Willard Details Pacific Command’s Mission, Scope

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2011 — Man­ag­ing the rela­tion­ship with Chi­na and grow­ing the rela­tion­ship with India are two of U.S. Pacif­ic Command’s key objec­tives, the organization’s com­man­der said.

Navy Adm. Robert F. Willard also told reporters attend­ing the Asia-Pacif­ic Eco­nom­ic Con­fer­ence in Hawaii that the com­mand must counter the threats posed by North Korea. 

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma host­ed the APEC meet­ing in Hon­olu­lu, where Willard and Deputy Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor Ben Rhodes high­light­ed Amer­i­can secu­ri­ty con­tri­bu­tions to the region. 

The Unit­ed States is a Pacif­ic pow­er with about 320,000 uni­formed mem­bers, civil­ians and con­trac­tors assigned in the region, Willard said. U.S. forces, he added, are for­ward deployed in Japan and South Korea and post­ed aboard ships through­out the region. 

Willard detailed the five areas of focus in the region, with Chi­na lead­ing the list. The U.S. rela­tion­ship with Chi­na, he said, is under­go­ing tremen­dous change giv­en China’s eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary advancements. 

U.S. mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary pol­i­cy with Chi­na, the admi­ral said, is to encour­age the Chi­nese to be more trans­par­ent about their mil­i­tary and mil­i­tary spend­ing. U.S. and Chi­nese forces, he said, are con­duct­ing search and res­cue exer­cis­es and are exchang­ing stu­dents at all levels. 

“One of my char­ters is to improve the rela­tion­ship, mil-to-mil, between the Unit­ed States and the Chi­nese,” Willard said. 

Anoth­er focus is on North Korea. Since the 1953 Kore­an War Armistice Agree­ment end­ing the shoot­ing on the penin­su­la, the admi­ral said, the Unit­ed States and its allies have been deter­ring North Korea and main­tain­ing the armistice across the Demil­i­ta­rized Zone. 

“And in this day,” he said, “North Korea is pos­ing addi­tion­al chal­lenges in terms of nucleariza­tion, pro­lif­er­a­tion, the sta­bil­i­ty con­struct with­in North Korea, and of course, they’re under­go­ing succession.” 

The Unit­ed States is work­ing with ally South Korea to deter provo­ca­tions such as last year’s North Kore­an sink­ing of the South Kore­an Navy ship Cheo­nan and the attack against Yeon­pyeong Island. “We’ll con­tin­ue to rein­force the alliance, con­tin­ue to strength­en it,” Willard said. 

Anoth­er focus is on transna­tion­al threats rang­ing from nuclear and mis­sile pro­lif­er­a­tion to traf­fick­ing in humans and drugs, to vio­lent extrem­ist organizations. 

“We’re laid down in the south­ern Philip­pines, con­tin­u­ing to con­tain the Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiyah, two extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions that threat­en both the sta­bil­i­ty of the south­ern Philip­pines and the region,” Willard said. 

In South Asia, the Unit­ed States is work­ing to con­tain Lashkar-e-Tai­ba, a Pak­istani-based extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion that attacked Mum­bai. “We find our­selves work­ing with part­ners in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lan­ka and Mal­dives to build their capac­i­ties to deal with this orga­ni­za­tion inde­pen­dent­ly,” the admi­ral said. 

India, with a large, grow­ing econ­o­my and the largest democ­ra­cy in the world, is anoth­er focus for Pacif­ic Command. 

“We have … a strate­gic part­ner­ship that con­tin­ues to grow, both gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary,” Willard said of U.S. rela­tions with India. 

India has the largest mil­i­tary in South Asia, the admi­ral said, yet the U.S.-India mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary rela­tion­ship is rel­a­tive­ly new. 

“We were not par­tic­u­lar­ly close dur­ing the Cold War, and when we did begin to reen­gage, those rela­tion­ships were inter­rupt­ed fol­low­ing nuclear tests in the late 1990s,” he said. “From a mil­i­tary stand­point, we’ve been engaged with India for only about sev­en or eight years. 

“We engage with the Indi­an armed forces across all the ser­vices,” the admi­ral con­tin­ued, “and we con­tribute to issues such as pira­cy in the Gulf of Aden and else­where in the Indi­an Ocean region, and broad­er mar­itime secu­ri­ty through­out the region.” 

Pacom also main­tains good rela­tions with many oth­er nations in the region, the admi­ral said. Aus­tralia, Japan, South Korea, Thai­land and the Philip­pines are treaty allies, and the com­mand also main­tains ties with key friends such as Indone­sia, Viet­nam, Sin­ga­pore, Malaysia and oth­ers in the region. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →