• Russia's skill at information warfare has American and allied military leaders concerned.
• Not only can Moscow's efforts shape perceptions, they can also have effects on the battlefield.
• However, the department tasked with countering Russian disinformation doesn't have a budget, hiring authority, or much support from The White House.

Russia has become so good at information warfare that American and allied military leaders are (rightfully) starting to freak out about it.

"The Russians are really good at this. Better than us," UK Army Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney said at the AUSA Conference, according to Defense One.

"We saw a very clever, assiduous information campaign aimed at discrediting the campaign of the coalition [in Iraq and Syria]. And I would argue [that] in many of our nation's capitals, we didn't realize we were being played."

As was the case during the 2016 election, Russia is sometimes better at stoking division among ordinary Americans than your uncle at Thanksgiving dinner — through the coordinated use of bot networks, fake social media profiles, and production of misleading or partisan content that gets widely shared.

Moscow has also carried out similar campaigns in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere. Its efforts at influence can shape perceptions, while also having surprising effects on the battlefield.

As Tom Ricks wrote about in his column earlier this year, Russia's military has carried out some eye-opening operations that combine information ops, cyber, and good old-fashioned targeting.

"The Russians are adept at identifying Ukrainian positions by their electrometric signatures," Army Col. Liam Collins wrote in the August issue of Army Magazine.

"In one tactic, soldiers receive texts telling them they are 'surrounded and abandoned.' Minutes later, their families receive a text stating, 'Your son is killed in action,' which often prompts a call or text to the soldiers. Minutes later, soldiers receive another message telling them to 'retreat and live,' followed by an artillery strike to the location where a large group of cellphones was detected."

Meanwhile in Syria, Russian military operations are sometimes being conducted for the sole reason of getting photos or videos that can later be used against their enemies, according to Gedney.

"This is not a battle that can be fought by public affairs writing lines to tape," Gedney said. "It's got to be be operationalized down into a genuine multi-domain battle."

To be fair, the US does carry out its own information and cyber operations. But as Army Cyber Command's Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone testified earlier this year, most are being done at the tactical level.

Russia spends between $400 million and $500 million per year on foreign information efforts, while the US spends about $20 million, according to a paper published by the Army War College, leaving Washington "far behind."

It's a fact that most top leaders realize and can't really ignore. Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, listed information warfare among just two other capabilities where NATO "urgently" needs to modernize during an interview in January (the others were cyber and missile defense).

Put simply, Russia seems to be playing chess, while the US is trying to figure out how to set up the board to play checkers.

The War College paper recommended a national counter information strategy and center, technological solutions to fight back against fake news, and the pursuit of international partnerships to go after things like Russia's "troll factories."

Similarly, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, while Russia uses its skills to attack the foundations of democracy, the US could respond with its own "tools to attack their foundations of autocracy."

But whether the threat is taken seriously at a national level remains to be seen. The State Department's Global Engagement Center — tasked with countering Russian disinformation — doesn't have a budget, hiring authority, or, it seems, much support from The White House.

"Because near-peer states such as Russia have demonstrated how much relatively small but well-coordinated capital investments can have disproportionate effects on an adversary, it is imperative the US government rise to the occasion and utilize existing, often open-source tools and methodologies to tackle this threat," asserted a recent article in AFCEA's Signal Magazine.

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• The US Army's newest night vision goggles allow soldiers to shoot around corners and fire accurately from the hip with the Rapid Target Acquisition capability.
• Testing saw significant improvements in marksmanship, Army officials said at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, DC.
• Brig. Gen. Dave Hodne, director of the Soldier Lethality cross-functional team, says he can't imagine any future weapons sight lacking this option.

The push to make troops more deadly is getting a major boost with a series of night vision upgrades that will allow soldiers to shoot around corners and accurately from the hip.

In the very near future, soldiers will receive the monocular Enhanced Night Vision Goggles III from BAE Systems. Featuring advancements in low-light optics, thermal vision, and image intensification, the new ENVG III and accompanying weapon sight will help soldiers "rapidly acquire and engage targets in all light levels and conditions," according to the developers.

"We have a wireless communication between the goggles and [Family of Weapon Sight-Individual] FWS-I, the next-gen individual weapon sight," Dave Smialek, director of Business Development, Precision Guidance and Sensing Solutions at BAE Systems, told Business Insider Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, DC. "Then, we send the aim point and surrounding imagery to the ENVG III, it gets collated with the imaging of the goggles, and that gives you what we call Rapid Target Acquisition capability."

This is a step up over much of the existing night vision technology and a big deal for the soldier.

"Now, if a soldier's on a patrol, weapon's down at his hip, all of a sudden a threat pops, instead of having to flip up a goggle, shoulder his weapon, reacquire, he has that aim point in his field of view, and he can actually shoot from the hip, so to speak," Smialek added.

Next year, though, the Army will start to receive the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle - Binocular (ENVG-B) produced by L3 Technologies, which will also feature the Rapid Target Acquisition feature and the ability to shoot around corners. The binocular version is designed to increase mobility.

"The weapons sight has a bunch of different modes activated through a remote," Brian Backer, the technical director for L3 Integrated Land Systems, told BI Tuesday, "By going into different modes, you can actually get a view of the weapon sight in the goggles." Soldiers can point their weapon around a corner and see targets while remaining hidden through a picture-in-a-picture setup in the goggles.

"You see in your goggles a grey circle with a little red dot in the center of it," Brig. Gen. Dave Hodne, director of the Army's Soldier Lethality cross-functional team, told reporters at AUSA 2018 Tuesday afternoon. "That means, no matter where your weapon is, you will see where the muzzle is aiming."

"We saw a 100 percent increase in our soldiers' ability to hit the target the first time once they started using Rapid Target Acquistion," he further explained, "I can't imagine, right now, any future sighting system that will not have that kind of capability."

