By Jim Garamone, DoD News, Defense Media Activity
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT -- Freedom of navigation and
issues of sovereignty were front and center as Navy Undersecretary Thomas B.
Modly journeyed through Oceana.
The undersecretary spoke to reporters via phone from Guam.
The trip involved stops in Kiribati and its capital on the island of Tarawa.
Modly and his party also visited Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, and the Federated States of Micronesia, and
it ended in Guam.
Defense Secretary James N. Mattis asked Modly to make the
trip. “It was a fascinating trip for me, having not spent too much time in this
region in either my professional or personal life,” he said.
The vastness of the Pacific theater impressed on him and
reinforced the “tyranny of distance” that the area entails, Modly said. He
added that he also was impressed by “the broad range of friendships and
partnerships we have across the region in these small island nations who have
big challenges.”
Mattis encouraged Modly to take the trip to cultivate and
reinforce U.S. partnership with the nations. He noted that the second line of
effort in the National Defense Strategy is to build and strengthen partnerships
and alliances. “This is part of that effort to get out here to insure our
friends that the United States is committed to freedom of navigation and peace
and prosperity for the region,” he said.
Freedom of navigation is the key concern for the nations.
More than 80 percent of their economic zones are water. “When you look at that
and you look at it on a map, they are heavily dependent on access to those
waters, and also [on] control and maintenance of those waters for fishing,” Modly
said.
Fishing is the primary source of revenue for the nations,
and protecting fisheries and sovereignty is of primary importance.
Freedom of Navigation
Modly, who served in the Navy from 1983 to 1990, said that
freedom of navigation was important to the United States then and it is just as
important today. “From my perspective, … I don't think that's really changed:
these are international waters, and they’re governed by international rules,”
he said.
The people of the region are concerned about their ability
to maintain freedom of navigation. Modly assured them that the United States
and its allies in the region are committed to maintain that right.
The islanders are finding it is becoming more difficult to
manage these waters because “more and more countries, or at least commercial
operators from various countries, are encroaching on those areas,” he said.
The islands do not have large navies; they have small coast
guards. “They are investing in some technologies to give them better
situational awareness of what's happening in the seas, and I was introduced to
some very interesting things that they are doing to try and maintain that and
we're trying to help them there as well,” Modly said.
The undersecretary was supposed to visit Chuuk, but the water
landing of an aircraft in the lagoon there stopped that. He offered his
aircraft to evacuate four people injured, but the U.S. Coast Guard already had
that covered.
The Navy did help however, as a Navy underwater construction
team working in the lagoon rescued the passengers and crew of the Air New
Guinea flight. The sailors also will retrieve the planes’ black boxes.
“It is just a great example of how our presence even with
just a few people on these islands can be critical to helping in these types of
situations,” Modly said.
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