WASHINGTON — The current continuing resolution (CR) is the “biggest challenge” the Army’s Pacific Command (USARPAC) is facing, as it prevents the force from getting new capabilities for its unified network and long-range precision fires, its four-star commander said.
“That’s the biggest challenge. It’s plans for new starts and being able to fund some of the programs that we know are going to yield benefit to the soldier on the ground,” Gen. Ronald Clark told reporters Tuesday when asked how the delayed passing of the fiscal 2027 budget is affecting operations in the region.
Clark did not mention specific new start programs that would be affected, but said many of the programs relate to “some of the experimentation that we’re doing” with the Mission Partner Network (MPN). MPN is what the Army describes as a “unified system” where the joint force, partners and allies can share information. He added that one of the new start programs for the MPN is a “piece of equipment,” but declined to comment further.
Clark also said that there are additional capabilities that are “currently” in development and need to continue to develop “specific to long-range precision fires” that are cheaper and can be built more quickly than current capabilities. Such fires capabilities are something the command needs “in order to remain the most lethal land force on [the] face of the Earth,” Clark said.
The Defense Department as a whole has more than 150 new start programs in its 2027 budget, with at least 29 of those deriving from the Army, Breaking Defense reported. To reach this number, Breaking Defense searched both the procurement budget and research, development, test and evaluation budget documents for the phrase “new start.”
Breaking Defense reached out to the Pentagon and the services at the time to ask for details on new starts that will be impacted by the CR, but a list was not provided.
Though Clark would not provide specifics about which new start pertaining to long range precision fires USARPAC was waiting on, the service included a new start of $921.9 million for Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense along with $132.1 million for the AN/TPY-2 sensor, which serves as the “brain and eyes” for the THAAD system, in its budget request. Breaking Defense could not identify any MPN programs in the 2027 budget documents.
“It’s a challenge, again, we have to overcome, but it’s part of the fiscal environment,” Clark said. “We have more experience operating under CR than we do with an appropriation.”