Army officials repeatedly told Business Insider that they are excited about this new technology and what it brings to the warfighter.

What's next, according to industry, will conceptually involve adapting the ENVG-B and accompanying weapon sight for visor displays and synthetic training purposes.

"The Army is very focused on synthetic training embedded into the equipment," Todd Stirtzinger, the president of L3 Integrated Land Systems, explained to BI, "By giving our folks over at Link Simulations, part of L3, the image of our system, they can create a simulation."

"The step after that would be to take that same capability and put it right into the hardware," he added, "The Army wants to rehearse and train like they fight. So, at the end of the day, you are looking at getting embedded training right into the equipment."

The future is, according to L3's spokespeople, moving the virtual reality platform into the soldier's goggles, a feature that would advance the Army's vision of a more dynamic virtual training capability, a concept stressed by Maj. Gen. Maria Gervais, director of the Synthetic Training Environment cross-functional team, during a Wednesday media roundtable.

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• Facing threats from Russian artillery and integrated air defense systems, the US Army is developing four weapons designed to give US ground forces the edge in battle.
• A top priority is long-range artillery that can destroy fortified enemy positions from distances as far as 1,000 miles.
• The four weapons the Army hopes to begin fielding in the next few years include the long-range hypersonic weapon, the strategic long-range cannon, the Precision Strike Missile, and the Extended Range Cannon Artillery system.

The US Army wants guns, big ones. The service is modernizing for high-intensity combat against top adversaries, and one of the top priorities is long-range precision fires.

The goal of the Long-Range Precision Fires team is to pursue range overmatch against peer and near-peer competitors, Col. John Rafferty, the team's director of the LRPF who is part of the recently-established Army Futures Command, told reporters Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC.

The Army faces challenges from a variety of Russian weapons systems, such as the artillery, multiple rocket launcher systems, and integrated air defense networks. While the Army is preparing for combat against a wide variety of adversaries, Russia is characterized as a "pacing threat," one which has, like China, invested heavily in standoff capabilities designed to keep the US military at arms length in a fight.

The US armed forces aim to engage enemy in multi-domain operations, which involves assailing the enemy across the five domains of battle: land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said the US desires "a perfect harmony of intense violence."

Rafferty described LRPF's efforts as "fundamental to the success of multi-domain operations," as these efforts get at the "fundamental problem of multi-domain operations, which is one of access."

"Our purpose is to penetrate and disintegrate enemy anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) systems, which will enable us to maintain freedom of maneuverability as we exploit windows of opportunity," he added.

Long-range hypersonic weapon and strategic long-range cannon

At the strategic fires level, the Army is developing a long-range hypersonic weapon and a strategic long-range cannon that could conceptually fire on targets over 1,000 miles away.

With these two systems, the Army is "taking a comprehensive approach to the A2/AD problem, one by using the hypersonic system against strategic infrastructure and hardened targets, and then using the cannon to deliver more of a mass effect with cost-effective, more-affordable projectiles ... against the other components of the A2/AD complex."

The strategic long-range cannon is something that "has never been done before." This weapon is expected to be big, so much so that Army officials describe it as "relocatable," not mobile. Having apparently learned from the US Navy's debacle with the Zumwalt-class destroyer whose projectiles are so expensive the Navy can't pay for them, the Army is sensitive to the cost-to-kill ratio. 

This cannon is, according to Rafferty, going to be an evolution of existing systems. The Army is "scaling up things that we are already doing."

Precision Strike Missile 

At the operational level, the Precision Strike Missile features a lot more capability than the weapon it will ultimately replace, the aging Army tactical missile system.

"The first capability that really comes to mind is range, so out to 499 km, which is what we are limited to by the INF Treat," Rafferty explained." It will also have space in the base missile to integrate additional capabilities down the road, and those capabilities would involve sensors to go cross-domain on different targets or loitering munitions or sensor-fused munitions that would give greater lethality at much longer ranges."

Extended Range Cannon Artillery 

At the tactical level, the Army is pushing ahead on the Extended Range Cannon Artillery, "which takes our current efforts to modernize the Paladin and replaces the turret and the cannon tube with a new family of projectiles that will enable us to get out to 70 km," the colonel told reporters. "We see 70 km as really the first phase of this. We really want to get out to 120 and 130 km."

And there is the technology out there to get the Army to this range. One of the most promising technologies, Rafferty introduced, is an air-breathing Ramjet projectile, although the Army could also go with a solid rocket motor.

The Army has already doubled its range from the 30 km range of the M777 Howitzer to the 62 miles with the new ERCA system, Gen. John Murray, the first head of Army Futures Command, revealed earlier this week, pointing to the testing being done out at the Yuma proving grounds in Arizona.

"We are charged to achieve overmatch at echelon that will enable us to realize multi-domain operations by knocking down the systems that are designed to create standoff and separate us," Rafferty said. "Long-range fire is key to reducing the enemy's capability to separate our formations. It does that from a position of advantage."

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• The Army is modernizing to ensure that it is ready to fight wars in an age of competition with adversarial powers like China and Russia.
• Training is changing as the Army pursues dynamic live, virtual, and mixed-reality training that offers data analysis supported by artificial intelligence and other smart systems.
• AI and machine learning are very important, Maj. Gen. Maria Gervais, the director of the Army's Synthetic Training Environment team, told reporters Wednesday, "Being able to take the data from your training to be analyzed for trend analysis and predictive analysis is going to be a game changer."

The Army is changing the way it prepares for war, and one of the ways the service is doing this is by turning to augmented reality and artificial intelligence for advanced training, putting combat readiness not only in the hands of experienced officers but also smart machines.

Let's say there's a four-man team preparing to clear a building in a training exercise. As the first man busts through the door, a biometric feedback sensor indicates that his adrenaline spiked off the charts while muzzle and eye tracking sensors showed the soldier looking one way while his gun pointed another. When the third man enters, a motion sensor indicates that he froze momentarily.

