The U.S. and Nordic and Baltic nations have conducted multilateral security meetings in Finland over two days to address regional security threats and beef up the U.S.-Nordic-Baltic cooperation, DoD News reported Friday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work arrived in the Finnish capital of Helsinki Thursday to meet with the representatives of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

The report said Work also inked a statement of intent with Finnish Defense Minister Jussi Niinisto to bolster collaboration on defense issues between the U.S. and Finland.

“It expresses our shared desire to cooperate on security issues of mutual concern and to ensure that our militaries can work together to confront [those issues],” the U.S. deputy defense secretary said.

Work also participated in a U.S.-Finland-Sweden meeting, where he and his counterparts Finnish Defense Secretary Jukka Juusti and Swedish Defense Secretary Jan Salestrand agreed to trilateral sessions scheduled in Washington in late 2016, according to the report.

Ferdinando writes discussions during the overall meeting covered regional security concerns such as the Islamic State militant group and Russia’s behavior in the Baltic Sea, including that country’s reported breaches into the airspace in Finland and Estonia.

Work described Russia’s alleged airspace violations as “dangerous and unprofessional,” the report said.

Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work was set to discuss security challenges with the Baltic and Nordic countries during his two-day visit to Finland, DoD News reported Friday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Work’s visit focused on defense cooperation and regional alliance amid threats arising from Russia’s behavior in the Baltic Sea.

“This is a chance for us really just to exchange views on Russia, talk about areas of cooperation and explore — when we add Sweden — more that we can do in a trilateral sense,” Work told DoD News.

Soon after his arrival in Finland, the report said Work observed as Finnish troops conducted a beach assault and hostage rescue mission and toured onboard a jet-powered Rauma-class missile boat in Helsinki.

The U.S. deputy defense secretary seeks to establish an agreement for cooperation with Finland and Sweden, Ferdinando writes.

Lt. Gen. James McConville, deputy chief of staff for personnel at the U.S. Army, said the military service will roll out a new software platform designed to manage human resources and pay processes for the Army as well as the branch’s National Guard and Reserve components.

The Army said Wednesday the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army software will  replace 45 independent systems and seeks to help branch leaders track potential talents across all three Army components.

“It’ll be the first time in the history of the Army that we have all three components, the active, the Guard and the Reserve on one system,” said McConville.

McConville added that the IPPS-A can help the service branch define a soldier by as many as 25 variables as opposed to the previous method that only classifies service members by rank and occupational specialty.

Maj. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, director of the Army’s talent management task force, said the service branch will also implement an assignment interactive module designed to serve as a “bridge” to the new personnel software.

CACI International was awarded a five-year, $159 million prime contract by the Army in May 2015 to support the development and implementation of the IPPS-A.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has discussed plans to double the number of U.S. Marines in the Australian city of Darwin by 2020 with Australia’s Defense Minister Marise Payne during a bilateral meeting held in Washington, Reuters reported Thursday.

Tom Westbrook writes the two countries have reached a cost-sharing agreement in principle  to increase U.S. military presence in Australia’s tropical north where approximately 2,500 soldiers are currently stationed.

The two countries agreed to co-invest $1.52 billion in infrastructure that will support military operations in northern Australia as well as other share costs associated with the 25-year deployment plan, according to the report.

The report said the U.S. and Australia also want to conduct joint training and exercises that could seek participation from other Asia-Pacific allies.

“The two sides will now finalize a cost sharing implementing arrangement to capture the terms, pursuant to the force posture agreement,” Commander Gary Ross, a Defense Department spokesman, told Reuters.

Rear Adm. Robert Girrier, U.S. Navy unmanned warfare systems director, has said the service branch plans to utilize integrated drones that can relay data to humans in a C2 function to aid decision-making efforts, Scout Warrior reported Monday.

Kris Osborn writes the concept would have an human overseer of C2 functions utilize groups of underwater drones that use sonar and other sensors simultaneously to detect and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships as well as collect oceanographic data and perform ISR missions.

The report notes some drones can use satellite integrated telemetry to transmit information and access areas that large submarines cannot penetrate and such technologies will help perform reconnaissance missions during operations in enemy territory.

“In the next five years or so we are going to try to move from human operated systems to human assisted systems that are less dependent on people,” Girrier said to Scout Warrior.

He added that the service branch also works with Waveglider platforms used to collect oceanographic and hydrographic information and also highlighted the MQ-25 Stingray program intended to create a carrier-launched unmanned refueling and ISR system.

The U.S. Navy‘s program executive office for littoral combat ships has conducted a restrained firing test of a missile technology currently in developmental testing for integration into the LCS Surface-to-Surface Missile Module.

The Longbow Hellfire Missile was tested at the Naval Surface Warface Center Dalhgren Division’s explosive experimental area to evaluate its capacity to withstand heat and fire in situations such as unplanned rocket motor ignition, Navy said Thursday.

Navy plans to deploy the Longbow Hellfire missile capacity aboard an LCS in December 2017 and a structural test firing of the weapon from an LCS is scheduled to occur in March 2017.

Capt. Ted Zobel, Navy program manager for the LCS Mission Module Program, said the service branch conducted the test as part of efforts geared toward fielding the missile technology to LCS and the fleet.