Four ways US Army’s Pacific chief plans to boost regional land forces

HONOLULU — America and its Pacific partners are building a network of land forces to deter those who would threaten regional stability, but there are four building blocks to make this joint effort a success, according to the head of U.S. Army forces in the area.

Gen. Charles Flynn’s comments at a gathering of regional military leaders in Hawaii comes as China clashes with nearby nations over territorial disputes, and as North Korea continues to build its nuclear arsenal.

The U.S. Army and its allies and partners in the theater are finding more ways to come together and build relationships, Flynn said, some of which have endured since the end of World War II.

Regional countries must come together and “do so with a sense of urgency often only reserved for the most demanding situations,” Flynn said during his speech at the Association of the U.S. Army’s LANPAC conference.

“The situation now demands it, but we need not go it alone,” he added. “In this region, campaigning for land power provides something that no other foreign military power can. It is something that only land forces deliver. It’s called positional advantage.”

The strategic land power network, which is still taking shape, “must get in position to defend our sovereignty, to protect our people and to uphold their rights under international law,” he said.

There are four steps to accomplishing this, Flynn noted.

“First,” he said, “reorganize the most battle-winning mix of capabilities.”

The U.S. Army’s regionally focused multidomain task forces , Australia’s 10th Brigade, and the cross-domain formations Japan is creating serve as examples of how to reorganize forces to strengthen formations with high-end capabilities, Flynn told Defense News in an interview. In addition, countries in the theater should share their concepts among each other to ensure interoperability, he added.

The U.S. Army has also deployed a security force assistance brigade, a theater fires element and an information warfare directorate into areas near China.

Flynn’s second building block is to regenerate combined joint warfighting capabilities. In other words, “training together, rehearsing together,” he said.

Central to that is bringing the U.S. Army’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center from Hawaii to other countries in the theater as an exportable version, dubbed JPMRC-X. Australia and Indonesia hosted such versions last year; the same is expected to happen in the Philippines this month, where the JPMRC-X will help inform how the country plans to create its own high-level training events.

There’s “an increasing thirst from the region on that, in large measure because they go to our schools and then they have also been to our training centers. Only now, JPMRC is closer and it looks like the environment in the region,” Flynn said.

That type of effort also applies to Flynn’s third building block, which is to reapply land power to create unity of effort, and the fourth block, which is to build enduring advantages through regional posture, “allowing our Army forces to control decisive points.”

The U.S. Army also achieves this through extensive exercises, dubbed Operation Pathways, that continuously run throughout the year.

Flynn noted in his speech that the opportunity to increase multilateral cooperation is the highest he has ever seen. Each drill under Operation Pathways is growing as more move from bilateral to multilateral events, in some cases involving more than a dozen countries.

“Each of your armies has a duty to your nations, but also each of us has something to offer the group represented here today,” Flynn said in his speech. “The demonstration of unity and collective commitment is growing stronger by the day, and I’m very proud of the progress we’re making together because our tactical actions are having operational and strategic effects.”

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

檀香山——据美国陆军驻该地区部队负责人称，美国及其太平洋伙伴正在建立一支陆军网络，以威慑那些威胁地区稳定的势力，但要使这项联合行动取得成功，需要四个组成部分。

查尔斯·弗林将军在夏威夷举行的地区军事领导人会议上发表讲话之际，正值中国与周边国家因领土争端发生冲突，以及朝鲜继续扩充其核武库之时。

弗林表示，美国陆军及其在该战区的盟友和伙伴正在寻找更多方式走到一起，建立关系，其中一些关系自二战结束以来一直延续至今。

弗林在美国陆军协会的LANPAC会议上发表讲话时说，区域各国必须团结起来，“并且要有紧迫感，这种紧迫感通常只有在最严峻的情况下才会出现”。

“目前的形势要求我们这样做，但我们不必孤军奋战，”他补充道。“在这个地区，争夺陆军力量能够提供其他任何外国军事力量都无法提供的东西。这是只有陆军才能做到的。这叫做阵地优势。”

他表示，仍在形成中的战略陆地力量网络“必须就位，以捍卫我们的主权，保护我们的人民，并维护他们在国际法下的权利”。

弗林指出，实现这一目标需要四个步骤。

“首先，”他说，“重新调整最能赢得战斗的能力组合。”

弗林在接受《防务新闻》采访时表示，美国陆军的区域性多域特遣部队、澳大利亚的第10旅以及日本正在组建的跨域部队，都是如何重组部队以加强高端作战能力的典范。他还补充说，战区各国应相互分享经验，以确保互操作性。

美国陆军还向中国附近地区部署了一个安全部队援助旅、一个战区火力分队和一个信息战指挥部。

弗林提出的第二个关键要素是重建联合作战能力。换句话说，就是“共同训练，共同演练”，他说道。

其中最核心的是将美国陆军的联合太平洋多国战备中心（JPMRC）从夏威夷推广到战区其他国家，形成可输出版本，称为JPMRC-X。澳大利亚和印度尼西亚去年已经举办过类似的培训；预计本月菲律宾也将举办类似的培训，JPMRC-X将为菲律宾如何规划自己的高水平训练活动提供参考。

弗林说：“该地区对这方面的需求越来越大，很大程度上是因为他们先是来我们学校学习，然后又来我们培训中心。现在，JPMRC离得更近了，而且看起来该地区的环境也更适合他们。”

这种努力也适用于弗林的第三个建设模块，即重新运用陆军力量来创造统一的行动，以及第四个模块，即通过区域态势建立持久优势，“使我们的陆军部队能够控制决定性地点”。

美国陆军也通过名为“路径行动”的大规模演习来实现这一目标，这些演习全年持续进行。

弗林在演讲中指出，加强多边合作的机会是他前所未见的。随着越来越多的合作从双边转向多边，每次“路径行动”演习的规模都在扩大，有些演习甚至涉及十几个国家。

弗林在讲话中说：“你们每支军队都对各自的国家负有责任，但我们每个人也能为今天在座的各位贡献一份力量。我们展现出的团结和集体承诺日益增强，我为我们共同取得的进展感到非常自豪，因为我们的战术行动正在产生作战和战略上的影响。”

珍·贾德森是一位屡获殊荣的记者，为《防务新闻》报道陆地战争。她也曾为《政治报》和《内幕防务》工作。她拥有波士顿大学新闻学硕士学位和凯尼恩学院文学学士学位。