And all this data is being run through machine learning systems for trend and predictive analysis, producing a readiness score for essential tasks.

Imagine soldiers training to fight augmented reality adversaries in virtual battle spaces, showdowns that like Mortal Kombat can take place in cities around the world.  

"We have these abilities, and I have seen it from our industry partners. Instantaneous feedback," Maj. Gen. Maria Gervais, director of the Synthetic Training Environment team, told Business Insider Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC. She revealed that while the Army is not there yet, the service is quickly moving in that direction.

Soldier lethality is one of the priorities of the newly-established Army Futures Command, a new four-star command focused on rapid research and development for future weapons and warfighting capabilities, as well as enhanced training options.

"There are systems that we're looking at that can allow the soldiers to train as they will fight, train where they will fight and train against who they will fight while back in the home-station training environment," Sgt. Maj. Jason Wilson, a representative for the Pentagon's Close Combat Lethality Task Force, told journalists at a combat lethality series presentation last month.

One option for the Army is next-level synthetic training environments, where troops can train individually or in groups in both fixed or mobile live, virtual, or mixed-reality battle spaces of all sizes. 

This is a big deal given the inadequacies of some of the existing training platforms.

The current training systems are limited in their capabilities. For example, the technology for the existing virtual trainers does not allow the Army to bring in all of the enablers, such as logistics, medical, engineering, and transportation teams.

"I can only bring air, ground platforms, and a few other capabilities," Gervais explained. "We need to train combined arms to prepare for large-scale combat against a peer or near-peer threat," such as China or Russia.

Terrain is also a huge challenge. "We are trying to get to one-world training," the general introduced. "Terrain is our Achilles heel. We are trying to get after that quickly."

User assessment testing for re-configurable virtual trainers began earlier this year. Within the next two years, the Army wants AI-driven trend and predictive analysis based on biometric and sensor data collected during training exercises. "Right now, we are only as good as someone's experience and their eye and what they catch or what we see in video," Gervais told Business Insider. "We want to be able to assess training, and we have some of that capability right now, but not to the degree we need."

"If you ask any soldier if he is combat ready, he will undoubtedly say, 'Yes, yes,'" Amul Asthana, a spokesman for Zen Technologies and a retired Indian army brigadier general, told BI while introducing his company's simulated training capabilities. "I can say I do not have high blood pressure, but without testing it, it is impossible to know for certain."

The aim of the new Synthetic Training Environment program is to ensure that the US Army knows American troops are ready for battle, especially when the next conflict could be one against a top adversary.

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• With an eye on defeated a powerful enemy, the US Army, Navy, and Air Force are teaming up to jointly develop hypersonic weapons for advanced warfare.
• "The Army can get there the fastest. It will be in the field, manned by soldiers, and create the deterrent effect that we are looking for," an Army colonel heading the Long Range Precision Fires team introduced Wednesday.

Russian and Chinese advancements in hypersonic weaponry are driving the US military to field a viable hypersonic strike weapon within the next couple of years.

The Army, Navy, and Air Force are jointly developing a common boost-glide vehicle to clear the way for each of these services to bring American hypersonic weaponry to the battlefield in the near future.

For the Army, that's the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW). The Air Force is building the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) and the Navy is pursuing its Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon, The Drive reported Thursday, citing an Aviation Week report. There is the possibility these systems could be deployed as early as 2021.

"There is a very aggressive timeline for testing and demonstrating the capability," Col. John Rafferty, director of the Army's Long Range Precision Fires cross-functional team, told reporters at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC Wednesday. The progress already made "is a result of several months of cooperation between all three services to collaborate on a common hypersonic glide body."

The Navy is responsible for designing the boost-glide vehicle, as the fleet faces the greatest integration challenges due to the spacial limitations of the firing platforms like ballistic missile submarines, the colonel explained.

"Everybody's moving in the same direction," he added, further commenting, "The Army can get there the fastest. It will be in the field, manned by soldiers, and create the deterrent effect that we are looking for."

As the boost-glide vehicle is unpowered, each service will develop its own booster technology for launching the relevant weapons, which fly at least five times faster than the speed of sound. The goal for the Army's AHW is for it to travel at sustained speeds of Mach 8, giving it the ability to cover 3,700 miles in just 35 minutes, The Drive reported.

The Air Force has already awarded two hypersonic weapons contracts this year, and the Navy just awarded one earlier this month. The Army's LRPF CFT is focusing on producing a long-range hypersonic weapon, among other weapons, to devastate hardened strategic targets defended by integrated air defense systems.

The US military's intense push for hypersonic warfighting technology comes as the Russians and Chinese make significant strides with this technology. Hypersonic weapons are game-changers, as their incredible speeds and ability to maneuver at those speeds make them invulnerable to modern air and missile defense systems, making them, in the simplest of terms, weaponry that can not be stopped.

Russia is expected to field its nuclear-armed Avangard hypersonic boost-glide vehicle next year, and China has conducted numerous tests of various hypersonic glide vehicles and aircraft, most recently in early August, when China tested its Xingkong-2 hypersonic experimental waverider, which some military experts suspected could be weaponized as a high-speed strike platform.

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• The US Army wants to replace its Cold War-era Bradley infantry fighting vehicle with a optionally-manned fighting vehicle, one that can outgun America's rivals.
• "If we want next-generation, I personally do not want to modernize to parity; it makes no sense," Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, director of the Army's Next Generation Combat Vehicle cross-functional team explained last week.
• The Army is also looking to replace the M1 Abrams tank, and "anything is on the table."

The Army's replacement for the Cold-War era Bradley fighting vehicle will likely field a main armament that's far more potent than the Bradley's 25 millimeter cannon.

Current combat vehicles owned by peer competitors include the Russian BMP3, which features a 100 mm main gun. And "104 countries have the 30 mm," said Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, director of the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team.

