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This transcript is from a CSIS event hosted on June 27, 2025. Watch the full video here.
General Robert Brown (Ret.): Well, good morning, everyone. And welcome both those in person and we have a large audience online, so thanks for joining us for this ninth installment of the Strategic Landpower Dialogue. To me it’s amazing we’re already on number nine. And all have been tremendous.
I’m General Bob Brown, president and CEO of the Association of the United States Army. (Applause.) Well, yeah, thanks. (Applause.) I’ll pay you later, Ron, yeah. (Laughs.) That way, I’ll increase his bio a little bit there, just to thank – no, just kidding. You know, we couldn’t be prouder at AUSA to partner with CSIS on this series.
And I want to also – couldn’t do it without General Dynamics and their team for making this entire critical discussion possible. So thanks to General Dynamics. We’re really grateful for that.
We’re honored to welcome General Ron Clark for today’s discussion on the Army’s role in the Indo-Pacific, without question the nation’s most consequential theater. General Clark took command of the U.S. Army Pacific, the Army’s largest service component command, back in November 2024. And we could spend – I could spend the full 75 minutes going through his bio. He’s got such incredible experience. I won’t do it. (Laughter.) And it’s in your – it’s in both –online you can look up on AUSA and the CSIS websites, if you want to follow all of it. But let me just highlight a few of his command and staff experiences, key ones, as we look.
Just spanning the Indo-Pacific over his career, he was commander of the 25th Infantry Division, of course, stationed there in Hawaii, in the Indo-Pacific. Did a fantastic job on that. I was proud to be able to serve with him while he was in that role. And he was the U.S. Army Pacific chief of staff. He had a real terrible boss when he was in that job. So he was great, but the boss was kind of a pain. That was – that was me. (Laughter.) But he extends beyond the region as well. He commanded U.S. Army Central. He served as a senior military advisor, assistant to the secretary of defense. And he has multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. It makes him exactly the right leader for U.S. Army Pacific at this pivotal moment, this pivotal time. And he’s also, by the way, a proud graduate, 1988 graduate, of West Point. Very proud of that. So the Army and the joint force are incredibly fortunate to have his leadership in this vital role.
And with that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Tom Karako, who I might note came off of vacation for this. (Laughter.) And we’re grateful, Tom. Nobody is better. And so Tom will lead the discussion with General Clark. Tom, over to you.
Tom Karako: Well, thank you, General Brown. Really appreciate it. And, again, the CSIS-AUSA partnership on this has just been fantastic, and a lot of fun.
We always begin with – or, I always begin with, the observation that for all the talk of multi-domain operations, it bears repeating that land is one of the domains. It happens to be the domain on which most human beings spend most of their lives. And you can’t spell homeland without “land.” So our speaker today, General Clark, has really emphasized the importance of land forces in the Indo-Pacific, saying it’s all about the strategic land power network for us. And it’s about people. And it’s never been stronger. The Army is a big organization, and the Pacific is a big place, so we have a lot to talk about. I’ve got a lot of questions, but we’re also taking questions online, which will come through resilient army networks to this tablet. And I’ll be able to direct them to our speaker.
So we always kick this off with our signature question, which is: What is your vision of land power, both today and in the force of 2040, especially as it applies to the Indo-Pacific?
General Ronald Clark: Well, Tom, thanks. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here at CSIS. I want to thank General Brown, sir, for your leadership of AUSA, for your leadership in the Army, and the mentorship you provided to me and many others over the years. Also want to open up by saying we’re not taking any questions out of row three. (Laughter.) Four members of the worst West Point class ever in that row, which includes two of my former roommates. (Laughter.) So, yeah, nothing messes up a good war story like a witness. So I ask you guys – (laughter) – hold your fire.
But back to the question at hand, never more than now the importance of land power is come into the fore in the Indo-Pacific, not just for the United States but for our allies and partners as well. If you think about the region as it pertains to, you know, just the geography, 36 countries, 80 percent of them have an Army chief of staff who is also the chief of defense. So it’s a region that’s characterized by a lot of water, but it’s also important to say that that the land is where sovereignty reigns. And every nation’s capital is on land. So the importance of land forces to ensure that we maintain sovereignty of our nations is very important.
Our ability at U.S. Army Pacific to have positional advantage in the theater through persistent presence is really important. So our efforts to campaign across the theater, really in multiple domains, is really where we try to spend most of our time, with our allies and partners in the first and second island chain, to counter our adversary in China.
