WASHINGTON \u2014 Amid North Korea\u2019s nuclear and missile projects and China\u2019s growing influence in the region, the head of U.S. Army Pacific Command, Gen. Robert Brown, has refocused the organizations mission to focus on defining critical doctrine and fostering stronger relationships with allies and partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Indo-Pacific region has become ground zero for developing the U.S. Army\u2019s Multi-Domain Operations, or MDO, concept, which is meant to serve as its capstone war-fighting doctrine in the years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. Army Pacific Command recently hosted a pilot program of the service\u2019s MDO task force, essentially designed to test the future doctrine. Brown has been particularly well-suited to command USARPAC as it helps develop the doctrine, having previously led the Army\u2019s Combined Arms Center, where doctrine is applied to training and operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he continues to reshape how exercises are conducted in the Pacific, Defense News sat down with the four-star at the Association of the U.S. Army\u2019s recent annual conference in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army has spearheaded some multidomain operations experimentation through the Multi-Domain Operations Task Force, but what are other priorities you have coming this year?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
[Multi-Domain Operations] is a key priority. As you look, multidomain operations are clearly the future. We don\u2019t have dominance in any one domain anymore, and the way adversaries have been preparing to compete against us, we require really an evolutionary process of multidomain that has revolutionary impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some of the other key things: Readiness remains the No. 1 priority \u2014 has to be, of course. We\u2019re in the Pacific. We still have to be ready for any threat that\u2019s out there, and while the diplomatic effort is the lead with North Korea, and we certainly hope that works out, we have to be ready in case it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there\u2019s really a hypercompetition across the Pacific that\u2019s occurring. So we\u2019re really working hard to maintain the international rules-based order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army conducts Pacific Pathways, an exercise that takes place every year with multinational partners. How is the service evolving this exercise?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s been going on about six years now. We\u2019re adjusting it this year slightly; well, actually it\u2019s a pretty significant adjustment. Before, really, we would go to four or five countries and show how we could deploy and be tailorable, scalable, really help build our readiness. You can talk about going somewhere rapidly, but unless you do it the way you would if you had to in a conflict, you aren\u2019t going to be any good at it. You\u2019ve got to practice it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now what we\u2019re doing is instead of four or five countries and staying a few weeks in each, we\u2019re going to go and stay longer. I call it Pacific Pathways 2.0, where we\u2019ll go and stay up to four, maybe even up to six months, in a country. So we\u2019ll go to fewer countries but stay longer, and then from there, we\u2019ll still do some hub and spoke to smaller countries and other venues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s pretty exciting because it will really help build those alliances and partnerships. You can think it\u2019ll help build our readiness, of course, but if you\u2019re in a country four months working together, you\u2019re going to really build relationships that will be key if there\u2019s a crisis out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s in countries where we\u2019ve done Pacific Pathways already. Now, we have to work with those countries to shape the ability to stay longer. Most of them are very excited about that because, again, we\u2019re not going to do anything alone. We\u2019re going to do it with our multinational allies and partners, and that\u2019s the trend in the world. It would be foolish to do something alone. And so they\u2019re very excited about it. But it\u2019s countries like Japan, [South] Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and then eventually, I think, Vietnam. But we\u2019ve still got to work through that until we\u2019re doing more and more with Vietnam. So all those countries, except Vietnam, we\u2019ve done Pacific Pathways before, and we\u2019ll work to stay longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What else is brewing for U.S. Army Pacific Command in relation to this effort?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other thing that we\u2019ll do is put a U.S. Army brigade at the highest state of readiness west of the international dateline 10 months out of the year. So that gives the INDOPACOM [Indo-Pacific Command] commander some very good options. He has forces that are at the highest state of readiness working with allies that can do disaster response; non-command evacuation operation; or, God forbid, conflict. He\u2019s got those forces there, or as a flexible deterrent option, as well, to prevent conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the last part of it for Pacific Pathways \u2026 the most exciting part of it, I think, is next year, 2019, we\u2019ll actually have a multidomain task force, a brand-new concept that we\u2019re moving towards doctrine, that will be operating in all domains and will be in the Pacific in Pacific Pathways. It\u2019ll be in Orient Shield, the exercise in Japan. And we\u2019ll actually have a multidomain task force for the first time ever. We\u2019ve had portions of it in exercises, but we\u2019ve never really deployed it the way we would for real. And this\u2019ll be the first time we\u2019ll do that. So it\u2019s a very exciting time, lots going on, and very important because the multidomain concept applies across the globe. It\u2019s not just the Pacific. You would need it across the entire globe in any conflict or any region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is it important to have Pacific Pathways units embedded in countries for a longer period of time? I imagine you\u2019re not going this coming year to all of those countries you listed. Where will you start?