"If we want next-generation, I personally do not want to modernize to parity; it makes no sense," Coffman told an audience last week at the 2018 Association of the United States Army's Annual Meeting and Exposition. "We must modernize to establish standoff; our soldiers deserve standoff."

The Army has prioritized replacing its Bradley Fighting Vehicle and hopes to field the first unit with the Optionally Manned Combat Vehicle beginning in 2025, Coffman said, adding that the replacement for the M1Abrams will come in "distant years."

"The M1 tank still has a lot of upgrades that it is capable of putting on board, but the Bradley is at [the end of] its life," Coffman said. "The bottom line is, anything is on the table. We want industry feedback for decisive lethality; if that is run by a flux capacitor, hovers and has a ray gun, and we can make that work at a reasonable cost, absolutely."

The Army continues to plan industry days to learn from defense firms "what is in the realm of the possible, so we can make a decision on firm requirements moving forward," Coffman said. "The technology may not be there, but we must maintain the ability to upgrade our equipment in a dynamic fashion to always have standoff against our enemy."

Coffman added that experimenting and prototyping, once started, will not end.

"It's a continuous line because, as we field the new vehicles, we want to continue to roll in those technologies that we can afford," he said. "Because, as I said, we cannot modernize to parity, and our potential enemies are going to try to catch up."

Army leaders plan to make a decision in 2023 on whether the service wants to develop a future tank, Coffman said.

"I did not say replace the M1 tank," Coffman said. "What is going to be our decisive lethality platform? That is what is very, very important to us is to have that capability; it doesn't have to be a tank. It just has to be decisive and lethal."

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• With an eye on rivals like China and Russia, the US Army is looking to enhance its long-range precision fire capabilities.
• While long-term goals involve the development of a long-range strategic cannon that can fire on targets over 1,000 miles away, the short-term aim is to double the range of the current 155 mm cannons to 70 kilometers.
• The key to achieving this range is a new rocket-assisted projectile.

Army artillery experts are inching closer to the service's short-term goal of developing a 155-millimeter cannon that will shoot out to 70 kilometers, more than doubling the range of current 155s.

Under the Extended Range Cannon Artillery program, or ERCA, M109A8 155 mm Paladin self-propelled howitzers will be fitted with much longer, 58-caliber gun tubes, redesigned chambers and breeches that will be able to withstand the gun pressures to get out to 70 kilometers, Col. John Rafferty, director of the Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, told an audience last week at the 2018 Association of the United States Army's Annual Meeting and Exposition.

Existing 155 mm artillery rounds have a range of about 30 kilometers when fired from systems such as the M109A7, which feature a standard, 39-caliber-length gun tube.

But a longer gun tube is only one part of the extended range effort, Rafferty said.

"The thing about ERCA that makes it more complicated than others is it is as much about the ammunition as is it is about the armament," he said. "We can't take our current family of projectiles and shoot them 70 kilometers; they are not designed for it."

The Army is finalizing a new version of a rocket-assisted projectile (RAP) round that testers have shot out to 62 kilometers at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, said Col. Will McDonough, who runs Project Manager Combat Ammunition Systems.

The XM1113 is an upgrade to the M549A1 rocket-assisted projectile round, which was first fielded in 1989, he said.

"It's going to have 20 percent more impulse than the RAP round had," McDonough said. "So I look at that and say, 'Wow, we moved the ball 20 percent in 30 years.' Obviously not acceptable, but we ... shot it out of a 58-caliber system and shot holes in the ground at Yuma out to 62 kilometers."

The Army will add improvements to the round in the next fiscal year that should enable testers to "put holes in the ground out to 70 kilometers," he said. "One of the things our leadership has been adamant about is don't talk about range. Show range, shoot range, and then you can talk about it. But if you haven't put a hole in the ground in the desert, don't advertise that you can go do it."

The long-range precision fires effort is the Army's top modernization priority. The effort's longer-term goals include developing the Precision Strike Missile, with a range out to 499 kilometers, and the Strategic Long Range Cannon, which could have a range of up to 1,000 nautical miles.

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• The involvement of active duty troops at the US-Mexico border in response to the caravan is both unnecessary and inappropriate for a number of reasons.
• First, the border security mission is a law enforcement one, and active duty military forces are prohibited by law from conducting domestic law enforcement activities.
• Second, the caravan of poor migrants and refugees is not a national security threat to the United States.
• Third, this ill-advised and politically motivated deployment takes them away from their homes, their families, their regular duties, and their training for future contingencies.

Over the past 17 years, the US military has answered the bell, time and time again. It has been at war for the longest continuous period in our nation's history. It has won victories and suffered losses, most significantly in lives lost and wounded.

Many of our servicemen and women are forever changed by the wounds of war, both seen and unseen. We have asked much of them, and their families, and they have come through, each and every time.

They will answer the bell once again, with this deployment to the southwest border, but they shouldn't have to. The involvement of active duty troops is both unnecessary and inappropriate.

First and foremost, the border security mission is a law enforcement one and active duty military forces are prohibited by law from conducting domestic law enforcement activities. The troops being dispatched to the border are in a support role only. Is there value in that? Perhaps, but not at the costs I'll describe below.

Second, this caravan of poor migrants and refugees is not a national security threat to the United States.

Its size — at this point — may be a bit different than what we have seen recently but it is not unusual. Large groups of migrants travel north to the US every year. This is not an "invasion."

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Yes, we should have secure borders but that's a mission for the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection. It's a mission their law enforcement professionals conduct every day, for which they are highly qualified and specially trained.

Even if there are some caravan members with criminal records, CBP officers handle individuals like them every day. Deployed service members won't be interacting with anyone in the caravan, except in rare circumstances, so they won't be protecting us against "dangerous people." By law, they can't detain or arrest anyone, and they certainly won't be using deadly force against people throwing rocks.