Dr. Karako: So, in fact, we kicked off this series with your predecessor, General Flynn, about 18 months ago. I wonder if you could just reacquaint the audience with the scope of your command. What are your priorities? What’s your portfolio and your main care-abouts these days?
Gen. Clark: Sure. First I’d want to talk about the region itself. It’s 52 percent of the Earth’s surface. It’s 16 time zones. The way General Brown described it when he was USARPAC commander, when I was his chief of staff, is it’s from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from India to the West Coast of the United States. So it’s Hollywood to Bollywood, polar bears to penguins, is the way to think about it. (Laughter.) And all things in between. So when you look at the expanse of just space and the tyranny of distance, a good description is the box from Cambodia to Indonesia to Malaysia to the Philippines, which is the area that surrounds the South China Sea. Essentially, that’s the same distance – about 2,000 nautical miles in each direction – from the U.K. to Spain to Turkey to Finland. And that’s just the part around the South China Sea.
So the ability to move from the continental United States to the Asian continent over surface is about a month on water. So it’s one of those – the first thing you have to think about is the tyranny of distance, with regard to that. So our ability to be able to gain positional advantage is all tied to our efforts to campaign inside the first and second island chain, to build positional advantage through our engagements, through our operations, through our activities and investments in the region.
Dr. Karako: Well, it is a big place. And this is the sort of an AOR that gets a lot of frequent flyer miles. So if you talk a bit about where you’ve been traveling and who you’ve been talking with in your area.
Gen. Clark: Sure. I’ll start with just recently, last week, we were in Japan. So their Chief of Army Yasunori Morishita and I had a chance to spend a few minutes together when we conducted the change of command for U.S. Army, Japan. Great teammate. Part of the Land Forces Dialogue that we continue to embark upon that Charlie Flynn, my predecessor, and his teammates began, between the United States, the Philippines, Australia, and the United States. So it’s really been a great effort in teamwork from those four countries to work together.
So from Japan spent time – multiple trips to the Republic of Korea, with General Go, their acting chief of army, to, again, stay connected to our responsibilities on the peninsula. Ironclad relationship. Ironclad alliance with the with the ROKs. We have 22,000 soldiers on the peninsula in Korea. So it’s important that U.S. Army Pacific maintain a very strong presence and great relationship, not just with our ROK partners, but also with U.S. Forces Korea, commanded by Xavier Brunson, who I’d absolutely recommend you get on stage as part of this series as well. Fantastic officer. He’s actually in town. You could probably get him tonight if you try. (Laughter.)
The teammates in the Philippines, we conduct a series of exercises, Balikatan and Salaknib, that basically span the period of time between March and September. So continuous exercise and operations with the Philippine army, which culminated for us, in terms of scope and scale, with our joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center exportable rotation that we just conducted with the Phil Army that ended last week. So, again, great partner. Roy Galido, who is their chief of army, great friend. So it’s, again, an awesome relationship.
We’re about to make our way down to Australia in July for Talisman Sabre, the largest we’ve ever had in Talisman Sabre. Thirty-five thousand soldiers total at Talisman Saber. Nineteen countries participating. We’re going to display and demonstrate some pretty exquisite capability down there. The secretary of defense when he was a Shangri-La Dialogue talked specifically about the midrange capability that we’re deploying to Australia to conduct a live fire. First time we’ve done that outside the continental United States. So that’ll be great.
But the interesting part of this for us is that we’re doing it with the third MDTF, Third Multi-Domain Task Force, side by side with the Australian 10th brigade. So Simon Stuart and I have been coordinating and working through the interoperability associated with that with our staffs, and we really think it’s going to be a great exercise to showcase a number of things – our ability to be able to operate in multiple domains together interoperably, the opportunity to show the importance of logistics and sustainment at scale, because we’re also going to spend some time in Townsville, where we’re building a watercraft capability, pre-positioned stocks also going into that location. So, again, the relationship with the Australians is exceptionally strong.
So across the region, those are just a handful, and those are the key components of the Land Force Dialogue. But it’s a tremendous opportunity, at scale, to operate with our partners and allies across the region.
Dr. Karako: That’s great. And we’ve had General Stuart here from Australia as well, on this stage.
Let me take a step back, and at the end of the day this is all about the threat. And last two administrations, of course, talked about China as the pacing threat. So from where you sit, how have you seen – and just focusing on China for a minute – how have you seen the threat from China change? And what are you seeing today? And how does that kind of affect the big, heavy priorities for your command?
