Pacific’s top officer details Asia strategy - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Pacific’s top officer details Asia strategy

SAN DIEGO — On his recent trip to Washington, Adm. Robert Willard made a pitch to retain, if not bolster, U.S. military forces once troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan.

Willard, the military’s top officer in the Pacific since 2009, has crisscrossed the Asia-Pacific region in his two years as head of Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Command, overseeing the military’s largest unified combatant command that lives and operates in what he calls “a very challenging area of the world.”

His Pentagon trip in the first week of November came on the heels of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s weeklong travel to Asia, during which the Pentagon chief reinforced his intent to maintain U.S. military presence in the region.

While U.S. military forces in the past decade largely have been focused on the two wars in the Middle East region, security concerns remain primary in the Asia-Pacific region. The region includes five major U.S. trading partners, busy shipping lanes for international commerce, contested islands and ocean resources, transnational terrorist networks, nuclear and missile threats from an unstable North Korea, and China’s growing military that seeks to develop a fleet of aircraft carriers.

Then there are natural disasters — U.S. ships and forces deployed and operating in the region often serve as first-responders.

Asia-Pacific has “some of the most consequential nations in the world located there — all potentially partners, some potentially challengers,” said Willard, who held a media roundtable Oct. 24 during a two-day visit to San Diego. “The question is: Can the nation manage the region and from a security standpoint? Can our armed forces support this region in a way that permits the prosperity that we’ve enjoyed for so many years now?”

Regional issues are familiar ground for Willard, a veteran F-14 Tomcat pilot who commanded U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. He also commanded Japan-based 7th Fleet and was Carrier Strike Group 5 commander aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in Yokosuka, Japan.

Those experiences provide perspectives about cultural and political sensitivities in the diverse region that may come in handy as he guides the command through the military’s broader budget cuts and postwar drawdown.

Questions and responses from the roundtable are edited for space.

Q. Is the Pacific better positioned today to argue that is going to demand more attention and forces?

A. We made two decisions in terms of distribution of fleet assets while I was the PACFLEET commander: One was 60 percent of submarines in the Pacific, the other was 60 percent of operational aircraft carriers in the Pacific. So the shift has already occurred. ... Certainly, the forces that we have been contributing to the Middle East over the past 10 years, we look forward to their return to the Pacific.

So there has been about a 10 percent deficit at any given time over 10 years as we contributed Pacific Fleet forces, mainly Army and Marine Corps, to the Middle East region.

The Middle East remains a very difficult area for the United States and the rest of the world from a security standpoint, so there will have to be an ongoing investment made there. But I don’t think that it will continue to impact the Asia-Pacific in the way that two wars have.

Q. How much of a threat is China in the coming decade?

A. Managing China’s expansion ... is a strategic challenge and takes up a great deal of my time. I am trying to advance the relationship. ... This past year has been better in terms of the extent of dialogue, especially military-to-military dialogue, ... but it’s not to say there aren’t still challenges. So as you look at China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, it hasn’t gone away. They essentially are contesting that everything in the South China Sea, including international water space, is China’s equity. ... Those are areas where United States’ interests and China’s interests are divergent.

Their military expansion continues to be dramatic. At the same time, China’s economic expansion has assisted all of the Asia-Pacific — and I would offer the world — so there are a great many positives as a consequence of China’s dramatic expansion, and there are some challenges that are growing out of it that we need to deal with.

Q: China says the U.S. doesn’t belong in that part of the world. What do you tell them?

A. [Former Defense Secretary Robert] Gates said it best: We are a Pacific power, an Asia-Pacific power, and will remain so. We’ve been on the water in the South China Sea for 150 years, protecting the sea lanes of communication, the U.S. interests and making investments in the region. ... We are connected by the Pacific Ocean, and we are vested there in every way. So from a security standpoint, it is in our interest to be there.

From an economic standpoint, certainly in our interest to be there, and part of our responsibility in the Pacific Command is to enable that engagement and the transactions that occur between the United States and that part of the world. So we are not going anywhere.

There are things about our presence there that are irritants to China that we have to work our way through. But at the same time, they have a great vested interest in their relationship with the United States.

I think if you were to ask them, what country is the most consequential to enabling China’s development, it’s the U.S. and their economic relationship with this country.

Q. A big flashpoint is China’s claims in the South China Sea.

A. It’s a confluence of issues in the South China Sea. We don’t take sides. There are six contestants in this — China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. All claim more or less the features in the South China Sea.

There’s the issue of the resources in the South China Sea, whether we are talking about fish or natural gas or petroleum. It’s considered to be a resource-rich area that has not been fully tapped, but many countries have been invested there.

It’s a broad claim on the maritime expanse of the South China Sea, aside from the features. And so when you then lay the complexity of the sea lanes of communication that carry $5 trillion of commerce, and the need to protect that on a daily basis, you begin to see the complexity of the challenge down there, both for the United States and the contiguous nations in and around there and for China and their commerce, because they are very reliant on what floats through the Straits of Malacca and northward to the markets.

The presence of the U.S. military in the region has both an assuring effect on our allies and partners and a deterrent effect on the potential challengers, whether that’s someone trafficking in humans and narcotics or arms, or whether that’s somebody who wants to contest the space.

