Mara Karlin, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, told reporters at a second, on-the-record Pentagon press briefing Monday that the department will send new fighter and bomber aircraft to Australia. It includes new permanent stationing of an attack helicopter squadron and artillery division headquarters in the Republic of Korea. The official did state that the GPR directs “additional cooperation” with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and calls for improving “infrastructure” in Guam and Australia and “prioritizing” military construction across the region. The review increased focus on China by reducing posture requirements in other theaters and redirecting resources to Indo-Pacific, but the official declined to go into specific details about what was being shifted from Europe, the Middle East or elsewhere. What find ings backed up those conclusions, however, is not clear, as the department declined to make a version of the review public. The Pentagon’s Global Posture Review comes amid US concerns about confronting China in the Pacific, a build-up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border and an enduring counterterrorism mission that will continue globally despite the end of the war in Afghanistan.īut rather than a large shift in resources and plans, the review, which looked at US troop locations and capabilities across the globe, ultimately concluded that no major strategic changes are needed, aside from “operational level adjustments we have already announced and a couple of other changes that are still being developed,” a senior defense official told reporters during a Monday briefing. WASHINGTON: After a nine-month deep-dive by Defense Department planners and policy experts billed as a holistic look at where and how America is deployed around the world, the Pentagon has concluded that no major changes to its military posture are needed - and that no public version of the document will be released. Updated 11/29/21 4:56 PM ET with new on-the-record comments from a department official and expert analysis. The US military released its Global Posture Review Monday, guiding how it will position forces for the coming years.