Third, Secretary Mattis has rightfully recognized that after 17 years of mostly counterterrorism operations, our military needs to refocus and prepare for the next war or contingency, not the last one. That means training for full-spectrum operations, something none of the thousands of troops deployed to the border will be doing.

This ill-advised deployment takes them away from their homes, their families, their regular duties, and their training for future contingencies.

Simply put, Secretary Mattis' focus on lethality and combat readiness won't be served by this deployment.

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While we still have military forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other places around the globe, the numbers of those deployed away from home are significantly reduced from what they were at the height of operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Rotations still tax the force as units either rest and recover from a recent deployment or prepare for the next one. So the strain on the force remains, even at reduced numbers.

Remember too that sequestration and budget cuts during a period of high operational tempo had a negative impact on equipment, maintenance, and procurement. A military both "recovering" from the effects of 17 years of war and still engaged in dangerous operations, with commensurate impacts on people, equipment and training, shouldn't be asked to undertake an unnecessary mission for which they are not absolutely needed, based on a clear threat to our national security.

Leaving aside the obvious political elements and questions about this deployment being a "stunt," it does not meet that threshold.

Finally, there should be no doubt that the servicemen and women deployed to the border will carry out their assigned duties to the best of their abilities. They remain the finest fighting force the world has seen.

That's why they shouldn't be (mis)used as an adjunct immigration enforcement force, or as political pawns. They won't ask for a break, but they certainly deserve one.

David Lapan is vice president of communications at the Bipartisan Policy Center. His career in public service spans more than three decades. Before joining BPC, Lapan was the press secretary and deputy assistant secretary for media operations for the Department of Homeland Security.

Lapan is a retired Marine colonel, with more than 30 years of military service and 22 years of communications/public affairs experience at the highest levels of the Defense Department.

As a public affairs officer, he served as a spokesman and advisor for the Defense Department; for the 18th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; for the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and US Forces—Afghanistan; and for multi-national forces during military operations in Haiti and Iraq.

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• Transitioning from a military career to a civilian career can pose major challenges for some veterans.
• Several organizations have risen up to help vets shift gears.
• Business Insider also spoke with a number of military veterans who shared their best tips for their fellow veterans.

This Veterans Day, Americans will take time to commemorate those who lost their lives while serving in our nation's military.

But what of those individuals whose time in the military is coming to an end? What resources and insight can be offered to the men and women transitioning from the military back to civilian careers?

A number of organizations including American Dream U, the Honor Foundation, CivCom, The Mission Continues, the Heroes Journey, and Victor App, strive to provide support for this community of veterans. Certain companies also strive to hire veterans and provide military-friendly environments.

Business Insider spoke with 10 veterans from several different branches of the military about transitioning back to civilian careers.

Here's their best advice for people considering leaving the military:

This story was originally published on May 29, 2017.

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Start preparing as soon as possible

Omari Broussard joined the Navy about three weeks after graduating high school at the age of 17. He said he enjoyed his subsequent 20-year career, during which he rose to the rank of Navy Chief. However, as the father of six kids with an interest in starting his own business, he knew at some point he'd have to move on.

"I loved it, but it was a conflict, between missing out on family time and becoming and entrepreneur," he told Business Insider.

Broussard said that the most crucial part of transitioning from military to civilian work is preparation. It's advice he's shared with his fellow attendees at American Dream U, an organization that helps veterans transition to civilian life.

"As a military member, you only get so much time to prepare, but that doesn't mean you don't get any time to prepare," said Broussard, who is now the founder of counter-ambush training class 10X Defense and author of "Immediate Action Marketing.""I retired in 2015. My preparations for getting out started in 2007."

Getting ready included earning his degree in organizational security management at the University of Phoenix, becoming a firearms instructor on the side, and laying the groundwork for founding his own business.

"The military gave me more of the framing and the conditioning," he said. "The skills I had to go out and get on my own."

"Start early," said James Byrne, who served as a US Navy SEAL officer for 26 years. "You need to start planning your exit when you start the service."

However, Byrne, who now works as the director of sales and business development at solar tech company Envision Solar, told Business Insider that doesn't mean you should divide your attention.

"I don't mean one foot in, one foot out," he said. "In order to do what we do, you have to have a complete commitment to our mission in special operations. But get your education. Get your medical VA stuff in order. Keep everything up to date."

Byrne is a fellow at the Honor Foundation, a group that specifically helps Navy SEALs transition back to civilian careers and life. He said that he's seen many people simply become overwhelmed by the process of leaving the military.

"It's not so much that any one part of the transition is really that hard," he said. "The problem is when it all comes together at one point — that's what makes it hard and overwhelming. The better you can prepare in those different areas, the better it's going to be. You can't wait till three months before you get out."

Brace yourself for a major culture shift

Retired Green Beret Scott Mann has a total of 23 years of experience in the army. Today, he runs a leadership training organization MannUp and the Heroes Journey, a non-profit devoted to helping veterans transition.

"As a warrior, you live in a honor-based culture," Mann told Business Insider. "It is tribal, in the sense that tribal society is built around the group, honor, and it's about the collective. If you're in the military, or a military dependent, your relationship with your teammates is tribal — you took the needs of the many in front of your own needs. That's how you fight, train, and survive, and it becomes trained within you."

On the other hand, the civilian job landscape tends to be far more individualistic.

"Bam, you're out and you're in this world that's the polar opposite of that, where it's a society that values the individual above the group, puts the needs of one in front of the many," said Mann, who also authored "Mission America," a book breaking down insight on the life after the military. "It's literally like changing planets. It's not that one is better than the other, but each is necessary in its own way."

He said that high-performing military veterans must brace for that extreme change, as well as learn to tell their stories and translate their own experiences in the civilian world.

