Courtesy Photo | The 1st Space Brigade, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, hosted members of...... read more read more
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FORT CARSON, Colo. -- Senior military officials from dozens of NATO-member countries gathered for a display of how U.S. Army close-combat space capabilities support multidomain large-scale combat operations on March 7 at Fort Carson.
The visit highlighted to the NATO Military Committee how local American defense communities, particularly that of Colorado Springs, support the lethality and effectiveness of the NATO alliance and can empower Allies to develop capabilities in the space domain.
Between briefs to the European leaders by Maj. Gen. David Doyle, commanding general of the 4th Infantry Division, and Col. Mark Cobos, 1st Space Brigade commander, attendees witnessed an air assault simulation involving a CH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying and landing a tactical space electromagnetic reconnaissance system. The tactical vehicle used to maneuver the system and its crew were then escorted by a 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team crew to the briefing area. The assault demonstrated how air and ground forces integrate with Army space assets to deploy such systems into austere operating environments, secure positional advantage and enable effective combined arms maneuver.
“Space and satellite operations will forever be an inherent part of terrestrial operations,” Cobos said in his remarks. “Never again will we be able to separate space operations from being able to win on the land, as well as at sea, in the air…or compete effectively across the spectrum of military conflict. Army operations on land are inherently tied to our positional advantages across the electromagnetic spectrum and in space operations.”
The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s 1st Space Brigade - America’s only space brigade - is headquartered at Fort Carson as a tenant unit to the 4th Infantry Division, the Army’s marquee multidomain operations division. With its proximity to U.S. Space Command, USASMDC, the 10th Special Forces Group and other military bases, the division possesses the ability to integrate land, air, sea, cyber and space assets in training that are vital to increasing Army readiness and deterrence.
Because of its presence on the installation, the space brigade is uniquely equipped to model and carry out two fundamental mission sets regarding Army space activities as outlined by the U.S. Army: integrating friendly joint, coalition and commercial space capabilities and interdicting adversary space capabilities to protect ground combat forces, all part of their mission “to disintegrate, isolate, and defeat adversary forces.”
Cobos said an increase in allied interoperability in the space domain, especially through investment in “fairly cost-effective, low-budget solutions,” are critical to improving collective defense capabilities of NATO countries.
“We’ve seen in the world recently the application of HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) and ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) and other munitions that are fundamentally lethal munitions but employed with the benefits that positional advantage gives through reconnaissance and an understanding of where adversaries locate their command and control, sustainment or critical nodes on the battlefield,” Cobos said. “We are increasingly able to isolate those elements on the battlefield through satellite communications jamming or the speed of tools that come with understanding the electromagnetic spectrum.”
In his remarks to the committee, Doyle traced the arc of development in Army warfighting doctrine over the last 30 years as the Army has moved focus from air-land battle and counterinsurgency operations to multidomain operations for large-scale combat.
As division commander, Doyle emphasized how the ability to harness space capabilities at every echelon by integrating with the 1st Space Brigade and other space organizations around the Colorado Springs area is critical to communication and synchronization of allied operations against near-peer threats.
“We’ve gotten to a place where we understand the need for convergence and the need for synthesis,” Doyle said. “We understand the need to see what the enemy has that we don’t. With multidomain operations…we have to integrate a whole lot of things, and we have to be dependent on a whole lot of people.”
| Date Taken: | 03.14.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.14.2025 17:44 |
| Story ID: | 492940 |
| Location: | FORT CARSON, COLORADO, US |
| Web Views: | 451 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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