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.
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