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason we want to stay longer, it\u2019s all about relationships. You don’t want to form a relationship in a crisis. So if you\u2019re in a country longer, you can learn from each other no matter what country you\u2019re in. Our forces learn from the other forces. They learn from us. And you really learn to fight together as a cohesive team, and you learn to operate together. And it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many times there are language barriers. There\u2019s technology barriers. There\u2019s all these. So when you\u2019re there for a couple of weeks, it\u2019s tough to get into really complex issues. You hit the surface. When you\u2019re there for four months, you\u2019re going to get into all the issues, and you\u2019re really going to work them out, have time to work them out and really be able to work together. And what\u2019ll happen is our readiness will go up in our units, and their readiness will go up. And then our interoperability will improve. So therefore, you\u2019re building those great alliances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And by the way, in the Pacific … we have seven alliances in the world. Five of them are in the Pacific with Japan, [South] Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Australia. And so that\u2019s really key. Those alliances are the highest priority. And then, of course, other partners, friends that you want to work with and develop those so maybe they become alliances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When folks see that type of relationship, they\u2019re less likely to do something that would harm or take away freedom of navigation, freedom of movement, or hurt the free and open Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration is working to improve relations with North Korea, going so far as to stop some exercises in South Korea. Gen. Robert Abrams, during his confirmation hearing to become the U.S. Forces Korea commander, said the lack of training there affects readiness. What is the Army doing to offset that?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exercises are very important. Obviously you can talk about working together, but until you get together and you sort out the many challenges of … the world\u2019s so complex. How do you get your systems to talk to each other? How do you ensure that you can work together in a way that you don\u2019t go against each other but you both get better from it? And so you need exercise. If you don\u2019t exercise, it\u2019s kind of like preparing a team to go to the Super Bowl and you never practice or you never play a game. That wouldn\u2019t be very good. You want to play against the best competition. You want to work together so you\u2019re a well-organized, well-knit, close-cut team, and that\u2019s what we need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the good news is the challenges with North Korea over the past couple years, I have never seen in my 30-plus years working with [South] Korea, with the ROK [Republic of Korea], I\u2019ve never seen the alliance more rock solid because when you get these challenges, it causes you to get closer together. And so it\u2019s a rock solid alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re continuing to do higher level. … Battalion and below exercises on the peninsula is fine. And that\u2019s working very well at that small unit level. And then above that, we\u2019re doing the higher-level exercises off the peninsula. We just did some in Hawaii, Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Washington state; even Alaska we worked some scenarios, and we invite the ROKs to that. Obviously, not as many can come. It\u2019s not as good as doing an exercise there in [South] Korea, but it\u2019s certainly better than not doing it at all, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it does have an impact. I would say exercises are very, very important, and they really help preserve the peace because when you\u2019re working together, it\u2019s a real deterrent when folks see. That\u2019s pretty powerful when you can work very well together. I think that had a lot to do with them [North Korea] coming to the negotiating table. They see the close relationship and realize: \u201cWhy would we want to fight against those guys? We\u2019d lose. There\u2019s no doubt about it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Indo-Pacific region has become ground zero for developing the U.S. Army\u2019s Multi-Domain Operations concept, which is meant to serve as its capstone war-fighting doctrine in the years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":35726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":13,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[45,160,11,13,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3330],"class_list":["post-17776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-daily-news-roundup","category-global","category-interviews","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"KWXB4RYJM5C5DNVYMCJ6BVQOG4","arc_canonical_url":"\/interviews\/2018\/11\/26\/head-of-us-army-pacific-command-talks-multidomain-challenges-in-the-region\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n