Gen. Vincent Brooks, commanding general of the U.S. Army Pacific under the U.S. Pacific Command, has been nominated as commander of U.S. Forces Korea.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a statement said Monday that Brooks was also nominated to lead the Combined Forces Command and the United Nations Command.

The 36-year Army veteran became chief of the U.S. Army Pacific in July 2013.

He was former deputy director for the war on terrorism and political-military affairs for the Western hemisphere during his time at the Joint Staff.

Brooks also served in the Department of the Army as chief of public affairs.

His previous roles as a commissioned officer include commanding general of the Third U.S. Army/U.S. Army Central in the Middle East and major general within the 1st Infantry Division.

Brooks is a former National Security Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory has conducted a new round of live-fire tests on its rotor blade technology on March 4 as it seeks to help the research efforts of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.

The Continuous Trailing Edge Flap that features individual blade control technology was first tested in mid-January to study the potential of its integration into future rotorcraft, the Army said Thursday.

The Army added that the experiments seek to focus on the blade technology’s ballistic vulnerability and are part of the Science and Technology Red Teaming initiative sponsored by ASA (ALT).

“The purpose of this program is to generate some limited ballistic data that could reduce risk and/or encourage Future Vertical Lift designers to consider CTEF technology,” said Brian Smith, aviation analysis team leader at ARL’s survivability and lethality analysis directorate.

“Our goal is to design, develop and demonstrate the next generation of technologies that will provide unmatched vertical lift aircraft performance to meet future operation capabilities,” added Todd Turner, ASA (ALT) air portfolio director.

Budget cuts amounting to $2 billion from fiscal year 2016 to 2017 affected the CTEF efforts, Jim Garamone reported Thursday on DoD News.

“When we don’t have money, we do a lot of analysis and we come up with great ideas, but then at some point you have to start building some hardware and sometimes that gets a little harder to do when there’s not enough money flowing,” said Matthew Wilbur, ARL vehicle technology directorate senior research engineer.

Wilbur said the funding under the Red Teaming initiative with ASA (ALT) helped CTEF continue research and assessment efforts.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said the Defense Department needs to avoid sequestration in order to fund critical investments amid the five global challenges the U.S. currently faces, DoD News reported Thursday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Carter cited terrorism, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as the strategic challenges that direct DoD’s planning and budgeting efforts.

He joined Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and DoD Comptroller Mike McCord at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday on DoD’s budget request of $582.7 billion for fiscal year 2017.

Carter said the Pentagon would be able to prevent $100 billion in automatic budget cuts and support critical investments once sequestration is avoided.

Jim Garamone also reported for DoD News that Dunford called on Congress to adequately fund “a bow wave of procurement requirements” in order to help the joint force counter current and future threats.

These acquisition requirements include the Ohio-class submarine replacement program, long-range strike bomber and continued investments in cyber and space domains.

“And unless we reverse sequestration, we will be unable to execute the current defense strategy, and specifically unable to address the challenges that Secretary Carter outlined,” Dunford said.