By Karen Parrish
American Forces Press Service
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT – The challenge for the United States in the
Asia-Pacific region is translating strategy into action, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday.
On his way to Singapore for the 11th
annual Asia security summit known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, Army Gen. Martin
E. Dempsey told American Forces Press Service that the U.S. “pivot to the
Pacific” isn’t about establishing American dominance in the region.
Rather, he said, the goal is to work
with regional partners to sustain and strengthen a cooperative security
environment among Asian-Pacific nations.
The chairman noted that in this, his
first visit to the dialogue, he wants to hear what other nations’ officials
have to say on topics such as territorial disputes in the region’s seas. China
and the Philippines both claim the South China Sea waters around Scarborough
Shoal, and China and Japan dispute the area surrounding the Senkaku Islands in
the East China Sea, near Okinawa.
Dempsey said the United States does not
take sides in territorial disputes and encourages disputing parties to resolve
such issues without coercion.
“What I already know is that we’ve been
very clear about the need for cooperation in the maritime domain [involving]
freedom of navigation,” he said. “I think that’s exactly the right position to
place ourselves. But beyond that, I want to hear what these 27 nations [at the
Shangri-La Dialogue] have to say, both to us and to each other -- because it
will clearly be one of the most prominent issues.”
From the national strategic level where
he works, the chairman said, the first priority in rebalancing defense strategy
toward the Asia-Pacific region involves what he calls “intellectual bandwidth.”
“We’ve developed, over the course of 10
years, a core of real experts in the Middle East,” Dempsey said. “We need to
form that same core of professionals for whom [Asia-Pacific expertise] is a
lifelong work.”
The second step in the strategic shift
to the Asia-Pacific region is to build on that increased bandwidth to create
and explore new opportunities to increase regional security, he said.
“We have to make that intellectual shift
… and then listen to the signals that we receive from our partners,” he added,
noting that standing, multinational forums often are able to deal with security
issues before they become crises.
“I think that’s the great strength of
NATO,” Dempsey said.
A security organization similar to NATO
involving many Asia-Pacific nations’ participation may have value, the general
said, but only if other nations want it.
“We would have to see the appetite for
that among our partners and not just try to in some way impose it on them,”
Dempsey said.
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