The US Army recently announced the reactivation of the 56th Artillery Command in Europe. This announcement constitutes part of a larger project: Multi-Domain Operations aiming at countering two key military actors in the international environment: China and Russia. Indeed, the first Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) was activated in 2019 by US Army Pacific, focusing on countering the Chinese military influence in the region. US Army Europe and Africa activated the second MDTF to counter the Russian military influence in their area of responsibility. In September 2021, this Europe-based MDTF tested a high-altitude balloons system in Norway. Those tests are enshrined in Thunder Cloud. They constitute a real opportunity to improve strike capabilities for Long-Range Precision Fires. It is a top modernisation priority regarding the international security environment and the need for enhancing large-scale ground combat operations. While US Army Pacific is constrained to this specific region and its own objectives, this European unit will focus more on land operations, being composed of HQ elements, land, air, intelligence, cyberspace, electronic warfare and space detachment, and a brigade support company. For this reason, robotics engineer Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, drew inspiration from the collective behaviour of ants, bees, and birds to solve problems and overcome obstacles to develop collaborative legged robots mimicking their counterparts from the natural world.
