The Defense Department will collaborate with researchers from the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct studies on the Zika virus, DoD News reported Wednesday.

Cheryl Pellerin writes DoD personnel with previous experience working with the mosquito-borne disease will help HHS professionals convene experts and stakeholders for the research effort.

“This is an area where the DoD has done some research in the past,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a travel advisory for Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, where Zika transmission currently occurs, according to the report.

Cook also told reporters President Barack Obama met with Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and health and national security experts to discuss steps intended to address the spread of the virus, Pellerin reports.

The virus spreads through mosquito bites and symptoms include fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis, according to CDC.

A new Center for a New American Security report says the U.S. government needs to establish a “flexible” deterrence strategy in order to avert potential attacks on the U.S. satellite architecture and other space assets.

The report titled “From Sanctuary to Battlefield: A Framework for a U.S. Defense and Deterrence Strategy for Space,” by Elbridge Colby notes that the U.S. should work to devise ways on how to limit war in space with potential opponents like China and Russia, CNAS said Wednesday.

“In essence, favorably limiting a war means that the terms of mutual limitation with the adversary allow the U.S. to prosecute the conflict successfully, at least with respect to the necessarily constrained political objectives that such a bounded conflict allows,” said Colby, a Robert M. Gates senior fellow at CNAS.

Colby also suggested two approaches on how to create and implement a “limited war strategy” for space.

“In other words, it means proposing the rules of the fight and then building the assets and strategy to incentivize an adversary’s observance of them,” he noted.

Colby told Dan Lamothe of The Washington Post in a phone interview that he considers space a vulnerable domain.

“Fundamentally, we’re going to have to find ways to persuade or coerce our adversaries not to take full advantage of their abilities to hurt us in space,” he added.

The U.S. Army wants to expand its multicomponent unit of active-duty and reserve pilots in an effort to address a demand for aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, Defense News reported Wednesday.

Jen Judson writes the Army implemented a plan in October to integrate a mixed force into fixed-wing ISR exploitation battallions at two military bases in Georgia and Texas.

“There are still challenges in mixing units from other organizations but I think overall, across the branch, we’ve done a phenomenal job of deploying multicompo units,” Maj. Gen. Michael Lundy, commander of the Army Aviation Center, told Defense News.

The initiative took shape as a Congress-formed commission reviewed the Army’s force structure and explored new approaches for the military branch to leverage groups that comprise active and reserve troops, Judson noted.

The National Commission on the Future of the Army is scheduled to issue a report Thursday.

Adm. Harry Harris Jr., head of U.S. Pacific Command, has said the command plans to increase the number and scope of missions intended to challenge Chinese ownership claims over South China Sea reefs and islands, USNI News reported Wednesday.

John Grady writes Harris told his audience at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington that China has reclaimed nearly 3,000 acres of coral reef area over an 18-month period.

The U.S. sent a USS Lassen guided-missile destroyer near the artificial Subi Reef island in October as part of “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea.

“I believe that the Lassen operation did challenge some aspects of China’s claims,” Harris noted.

He also believes that having multiple allies in the Asia Pacific is one of U.S’ asymmetric advantages over China, Sydney Freedberg Jr. reported for Breaking Defense.

Harris met with Chinese military officials last fall and said they were rigid about China’s  ownership of disputed islands and their natural resources, Freedberg writes.

“I made clear my view, my personal view, that those islands do not belong to China and that the land reclamation activities [i.e. island building] were increasing the tensions in the region,” Harris added.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. John Nicholson Jr., commander of NATO Allied Land Command, has been nominated to succeed Gen. John Campbell as commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, DoD News reported Wednesday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes that Nicholson’s nomination and promotion to the rank of four-star general will go through the Senate confirmation process.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a statement that he believes Nicholson will work to “secure a bright future for the Afghan people, and help the government of Afghanistan strengthen a professional and capable security partner to the American people,” the report said.

Nicholson previously commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and served in international assignments with NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and NATO Implementation Force in Sarajevo.

Carter also commended Campbell for his work to lead Afghanistan-based U.S. forces against al-Qaida, Ferdinando reports.

“While many challenges remain, we have made gains over the past year that will put Afghanistan on a better path, and much of the credit for that progress rests with General Campbell,” the secretary’s statement read.