So we are there as a deterrent force and we are also there as an assurance force, I think, for the allies and partners that rely on us.

Q. Are we going to see more carriers, ships in the region to support these U.S. goals?

A. We have the [George Washington Carrier] Strike Group there. It’s not unusual for me to have a couple of strike groups operating in the region. GW is out and about, always, unless it is in a maintenance availability, and whatever West Coast deployer is out there generally we capture and, during its transits east [and] west, it conducts business for us while it’s in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.

There is a requirement that I pretty much sustain for a carrier strike group in the region. It’s more than one. It’s not quite two right now on a daily basis just to maintain the level of exercise and work we have for them. I’ve enjoyed that pretty consistently even with the wars.

Q. Do you need more?

A. Hey, I’ll take six. When things are stable out there, and they are not always, ... do I require two aircraft carriers on station at all times? Probably not. But I have to have a response capability, and I need a presence for the deterrent power that it has.

North Korea is not inconsequential in this whole discussion. They remain probably the most urgent threat or challenge that we face out there because of the unpredictability of the North Koreans, and carrier strike groups have assisted in the past in the deterrence efforts that we have exerted toward them. So they are a great value to us out there, both as a deterrent and as an exercise platform in the region and as a response platform.

Q. With China developing one aircraft carrier and planning soon for a second, what is the U.S. strategy?

A. I think it’s more of a visible symbol than a true capability as yet. It’ll take some years for them to develop a carrier air wing and carrier group construct that goes with it. We expect in typical Chinese fashion that they will attempt to generate a capability as soon as they possibly can, and they generally have done very well with that.

They are underpinned by a strong economy and, as a consequence, their military has grown fat, so I don’t have any doubts that will see that carrier advance. They have expressed ... an intention to build a couple more, so I do expect to see carrier construction ongoing during this decade.

Allies and partners in the region don’t yet understand China’s intentions in having a power projection capability like an aircraft carrier and a strike group, so they are asking China the question. China doesn’t typically disclose those things. They are not particularly transparent about their capabilities at the tactical level, so they will likely maintain some level of [vagueness] in what they intend with these aircraft carriers. But it’s having an effect on the region, there’s no question.

We are not intending to impede their development. We are working very hard to engage China and bring whatever capabilities they have to bear in the region in a constructive way to contribute to the security in the region, not to challenge it.

Q. How do you calm nerves in Taiwan and Tokyo?

A. Our presence is one of those ways. The close association we have ... with allies ... and partners in the region and our continued posture and presence in the region are how you maintain assurance.

So as we see power balance shifting as China develops a very consequential military, the continued U.S. presence becomes increasingly important to those partners in the region because it provides the counterbalance that we feel they need.

Q: So does this shift the U.S. strategy in Asia?

A. Strategy, no. Could it require reconsideration of how we are postured and present in Asia? It could, yes, depending on how things work out in terms of managing China’s rise.

The posture and presence dimensions of this are constantly under my review. So that I represent back to the Pentagon and with the service chiefs to understand how many ships, how many Army divisions, how many Marine expeditionary groups and how many Air Force wings I require at any given time and where ... in order to optimize our responsibilities in the region.

Whenever I can’t achieve the kind of posture that I desire, then I am compelled to deploy and employ and sustain forces in the region to maintain presence, and we are committed to both. ... There’s a North Korea dynamic in this that has caused us to consider the posture of ballistic missile defense ships and capabilities there, that has caused me to make changes over the past several years.

So as we scope the region from the standpoint of the combat power and the challenges that we face, we are continually tinkering with adjusting the posture and presence to deal with it.

Q. Will we see more ballistic-missile defense ships in the Pacific?

A. I would say that if we see more ballistic missile threat, we will see more BMD ships. This becomes more a calculus of: Are we properly postured to face whatever challenges that we are facing out there and are present in the right places, on a day-to-day basis, to deal with it, both to be responsive and to have the capability on hand against the kind of response timelines that we feel they require.

Q. We’ve seen recent cases of alcohol-linked misconduct and sailors caught using spice. What are your concerns with how that affects the fleet and forces?

A. Of course it’s not just Navy. ... Trends change, in terms of how they use legal drugs and alcohol. ... Things that are just more abusive in terms of alcohol is a concern, and that migrates into military activities, of course. So this is now [about] how aware are we of what is really occurring among the younger generation of sailors, and soldiers and airmen and Marines?

When they are celebrating, do we know how they are using alcohol in those celebrations? I think it’s very important that senior leadership, that senior enlisted leadership, remain aware of what both the popular trends are and how that translates into use by our forces.

Q. Thousands of individual augmentees are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. What assurances that you can give them in a time of drawdown they are not going to pay a price when they come back to their parent command?

A. I was the vice chief of the Navy when we invented the individual augments to go in an help our Army and Marine Corps brethren out in combat support, combat service support areas, and it’s only broadened since then.

We went through great pains to ensure that individual augments were rewarded for that experience. We felt that it was valuable in a joint-service environment to have that exposure to other services. We felt it was a sacrifice that they were making and that it should be a favorable consequence in future evaluations and selection boards and that sort of thing. So in the precepts of our board statutory boards, and in the way in which we are approaching the evaluations of these individuals, they are rewarded for this.

If you’ve served successfully, it will enhance your career and not detract from it.