have a common operational picture, common intelligence picture and common logistics picture.

[It’s] still under development and we’re working hard to iterate and provide feedback, but certainly a focus at echelon is to make sure we can get it and have a C2 network. That’s a mission partner environment ability we all need.

We tested it in a couple exercises ... and we’re continuing to refine it. The Indo-Pacific J-6 is the lead for this effort and we’re continuing to work with them as they develop it.

New long-range fires capabilities are taking shape in the Indo-Pacific, with testing of the Precision Strike Missile and the Typhon Mid-Range Capability missile. Now Typhon is in Japan. What recent lessons have you learned in terms of developing long-range fires concepts?

It’s clearly something that the Indo-Pacific commander has mentioned. Land-based, long-range fires is what he sees as the Army’s top contribution to joint forces in the Pacific.

As long-range fires evolve to get precision fires on the land and maritime domain, control of the land is a markedly more important factor.

Think of a strait where you have land-based fires on either side and then long-range fires as we reorganize and put HIMARS in the [division artillery], which we’re doing with 25th Infantry Division. It’s extending our operational reach.

We are continuing to integrate these capabilities into existing exercises and war games to adjust concepts for the fight and what we can provide the joint force.

We’re doing an exercise here in April — Courage Lethality — where we’ll link all of the Corps’ long-range fires assets, Multidomain Task Force assets, some joint force partner assets for sensor-to-shooter integration and validation across the region from Washington state to the first island chain.

What would you say is the biggest thing most allies want you to bring to the table during these exercises?

The UAS, counter-UAS and cyber are the ones all are asking for assistance with, and we’re deliberate about helping.

Others are long-range fires. The Philippines just acquired the self-propelled 155mm ATMOS system. The Japanese just deployed two hypersonic battalions. The technology’s following.

Another one is just ensuring partners are integrated with us and that we’re helping them see what’s happening around them. [We] are conscious about building those types of capabilities for homeland defense and the protection aspect.

Everyone’s watching Ukraine and learning different lessons. Ukraine certainly informs what’s going to happen in the Pacific, but it doesn’t mean what’s happening in Ukraine is exactly what is going to happen in the Pacific. It’s a completely different theater, different environment, different threats.

So, we’re conscious in making sure we’re pulling the applicable lessons to share with partners and integrate training against those tasks during rehearsals.

You talked about how I Corps is adapting to meet emerging needs and threats. Can you provide some examples?

If you don’t adapt, you aren’t going to survive. We’re helping our soldiers understand the reality of the modern battlefield through things, for example, like putting command posts underground.

We’re optimizing our electronic warfare range here at Joint Base Lewis-McChord so we can work through the contested electronic warfare environment. We’re bringing in swarms of UAVs to training events so soldiers understand you are constantly in contact, either from threat satellites or from threat air assets and sometimes low-cost UAVs.

We’re shedding some of the things we did over the last 20 years as we operated with [central command posts and forward operating bases], distributing ourselves across the battlefield in smaller nodes for command posts and encouraging our leaders and units to understand that mindset to operate in a distributed sense.