DoD Official Addresses U.S.-Australia Military Integration

By Terri Moon Cronk

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2015 – The United States and Australia have the opportunity to integrate military capabilities through joint combined training and existing technology, the assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs said here yesterday.

As a member of a panel discussion on U.S.-Australia defense ties in the Asia-Pacific region at the Brookings Institution, Wallace “Chip” Gregson addressed the strategic challenges and interoperability of such an alliance.

Gregson said such integration can be bilateral, or it can be trilateral when Japan participates in the U.S.-Australia relationship.

Discussing the challenges and opportunities of U.S.-Australia defense ties, Gregson cited Japanese involvement as an opportunity, noting that Japan is changing its policy and strategy development.

New Japanese Emphasis on Policy Initiatives

“They’re enhancing their military forces. There’s new emphasis on policy initiatives with the U.S. and other Asian partners, particularly Australia,” Gregson said. “And it’s the first time Japan has been able to participate as an active partner … on the security side.”

The Defense Department faces challenges, too, such as a declining budget, Gregson said, in addition to what he called a 21st-century obsession with the war on terror, which he acknowledged is “very dangerous and has to be managed.”

“But we can’t allow it to rob too much intellectual policy and fiscal energy and resources away from the interstate competition and the development of alliance, policy and strategy in that context,” he added.

Gregson also noted challenges in U.S. objectives and strategy in Asia posed by China. “We had a declaration of respect for China’s core interests in 2009,” he said. “We termed them a major security threat in 2012, and there’s a persistent confusion about whatever this new great power relationship is or isn’t.

“It’s complex,” he continued, “[and] the it’s the first time in the modern era that a leading economic partner of many nations, including the United States, is also a source of serious security concerns.”

Enhancing Engagement and Deterrence

If a counterpart joint combined training structure were built in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, it could achieve “a tremendous capability,” Gregson said. “With that capability of integrating our operations when we need to, we can enhance engagement and deterrence,” he added. “We can achieve a widely distributed, politically sustainable, operationally resilient presence around the Asian littoral [region].”

Such integration would have several benefits, among them training commanders “in the very difficult art of maneuvering integrated air, land and sea forces,” Gregson said. Achieving a presence with integrated, agile maneuver forces covering a wide area, he said, would enable achieving the desired defensive conditions, he added.

“These capabilities contribute both to peacetime engagement and capacity building with our partners in Asia and also contribute mightily to deterrence,” Gregson said.