This Week in DOW: Unleashing AI, Growing Australian Partnership, Breaking Ground for Future Spacecom Home

In July, President Donald J. Trump released his plan for how the U.S. will become the dominant player in the global artificial intelligence race. The War Department is now playing a big role in that effort.

Earlier this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth unveiled the department's own AI tool, GenAI.mil.

"The future of American warfare is AI, and the U.S. military will not be behind," Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said today during the department's Weekly Sitrep video. "We are revolutionizing the way we win, and we are innovating our operations on every level. This new platform is now at the fingertips of our warfighters and our civilian personnel to expedite efforts and give the services an advantage over the enemy."

Visitors to the department's new AI platform will find a specialized version of the Google AI tool Gemini, known as Gemini for Government. This version is approved to handle controlled unclassified information. A green banner at the top of the page reminds users of what kinds of information can and can't be processed. Other tools from additional American companies will also be available soon.

The new tool, Hegseth said, can help write documents, answer questions, conduct deep research and format content.

"I expect every member of the department to log in, learn it and incorporate it into your workflows immediately," he said. "AI should be in your battle rhythm every single day; it should be your teammate. By mastering this tool, we will outpace our adversaries."

The department this week also spent significant time with longtime ally, Australia, at both the State Department building and the Pentagon.

On Dec. 8, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with their Australian counterparts as part of the 40th Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations.

As part of the gathering, Hegseth and Rubio met with Australia's Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong to discuss issues such as enhanced force posture, strengthening of the U.S. and Australian defense industrial bases, and access to rare earth and other critical minerals important to the defense industry.

Later in the week, the secretary hosted a defense minister trilateral meeting at the Pentagon with Marles and United Kingdom Defense Secretary John Healey.

"In line with the shared intent to move 'full steam ahead' on [the Australia, U.K. and U.S. trilateral security agreement], the principals recognized the work underway to deliver priority infrastructure and workforce uplift in support of an enhanced trilateral submarine industrial base," Wilson said.

The AUKUS agreement includes two pillars. The first pillar involves the delivery of a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability to Australia, as well as significant investments in the industrial bases of all three partner nations.

As part of that plan, Australia will buy three Virginia-class submarines from the U.S. to be delivered in the 2030s. Together, all three partner nations will also develop a new platform called SSN-AUKUS, which is expected to be ready for use by the U.K. in the 2030s and by Australia in the 2040s.

The War Department recently concluded a review of the AUKUS agreement meant to identify opportunities to strengthen it and ensure its long-term success, in alignment with the president's America First agenda.

In October, President Donald J. Trump confirmed the U.S. is going "full steam ahead" on the AUKUS deal.

"You see through AUKUS, and the review that we conducted, a continued commitment to a pragmatic, practical application of hard power between our countries that reflects peace through strength, and also hard power - real capabilities - that demonstrate a deterrent effect that we all want," Hegseth explained.

At the southern border, the Interior Department and the War Department partnered again to strengthen border security.

"This week, the Interior Department will transfer jurisdiction of roughly 760 acres of public land in California to the Department of the Navy for a three-year period in order for the Navy to establish the fifth national defense area to support our ongoing border security operations," Wilson said.

According to DOI, the land area being transferred stretches from the western boundary of the Otay Mountain Wilderness area to about 1 mile west of the California-Arizona state line. That corridor of land is one of the highest-traffic regions for unlawful crossings along the southern border.

Once the Navy accepts jurisdiction of that land, it will become part of a national defense area - a specified piece of federal land over which DOW maintains administrative authority and jurisdiction and is permitted to establish and enforce a controlled perimeter and access.

Service members stationed at the border and operating on that land will have greater authority to execute their mission. They will be governed by the same rules as when they are defending any other military installation, such as apprehending trespassers and passing them to appropriate civilian or federal law enforcement officials.

Finally this week, Hegseth and the department moved forward with relocating the headquarters of U.S. Space Command from Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

"Secretary Hegseth is in Rocket City, Alabama, to break ground on our rightfully relocated Space Command headquarters and to meet with defense industry leaders," Wilson said. "Secretary Hegseth is committed to rebuilding our defense industrial base - the arsenal of freedom. A strong defense industrial base that's American-made means a strong economy and a strong America."

In September, Trump and Hegseth announced the decision to move Spacecom to Alabama. At the time, the president said the move would result in more than 30,000 jobs for the state of Alabama, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in investments. He also said Spacecom would play a key role in building the planned Golden Dome for America missile defense system.

At the groundbreaking, Hegseth said the president has a deep understanding of the importance of space to America's defense.

"President Trump has understood the importance of the space domain from the beginning - from his first term," Hegseth said. "From recognizing the importance of the need for Space Force, to the recognition of reestablishing Spacecom ... to choosing this place.

"It is common sense that this is precisely where Space Command should be," he said. "It is common sense that we need to move rapidly and expeditiously, and we will."

The groundbreaking for Spacecom is just one of the many bricks the department is laying to help America achieve the president's peace through strength initiative.

"When you look at what we're doing at the Department of War ... we are defending the homeland in the hemisphere, we're deterring adversaries, we're working with our allies to burden share and shift those burdens, we're looking at rebuilding the defense industrial base - which is what we are doing here - we're reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military and reestablishing deterrence," he said.