Gen. Clark: It underscores the importance of our focus on China as our adversary because they’re developing capabilities, they’re developing procedures at a pace and scale which heretofore we have not experienced. So Charlie was right in his assessment of the breathtaking pace of their use of technology, the lessons they’re learning from ongoing conflicts, and the ability to be able to operate in a joint capacity, unlike anything we’d seen before. So our opportunity here, one, is to watch and learn, to understand, because of our focus on the land component in China, how they’re operating, what they’re doing, where the gaps and seams are in their learning and their operations, so we can continue to exploit that.
Because what we have to do is provide multiple dilemmas to the Chinese, because they built that A2/AD threat to focus specifically on the air and maritime domains, to keep, you know, our air superiority, maritime superiority at bay. What they have not accounted for is our ability to provide access through multi-domain operations from the land. So our ability to be able to, on and from the land, hold their assets at risk is literally the operationalizing of deterrence that our nation needs at a critical time. So our ability to operate in space, cyber, electronic warfare, information operations, as well as just, you know, the inherent long-range fires capability that comes with the Multi-Domain Task Force, is really what makes it special and gives our adversary pause.
Dr. Karako: Yeah. Well, I want to dig into a number of those things, but let me just stay with the threat. You talked about China. You specifically said something to the effect of the different procedures, innovations that you’re seeing. Can you give us some examples of what you’re seeing them do differently, and how that’s giving us pause?
Gen. Clark: We’re starting to see them operate in a joint environment, where they’re not necessarily – it’s not joint integration at this point, but it’s joint operations side by side between air, maritime, and land domain forces. Unlike anything we’ve seen before. So our ability to be able to see and understand and disrupt their ability to do that is very, very important. We’re watching their behaviors and activities not just in and around the Taiwan problem set, but really across the region. We see them with increasing aggression, belligerence, and using coercion against some of our, you know, allies and partners inside the region. So our ability to be present, to give them an alternative, specifically in the security arena, is very, very important. So presence matters.
Dr. Karako: Well, I specifically asked you to focus on China, but how about some of the other threats? And of course, there’s Korea, but also Russia. What are you kind of seeing in the developments from those folks these days?
Gen. Clark: It’s a great question. The connectivity between the North Koreans and –the North Koreans and Russians in the problem set in Ukraine is concerning, because both countries are learning from each other. It really – it speaks to the fact that our armed forces has been in a state of continuous conflict, if you will, in the entirety of the time that I’ve been in the military. We’ve, in some way, shape, or form, been in some sort of persistent era of conflict for the last almost 40 years. Aur adversaries have not had that type of experience so they can gain the reps and sets that are necessary to learn in environments that lives are literally at stake, specific to North Korea and China. The Russians obviously have.
So their ability to work together and to learn lessons, we have to continue to learn as well. So we have to learn from our Ukrainian teammates, from our teammates in Europe, from our teammates who are operating in the Middle East as well, to ensure that we keep ourselves up to speed and ahead of our adversaries when it comes to the changing characteristics of war. And that’s what the North Koreans are learning really at a great pace in Ukraine, because, I mean, they’re in the fight, which allows you to then learn from mistakes that are not caused by you.
Dr. Karako: So what I hear you emphasizing there is the connectivity between what’s going on in the Ukrainian operations and what’s going on in the Pacific, as opposed to being separate and distinct. There’s active cooperation and there’s a lot of learning going on in terms of that connectivity. Is that right?
Gen. Clark: Well, it’s the difference between interoperability and being in a conflict together. What we hope for in all of our activities with our allies and partners is that what we’re building are relationships. And relationships built during times of relative peace, on a bedrock of trust, is where we rely during times of conflict. So it’s too late once you cross the line of departure to ask the question, can I trust you? So our ability to be able to continue to build those relationships and build interoperability through human-to-human interaction, technical interoperability, and procedural interoperability, is where we try to focus our time and energy. Our adversaries don’t have technical, personal, or procedural interoperability. So we have to continue to cause them multiple dilemmas, continue to work through the challenges associated with the changing character of warfare, and stay ahead of that.
Dr. Karako: Yeah. And, you know, I know that in this town especially there’s a lot of focus on the Taiwan contingency, for instance. But you just emphasized the Filipinos, the Australians, close partnerships there as well. How are you thinking about the prospect of not a contingency, but multiple simultaneous contingencies, where they put the North Koreans up to some shenanigans while these other things are going on? How are you thinking about that?