Kayla Williams is a US army veteran who works as the director of the Center for Women Veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs. She's collaborated with veterans' transition group The Mission Continues in the past, serving as a panelist at a recent talk.

She told Business Insider that civilian workplaces also tend to be far less hierarchical and structured.

"It was also a challenge to not feel the same deep sense of purpose that infused my daily life while in the military, which is what ultimately drove me to work at the Department of Veterans Affairs: I wanted to serve in a new way," she said.

Know what you want

After a brief stint as a financial planner in DC, Randy Kelley served as a Navy SEAL sniper for 11 years. Since retiring in 2005, he has found his calling as an entrepreneur and built up seven different companies.

He told Business Insider that ancient military strategist Sun Tzu is the inspiration behind his top advice for other recent veterans: "Know yourself."

"You've got to know yourself first, what you're good at, what you like to do, where you can provide value, and basically, what is your competitive advantage?" Kelley said. "I'm an entrepreneur. I'm very good at building ideas, and not so good at organization. I'm not going to be an accountant. It's just not going to happen. I'm not going to be a project manager."

Kelley, who founded the wellness startup Dasein Institute and has collaborated with American Dream U, recommended that veterans boil down their favorite aspects of their military career to figure out a new path forward.

"Do you like tasks or do you like missions?" he said. "If you're a mission-oriented guy, like I am personally, you want to know what the big picture is. You want to know what needs to get done. If you're a task-oriented person, you like stability and you like a consistent paycheck and those kind of things, and you need to follow a separate route."

While there are many notable male celebrities who served, less focus seems to be on the women — of both today and throughout history — who have fought for their countries. 

"Golden Girl" Bea Arthur was a staff sergeant for the Marines, and Gal Gadot was in the Israeli Defense Forces for two years, which actually led to her big break in Hollywood.

Keep scrolling to see other famous females who have served — and learn how it helped them succeed in the long run. 

"Wonder Woman" Gal Gadot served in the Israeli Defense Forces for two years.

After Gal Gadot was crowned Miss Israel in 2004, and before she became Wonder Woman in 2017, she served her mandatory two years in the Israeli Defense Forces. During Gadot's assignment, she worked as a "physical fitness specialist," teaching things like gymnastics and calisthenics to the soldiers.

Gadot actually credits her big break in the acting world to her military service, claiming that Justin Lin, the director of "Fast Five" and "Fast & Furious 6," cast her in the role of Gisele because he was impressed with her military background, and her "knowledge of weapons."

"Golden Girl" Bea Arthur was one of the first members of the Marine Corps’ Women’s Reserve.

Before she was Dorothy Zbornak on "The Golden Girls," Emmy award-winning actress Bea Arthur was a Marine.

Arthur enlisted into the Women's Reserve when she was just 21 years old, first serving as a typist and truck driver. She worked her way up to staff sergeant and was honorably discharged in 1945. 

According to The Daily Beast, official documents show that Arthur's supervisors thought she was "argumentative" — which is not a far cry from the feisty persona she became known for on both "The Golden Girls" and "Maude."

Harriet Tubman was a military leader and Union spy during the Civil War.

Serving as a soldier in the US Army is a challenging role. But with talent shows on bases and puppy snuggles, not every moment of active duty is serious. 

Here are 15 heartwarming photos of US Army soldiers on and off duty.

When "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed, soldiers could be themselves.

Sergeant Brandon Morgan, right, kissed his partner, Dalan Wells, in a helicopter hangar at the Marine base in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, upon returning from a six-month deployment to Afghanistan in 2012. This was one of the first photos to show a gay active duty serviceman in uniform kissing his partner at a homecoming. 

Members of the US Navy marched in San Diego's pride parade.

Two women, both active duty sailors in the Navy who gave their names as Nikki and Lisa, kissed as they marched in the Gay Pride Parade in San Diego in 2011. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta thanked gay military members for their service, and the Pentagon marked June as gay pride month with an official salute.

US Air Force Senior Airman Shyla Smith and Courtney Burdeshaw tied the knot the day after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

Three years after Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. Smith, left, and Burdeshaw got married at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau the day after the ruling in 2013 in New York City. 

• The Navy's criminal investigative service has completed its investigation into the death of an Army Green Beret soldier in Mali last year.
• The Army's initial investigation was turned over to NCIS after naming two Navy SEAL housemates as persons of interest.
• Details regarding Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar's death have taken many forms since the investigation began. Now, a Navy Admiral will decide whether the SEALs will go to court-martial. 

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NOW WATCH: Navy SEALs explain the dangers of overplanning in both the military and business

• An elite group of "patriotic" students in China have been selected to begin training for a new artificial-intelligence weapons development program. 
• Some 31 kids — all under 18 — have been recruited to participate in the "Experimental Program for Intelligent Weapons Systems" at the Beijing Institute of Technology, which will groom them to become AI weapons experts, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an announcement from the Beijing Institute of Technology. 
• China has largely kept the development of its AI-weapons technology opaque, but experts say China's army will likely leverage AI "to enhance its future capabilities, including in intelligent and autonomous unmanned systems."

An elite group of "patriotic" students in China have been selected to begin training for new artificial intelligence weapons development program. 

31 kids — all under 18 — have been recruited to participate in the "Experimental Program for Intelligent Weapons Systems" at the Beijing Institute of Technology, South China Morning Post reported Thursday, citing an announcement from the Beijing Institute of Technology. The program selected 27 boys and four girls from more than 5,000 applicants, the school's website said, according to the Post. 

"These kids are all exceptionally bright, but being bright is not enough," a BIT professor who asked not to be identified told the Post. 

"We are looking for other qualities such as creative thinking, willingness to fight, a persistence when facing challenges," he said. "A passion for developing new weapons is a must … and they must also be patriots."

