The Fight of the Future: New Technology in the U.S. Military
In-person, Members-only Briefing
Monday, March 18th, 2024 | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM ET
Each of the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces is in the process of upgrading its systems and equipment as the nation’s foreign policy shifts away from COIN (Counter Insurgency) operations in the Middle East back to LSCO (Large Scale Combat Operations.) The rise of near-peer threats and a new focus on East Asia has prompted the total restructuring of the Marine Corps back to a more agile force structure and led planners for the other services to consider how to fight on a contested battlefield. This panel will analyze the adoption of new technology within the military, the resulting shift in strategy, and how planners have learned from recent conflicts. It will also discuss the usage of loitering munitions, Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM), and handheld drones in places like Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as what the U.S. is learning from these wars. Join us on Monday, March 18th, 2024 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM for a conversation with the 2024 Council on Foreign Relations Military Fellows; Colonel Phillip N. Ash, U.S. Marine Corps; Captain John P. Barrientos, U.S. Navy; and Colonel Christopher J. Wehri, U.S. Army.
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SPEAKERS:
Colonel Phillip N. Ash
Colonel Phillip N. Ash, U.S. Marine Corps, is a career infantry officer who was commanded at every rank and level to date. Most recently, he served as the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Corps District, headquartered in Garden City, New York. His career includes operational deployments and staff billets in the operational forces, supporting establishment, and Joint Force.
Colonel Ash’s other commands include detachment commander in the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; company commander in the 3rd Battalion 7th Marines, 29 Palms, California; commanding officer of the Marine recruiting station in Atlanta; and battalion commander of the Marine combat training battalion school of infantry west, Camp Pendleton, California.
Colonel Ash’s staff billets include aide-de-camp to the commanding general of the Marine Air Ground Combat Center; fire support and infantry tactics instructor in the Tactics Training Exercise Control Group; battalion operations officer for 3rd Battalion 7th Marines, 29 Palms, California; operations officer of Marine Barracks Washington 8th and I; and as the junior aide-de-camp to the commandant of the Marine Corps, Washington, DC.; regimental executive officer for the 1st Marine Regiment; task force executive officer for Task Force Belleau Wood, Camp Pendleton, California; J-5 planner USCYBERCOM; and director of operations for Joint Task Force ARES, the Marine Corps contribution to USCYBERCOM.
Colonel Ash was born in Milford, Delaware, and began his career in the U.S. Navy in 1989, serving as a as a reactor operator aboard the USS Jefferson City. In August 1993, he was selected for a NROTC Scholarship from the fleet and transitioned to attend Pennsylvania State University, after which he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Colonel Ash holds a master of military studies from the Marine Corps University in Quantico, VA, and a master of science degree in government information leadership with concentrations in cybersecurity, long-term strategy, and diagnostic net Assessment from the College of Information and Cyberspace at the National Defense University in Washington, DC.
Captain John P. Barrientos
Captain John P. Barrientos, U.S. Navy, has served on multiple platforms in his various sea tours. As ordinance officer on the USS Reuben James, he deployed with the Abraham Lincoln strike group to the Fifth Fleet area of operations. On the USS Carl Vinson he deployed again to the Fifth Fleet, serving as the reactor mechanical division officer in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
As a department head, Captain Barrientos served as operations officer on the USS Boone, deploying to the Southern Command area of operations to counter narcotics and drug trafficking, and to the Gulf of Aden in support of counter-piracy operations with the Standing NATO Maritime Group. Returning to nuclear duty, he served as chemistry and radiological controls assistant on the USS George Washington during Operation Tomodachi. Captain Barrientos commissioned the USS Omaha as executive officer. Later, he served in command of the USS Jackson completing first-in-class live-fire testing and integration of the surface-to-surface mission module longbow hellfire missile system for the Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship.
Captain Barrientos returned to the USS Carl Vinson, serving as reactor officer and leading 520 officers and sailors in delivering power and propulsion to the flagship of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group One. The strike group deployed with the F-35C Lightning 11 to the western Pacific Ocean, including significant time in the South China Sea. The deployment was the first for the navy’s version of the Joint Strike Fighter.
Ashore, he served as directed-energy branch head, Joint Functional Component Command for Space, U.S. Strategic Command, at the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He completed a Staff College curriculum at the Uruguayan Naval War College in Montevideo, Uruguay, before returning to nuclear duty serving as junior board member in the Commander of the Pacific Fleet’s Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board.
Born in West Islip, New York, Captain Barrientos lived his early years in Medellín, Colombia. After returning to the United States for schooling, he studied at the University of Michigan, earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a commission from the naval ROTC in April 2000. He completed the navy nuclear power training pipeline and earned a master’s in engineering management from Old Dominion University.
Captain John P. Barrientos
Colonel Christopher J. Wehri, U.S. Army, is a senior army strategist, Functional Area 59, and has worked at all echelons of the defense enterprise. He entered the army as an armor/cavalry officer in 1999, and has served in the continental United States, Asia, Europe, and Korea, and has three combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Colonel Wehri most recently served in the Pentagon on the Joint Staff as the deputy division chief for the China-Taiwan-Mongolia Division, Deputy Directorate for Politico-Military Affairs (Asia), Directorate for Strategy, Plans, and Policy, from 2020 to 2022. He has also served as the deputy assistant chief of staff, G-5, Strategy, Plans, and Policy, Eighth Army, at Camp Humphreys in the Republic of Korea, from June 2019 to July 2020. From June 2015 to June 2019, Colonel Wehri served as the chief of plans and then assistant chief of staff, G-5, Strategy, Plans, and Concepts, II Marine Expeditionary Force, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. From July 2013 to June 2015, he was an operations officer and then executive officer for two different Stryker Cavalry Squadrons at Joint Base Lewis-McCord, Washington.
Following graduation from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the School of Advanced Military Studies, Colonel Wehri served in Kabul, Afghanistan, from June 2012 to July 2013 as the deputy chief of plans for the Combined Security Transition Command and NATO Training Mission. From 2008 to 2010, Colonel Wehri served as the aide-de-camp to the deputy commander of NATO’s Allied Land Component Command, Heidelberg, Germany. From 2000 to 2008, Colonel Wehri served at Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood), Texas, in the 1st Squadron 7th Cavalry “Garryowen,” as a tank platoon, scout platoon, support platoon, and troop executive officer; an assistant operations officer; a cavalry troop commander; and a headquarters troop commander. With two deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he served as a cavalry troop commander in support of the Joint Special Operations Command, a cavalry troop commander operating from Taji, and a headquarters troop commander.
Colonel Wehri is an Army War College Fellow graduate from Columbia University in New York City, and has earned a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Kansas, a master’s degree in military arts and sciences from the School of Advanced Military Studies, and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Lehigh University. A native of Van Wert, Ohio, he lived in several locations across the United States and Europe during his formative years.
*This event is exclusive for Network 20/20’s members and donors
THIS SESSION IS FREE FOR NETWORK 20/20’s MEMBERS AND DONORS
NOT YET A NETWORK 20/20 MEMBER?
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*Photo credit: Image by Michael Kauer from Pixabay
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