By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON – With clear direction from President Barack
Obama and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, the new U.S. Pacific Command chief
said he’s using the new strategic guidance as a roadmap as he sets priorities
and engages with the region.
Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, who
assumed his post in March, said he feels fortunate to have taken command when
the strategic guidance succinctly defines leadership emphasis and priorities
across his vast area of responsibility.
“Every military commander wants to know
what is expected of him or her and how to proceed toward the future,” Locklear
said during an interview with American Forces Press Service. “So the president
and the secretary of defense have given me through their strategic guidance
clear direction on what they want [and] what they expect to see.”
The 14-page strategic guidance, released
in January, recognizes challenges as well as opportunities in a region that
covers 52 percent of the earth’s surface and includes some 3.6 billion people
in 36 nations. Asia and the Pacific, Locklear noted, represent half the world’s
trade, a transit point for most of its energy supplies, and home to three of
the world’s largest economies and most of its major militaries.
“I think the strategy is recognition
that we, as an American people, are a Pacific nation,” as well as an Atlantic
nation, the admiral said. “We are a Pacific nation, and what happens in the
Asia-Pacific matters to us. And this strategy helps reemphasize that.”
In implementing the new guidance,
Locklear has outlined five basic priorities for Pacom:
-- Strengthen and advance alliances and
partnerships;
-- Mature the U.S.-China
military-to-military relationship;
-- Develop the U.S.-India strategic
partnership;
-- Remain prepared to respond to a
Korean Peninsula contingency; and
-- Counter transnational threats.
Alliances and partnerships are key
factors for regional security and stability, Locklear said. He vowed to work to
strengthen the United States’ alliances with South Korea, Japan, the
Philippines, Australia and Thailand.
“These alliances are historic,” he said.
“They underpin our strategy in the region and they underpin the security
arrangements in the region.”
Locklear noted promising developments
within these alliances, such as the new Marine rotations in Australia and
improving special operations and counterterrorism capabilities in the
Philippines’ armed forces.
Pacom also will focus on establishing
and building partnerships with other nations that share the United States’
interest in security and economic prosperity and increasingly, human rights, he
said.
“We are going to put more time and
effort into making sure that those relationships are built for the future,” the
admiral said.
Locklear recognized the United States’
already-strong military-to-military ties with Singapore and its “very much
improving” relationships with Indonesia.
In addition, the United States wants a
long-term strategic relationship with India, a large regional democracy and
rising economic power that’s also increasing in military capability.
“We hope to partner with them to share
the strategic landscape as it applies to how we apply security to the globe
that allows prosperity and peace, freedom of movement and allows prosperity in
the world,” the admiral said.
Locklear said he also hopes to
strengthen military-to-military relations with China. China is an emerging
power with many significant decisions to make, he said, adding that the United
States would like to play a role in helping influence those decisions in a way
that promotes a secure global environment.
“One way to do that is to communicate
better,” Locklear said. “The last thing you want to have is miscalculation
between large militaries.”
One way to build trust and confidence
between those militaries, Locklear said, is through military-to-military
operations.
“You learn to operate together, you
learn to cooperate, you learn about each other’s families. You get a personal
view of each other” that can pay off in helping resolve any differences that
may arise.
Locklear said North Korea looms as the
most-pressing trouble spot. Its new, untested leader and its pursuit of nuclear
weapons in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and world pressure
create a tenuous, unstable situation.
“If there is anything that keeps me
awake at night, it’s that particular situation,” the admiral said. “We have to
ensure that we maintain as much of a stable environment on the Korean Peninsula
as we can.”
Transnational threats pose another
concern and area of emphasis for Pacom. Locklear identified cyber threats as
the most daunting, noting the importance of secure networks not only for
Pacom’s military operations, but also for regional stability and economic
viability.
The admiral said his command’s Cyber
Pacific organization is working closely with U.S. Strategic Command and U.S.
Cyber Command to identify better ways to defend Pacom’s networks.
“No matter what happens out there on the
Internet and Facebook, we still have to be able to operate the networks that
allow us to produce combat power,” Locklear said. “And so one of my priority
jobs is to ensure those [command] networks will survive when they have to
survive.”
Terrorism is another major concern for
Pacom, the admiral said, as violent extremists increasingly seek safe havens in
the Asia-Pacific region. Locklear said he recognizes the need to continue
adapting U.S. forces to deal with the challenge.
“In the terrorist world, as you squeeze
on one side of the balloon, it pops out somewhere else. [Terrorists] look for
areas of opportunity. And they find areas of opportunity in places that are
disenfranchised, that have poor economies and opportunity to change the mindset
of the people looking for a better life but don’t know how to get it.”
Locklear said the kind of environment
the United States and its allies and partners in the region are working to
promote is the best response.
“In the long run, the solution for that,
I think, is prosperity, and the general sense of security that makes it so that
these terrorist organizations can’t thrive.”
Locklear also noted the problem of
narcotics, particularly methamphetamine production in the region, which
provides the financing for terrorists to operate.
“We are seeing an increasing amount of
that activity. And that money, we know, goes to the terrorist organizations,”
he said. “So we are going to have to make sure we keep our focus pretty tightly
on this, because that transnational threat is equal or more damaging to our
national security than any of the others.”
In leading Pacom’s response to these threats,
Locklear noted the positive impact of more than six decades of U.S. presence in
the region.
“The U.S. military presence in the
Asia-Pacific has provided the security infrastructure that basically underpins
the security environment which has led to an environment that allowed …
emerging economies [and] emerging nations to thrive -- from Japan to Korea to
Australia to the Philippines to China, to the U.S.,” Locklear said. “We are
part of that.”
Pacom’s activities today will have a
long-term impact for the future, the admiral said.
“We have tremendous interest that will
carry forward, not just to the near term, but to our children and our
grandchildren and their children,” he said.
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