According to the program's brochure, each student will be mentored by two weapons scientists with both academic and defense backgrounds. The kids will later be tasked with choosing a specialization within the weapons sector and will be assigned to the relevant defense laboratory to hone their skills under the guidance of experts. 

The institute expects students will go on to complete doctorate degrees and become leaders in the field of AI weapons technology, the Post said. 

China has been outspoken about its interest in developing AI technology 

China has touted its AI development across sectors, including a trillion-dollar autonomous-driving revolution and a massive expansion of its facial-recognition software. 

In his keynote speech to the ruling Communist Party last year, President Xi Jinping called for the embedding of artificial intelligence technologies into the economy to create growth and expand its capabilities across industries.

Read more: China is preparing for a trillion-dollar autonomous-driving revolution

In July, China released its own AI development plan, which proposed building up its domestic AI industry to $150 billion over the next few years to establish the country as an "innovation center for AI" by 2030.

And while China has largely kept the development of its AI-weapons technology opaque, Elsa B. Kania an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, predicts that China's army will "likely leverage AI to enhance its future capabilities, including in intelligent and autonomous unmanned systems."

China is reportedly working on a fleet of drone submarinesin order to give China’s navy an advantage at sea. And in April, the Chinese air force released details about an upcoming drill using fully autonomous swarms of drones. 

But experts have repeatedly warned about the dangers of AI 

Experts have repeatedly warned about the dangers AI, arguing that advanced systems which can make thousands of complex decisions every second could have "dual-use" to help or harm, depending on its design.

In February, AI experts across industries outlined in a 100-page report the dangers of AI technology and how the technology could be weaponized for malicious use. Aside from using AI technology for attacks in the digital realm, the technology could be used in the physical realm to turn technology, like drones, into weapons and attack targets at the push of a button or the click of a mouse. 

In April, China submitted its proposal to the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems announcing its desire to create a new protocol for restricting the use of AI weapons. In its proposal, China highlighted the dangers of AI weaponry but also stressed the need to continue developing AI technology. 

SEE ALSO: China is preparing for a trillion-dollar autonomous-driving revolution

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NOW WATCH: Navy SEALs explain the dangers of overplanning in both the military and business

• For the first time, a female soldier has completed the Special Forces Assessment and Selection process.
• The process is the first step in Special Forces qualification, and it means she can now begin the qualification course.
• The "Q" course consists of four phases and takes at least a year to complete.

For the first time since the Army opened its special operations jobs to women in 2016, a female soldier has completed the initial Special Forces Assessment and Selection process, a spokesman for Army Special Operations Command has confirmed to Army Times.

Several women have attempted the 24-day program, part of the Special Forces Qualification Course, but none had made it to the next round.

"Recently, a female successfully completed Special Forces Assessment and Selection and was selected to attend the Special Forces Qualification Course," Lt. Col. Loren Bymer told Army Times. "We're proud of all the candidates who attended and were selected to continue into the qualification course in hopes of earning their Green Beret."

USASOC declined to provide the soldier's rank or her current military occupational specialty.

"It is our policy to not release the names of our service members because Special Forces soldiers perform discrete missions upon graduation," Bymer said.

In general, Special Forces candidates take a break from training after SFAS before moving on to the next step of the "Q" course. Captains might attend their designated career course, while specialists would attend the Basic Leader Course, in anticipation of a promotion to sergeant upon completing qualification.

The Q course consists of four phases and lasts about a year at least but can take almost two years depending on a soldier's specialty and assigned foreign language.

The Green Berets are one of the last Army communities not to have female soldiers assigned. Since the combat exemption lifted, hundreds of women have joined the infantry community, several have been assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, and more than a dozen have earned the Ranger tab.

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• Four enlisted special operations troops now face criminal charges in the alleged strangulation of an Army Green Beret last year.
• 2 Recon Marines and 2 Navy SEALs face charges related to their involvement in the incident.
• According to charge sheets, the special operators broke in to Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar's room and tied him up with duct tape before strangling him, then tried to cover up the incident.

Four enlisted special operations troops, two Marines and two sailors, now face criminal charges in the alleged strangulation last year of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar during a deployment to Mali, the Navy announced Thursday.

The announcement comes at the conclusion of a lengthy Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into Melgar's June 4, 2017 death in the Mali capital of Bamako.

"The report was forwarded to Commander, Naval Region Mid-Atlantic, designated as the Consolidated Disposition Authority by the Secretary of the Navy to review all relevant information pertaining to Staff Sergeant Melgar's death and make determinations regarding administrative or disciplinary actions as appropriate," NCIS officials said in a released statement.

Charged in the alleged murder are a Marine staff sergeant and gunnery sergeant assigned to Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, whose names are redacted in military charge sheets; and two SEAL chief special warfare operators assigned to Naval Special Warfare Development Group, also known as SEAL Team Six.

The two SEALs under investigation in Melgar's death had previously been identified as Tony DeDolph and Adam Cranston Matthew.

The charges against the four individuals were finalized yesterday, according to a release from Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.

All four service members face charges of conspiracy and assault. They're accused of driving to the Marine Corps quarters in Mali to obtain duct tape, breaking into Melgar's locked bedroom, physically restraining the Green Beret by tying him up with duct tape, and strangling him by placing him in a choke hold, according to charge sheets.

They're also charged with felony murder and involuntary manslaughter in Melgar's death and of hazing by breaking into his room and restraining him.

One of the SEALs is accused of performing a cricothyrotomy, in which a throat tube is inserted to create an airway, on Melgar's dead body to hide evidence of the soldier's strangling.

All four are accused of obstructing justice by providing false timelines of events to their chain of command, omitting facts and making false statements to investigators and secretly disposing of alcohol keps in Navy and Army headquarters.

An NBC news report in May revealed that NCIS was investigating two Marines and two SEALs for possible involvement in the death of Melgar, 34. The alleged assault reportedly occurred in embassy housing in Bamako in retaliation for a perceived offense at a party.

