{"id":69616,"date":"2025-07-17T10:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T10:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/69616\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T10:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T10:11:16","slug":"army-europe-chief-unveils-nato-eastern-flank-defense-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/69616\/","title":{"rendered":"Army Europe chief unveils NATO eastern flank defense plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIESBADEN, Germany \u2014 The U.S. Army and its NATO allies<\/a> are embarking on the execution of a new \u201cEastern Flank Deterrence Line\u201d plan that aims to enhance ground-based capabilities and drive military-industrial interoperability across the alliance, the U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander said Wednesday at the Association of the U.S. Army\u2019s inaugural LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.<\/p>\n

As part of the plan to counter Russian threats and enable scalable, global deterrence, the Army and its NATO allies are urgently developing standardized, data-driven systems, common launchers and cloud-based coordination, according to Gen. Christopher Donahue.<\/p>\n

Regional plans have been coming together for some time, but the Army, along with NATO, is first focusing on the Baltic states \u201cto try to get to how do you actually make it so that industry and the nations know exactly what the requirements are \u2014 ultimately that is now known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line,\u201d Donahue said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know what we have to develop and the use case that we\u2019re using is you have to [deter] from the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cThe land domain is not becoming less important, it\u2019s becoming more important. You can now take down [anti-access, aerial-denial] A2AD bubbles from the ground. You can now take over sea from the ground. All of those things we are watching happen in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, Donahue noted, Kaliningrad, Russia, is roughly 47 miles wide and surrounded by NATO on all sides and the Army and its allies now have the capability to \u201ctake that down from the ground in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster than we\u2019ve ever been able to do.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve already planned that and we\u2019ve already developed it. The mass and momentum problem that Russia poses to us \u2026 we\u2019ve developed the capability to make sure that we can stop that mass and momentum problem,” Donahue said.<\/p>\n

The plan includes a system to share data. NATO has already procured that system, Donahue said, referencing its choice of Palantir\u2019s Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence platform<\/a> from Palantir that takes a vast amount of data and rapidly analyzes information to help military commanders make decisions. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe already know exactly what we have to do with cloud and we know exactly the type of actual unmanned systems, brigades, everything else that we need for that,\u201d Donahue said.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the Army wants these capabilities to be interoperable with NATO partners.<\/p>\n

The Army also wants a common launcher that serves in both an offensive and defensive capacity, along with a fire control system that any nation can use.<\/p>\n

And, Donahue said, \u201cWe want everything to be optionally manned,\u201d whether that is an air defense or a long-range fires system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want it to be one system, optionally manned, where we\u2019ll be able to take munitions from any country and shoot through them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And the Army wants to lower the cost of systems. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a general rule, whatever you\u2019re shooting at, whatever your weapon system or munition you shoot at, another adversary\u2019s capability, it should be cheaper than what you\u2019re shooting,\u201d Donahue stressed.<\/p>\n

Donahue acknowledged the obvious existence of bureaucracy but said that on the U.S. side, reform in things like foreign military sales is coming and the Army will be able to move at a much faster rate.<\/p>\n

Directly addressing industry, Donahue said, \u201cWe have sent a clear demand signal to you of exactly what we need. \u2026 If you sell us something, it has to be interoperable. You have to share the [Application Programming Interface]. The cost has to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WIESBADEN, Germany \u2014 The U.S. Army and its NATO allies are embarking on the execution of a new…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":69617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[19100,49080,19102,19114,49082,49077,49078,49083,8959,50,49081,49085,18582,257,49079,273,49084,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-69616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-circulated-defense-news","9":"tag-common-launcher","10":"tag-defense-news","11":"tag-dn-dnr","12":"tag-interoperability","13":"tag-land-euro","14":"tag-land-euro2025","15":"tag-maven","16":"tag-nato","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-offensive-defensive-fires","19":"tag-optionally-manned","20":"tag-palantir","21":"tag-russia","22":"tag-u-s-army-europe-and-africa","23":"tag-ukraine","24":"tag-unmanned","25":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114868039469677285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}