Navy officials said an Article 32 preliminary hearing for all four men is scheduled for Dec. 10. Rear Adm. Charles Rock, the commanding officer for Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, has been appointed to oversee the prosecutions.

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A 360-degree video from the US Army shows how the military rapidly inserts and extracts soldiers in areas where a helicopter can't safely land, and it's insanely cool.

The video, taken by members of the Army's 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, shows a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the 2nd Batallion, 25th Aviation Regiment snatching a team of soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division out of the water during Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction (SPIE) training.

WATCH:

(Click and drag your pointer across the screen to rotate the video and get the full 360-degree experience)

A variation of the Vietnam War-era troop transfer approach known as the Stabilized Body (STABO) method, SPIE can be carried out on land and in the water, The War Zone, which first took note of the Army's new video, reported Sunday.

Standard SPIE ropes run from 120 to 150 feet in length and can be used to carry anywhere from one to ten people at a time. For insertion, the SPIE system is considered impractical compared to fast rope rappelling, but this method has its advantages for "wet" extractions.

The way it works is relatively simple. Troops hook their harnesses to a rope attached to a helicopter, which lifts them up to a safe height (above any potentially dangerous obstacles) and then flies away with them dangling below.

At the landing zone, the troops are lowered down one at a time to unhook and clear the way for the next person.

This somewhat unusual insertion/extraction approach, initially developed for jungle warfare, gives the military more options in contested areas, rough terrain, and on water. The new SPIE video from the Army was filmed off the coast of Hawaii.

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• An official report obtained by USA Today shows that while the US Army struggled to improve troop readiness, one in five of its generals was unable to deploy.
• The report was conducted in 2017 but was only recently released through a Freedom of Information Act request.
• Most generals are now ready to deploy after fixing minor issues in their medical records like updating dental exams and blood tests, the report says.

The US Army sent 62 of its generals to an "executive health program" at a military hospital in Texas, where they spent three days undergoing medical examinations and receiving healthcare, according to a new report obtained by USA Today.

The program followed a military-wide sweep of the Army's top brass and reportedly showed that only one in five of its generals was ready to deploy during 2016.

The report highlighted the Army's struggle to get its troops ready to deploy, which has become one of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' top priorities. Conducted at the order of former Secretary Chuck Hagel, the report was completed in 2017 after Mattis had taken over.

The generals and admirals who lead the US military have also seen their reputation suffer after years of scandals, corruption and ethical lapses. An investigation, also by USA Today's Tom Vanden Brook, found that military investigators documented 500 cases of serioius misconduct by admirals and generals over a four-year period.

See also:An Air Force general will be forced to retire for lewd comments and failing to report suicide attempts at his command.

Only 83.5 percent of Army soldiers were able to deploy, USA Today reported. Other service branches reported higher numbers around 90 percent, the report showed.

But among Army generals, fewer than 80 percent were ready to deploy.

The report suggests this may be due to administrative rather than health reasons; most generals became deployable after receiving updated blood tests and dental exams, according to USA Today. The report recommended that generals take time to complete required examinations and necessary treatment.

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• Army Ranger Sgt. Leandro Jasso was killed in Afghanistan over the weekend.
• "Sgt. Jasso was likely accidentally shot by our Afghan partner force. There are no indications he was shot intentionally," Resolute Support concluded.
• Several US service members, including one earlier this month, have been killed in insider attacks this year.
• Three more US service members were killed in Afghanistan Tuesday, bringing the total number of American dead this month to five.

The U.S. Army Ranger killed on Saturday in Afghanistan may have been accidentally shot by a member of the Afghan security force he was working with.

Sgt. Leandro Jasso, 25, died Nov. 24 as a “result of wounds sustained while engaging enemy forces” in Nimruz Province. But according to “an initial review,” said a new statement from Resolute Support, “Sgt. Jasso was likely accidentally shot by our Afghan partner force. There are no indications he was shot intentionally.”

Jasso, a team leader in A Co., 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, was on his third deployment to Afghanistan. He was in a gun battle with al Qaeda militants when he was shot, according to The Washington Post.

RS added that early witness interviews indicated the accidental shooting of Jasso occurred when Afghan partners “became engaged in a close-quarter battle during an assault on one of multiple barricaded al Qaeda shooters.”

“Sgt. Jasso was killed defending our nation, fighting al Qaeda alongside our Afghan partners,” Gen. Austin Miller, the top America commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement. “All of us, and throughout our coalition of 41 nations, recognize the threats posed by groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS and are determined to fight them here.”

Jasso was the 10th American service member to die in Afghanistan this year. Three more American troops were killed and another three were woundedon Tuesday by an improvised explosive device near Ghazni.

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• The US military posts hundreds of photos and videos every day from missions around the world.
• Business Insider selected some of the most compelling images taken in 2018 from across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard. 

The US has the world's most powerful military. It also has a small army of talented photographers who showcase the military's missions and training every day.  

At home and around the world, the American armed forces defend US national interests, as well as global peace and security. US troops often put themselves in harm's way in service to the nation, from fighting Taliban forces in Afghanistan to waging war against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria, and sometimes they make the ultimate sacrifice. 

Business Insider selected 27 photos from the US military in 2018 that you won't want to miss. 

A U.S. Army combat medic assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C., readies his equipment before embarking on his final evaluation lane while competing for the Expert Field Medical Badge on Nov. 6, 2018.

Source: US Army

A southern black racer snake slithers across the rifle barrel held by junior Army National Guard sniper Pfc. William Snyder as he practices woodland stalking in a camouflaged ghillie suit at Eglin Air Force Base on April 7, 2018.

Source: Department of Defense

Army combat engineers assigned to the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division blast through a concrete wall during demolition training at Fort Hood, Texas on July 17, 2018.

Source: Department of Defense