Gen. Clark: Again, if we only had the luxury of thinking of one problem, that would be OK. But, again, you’re talking about multiple problem sets. We have obviously OPLANs that are associated with every contingency, because that’s our responsibility, that’s our remit, that’s what we have to do. The challenge for us is to operationalize deterrence. So what we do every day prevents war, prevents provocation. We give our adversaries more time on the clock because that’s what the nation demands of us, is that we prevent war through our ability to remain ready, remain relevant, and stay focused on the problem sets – not sequentially, but in real time.
Because some of the problem sets have nothing to do with a belligerent. You know that the Pacific is a ring of fire. Six of the most costly disasters, natural disasters, in human history have occurred in that region. So our ability to have forces in place through persistent presence with our partners and allies where we can come to their assistance if required, for instance, earthquake in Thailand, we have engineers in the Philippines that we can then deploy into that contingency to assist. So it’s more than just active combat scenarios we have to think about, but also our ability to come to the aid of our allies and partners during times of natural disaster.
Dr. Karako: Well, you’ve emphasized, you know, both the allies and our partners, and also the Russians, are currently – increasingly, some of their partners are learning what’s going on in Ukraine. So I wonder if you might be able to connect that for us with the Army’s Transformation in Contact initiative. Both trying to field new capabilities while also operating and kind of iterating on that. What does that mean for USARPAC?
Gen. Clark: So the Army Transformation Initiative, really, you can break it down into really three categories. First, force structure and people. So as we think about the contemporary operating environment and what we need to do to continue to stay ahead and transform faster than the problems that we have to face, first, we have to look at our force structure and how we’re organized to fight.
So we organize right now through a series of relationships and organizations that are hierarchical, that will change. For instance, we’ve conducted an experiment in conjunction with operation – or, with Exercise Yama Sakura and a war fighter exercise in December through multi-domain command experiments to now stand up, as a part of the Army Transformation Initiative, two multi-domain commands in the Indo-Pacific. One in Japan and one at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which would be called Multi-Domain Command Pacific.
Those two commands will provide command and control for theater-level assets associated with our MDTFs. So the First and Third Multi-Domain Task Forces will operate under Multi-Domain Command Pacific and the newest, Fourth Multi-Domain Task Force, will operate under the command and control of U.S. – or, of Multi-Domain Command Japan. So force structure and our ability to be able to train our soldiers to meet the demands of the current battlefield, really important.
So we’ve doubled down on holistic health and fitness, which I give General Brown great credit during his time in the Army, to help us focus on holistically ensuring that our soldiers and their families are resilient for whatever lies ahead. So we’re focusing not just on the materiel and the organizations, but also on the people to ensure that we’re fit across five separate areas that holistic health and fitness focuses on. Then we’re going to upgrade the kit. So our ability to innovate with equipment that we can put rapidly into the hands of war fighters on the ground in the Pacific, where the Chief of Staff of the Army Randy George has prioritized experimentation, is where we are.
So the 25th Infantry Division is one of the Transformation in Contact formations. Their second brigade was one of the first formations to enter into TiC. They have experimented with and provided feedback to the Army on how to iterate on the equipment that we need. So it’s UAS capability that’s modernized. It’s counter-UAS capability, because we know the threats on a modern battlefield include UAS and loitering munitions. It’s our ability to have watercraft that can move materiel rather quickly inter-theater, as we have a responsibility as a theater army to provide sustainment to the joint force.
It’s long-range precision munitions. It’s containerized munitions. It’s loitering munitions. It’s all the capabilities that we see are now burgeoning in multiple theaters in combat, that we want to have the best of those capabilities and continue to iterate and improve so that we put the right capability quickly into the hands of war fighters who need it. And then finally, our ability to be able to do that with allies and partners that, at scale, working alongside of our partners, as we continue to innovate, we bring them with us. Because the relationships are important, but if I can’t pass data, if I can’t talk to you, if we can’t share information, we’re no better than our adversary working side by side. Because the technical and procedural interoperability has to be there in order for us to continue to be successful going forward.
Dr. Karako: Containerized munitions is one of my two favorite words. Rockets and boxes, just has so many amazing potentials. So let’s stay with the contacts piece of that, the two areas of the world where there’s a whole lot of contact going on lately. First up, Ukraine. You know, what would you say are some of the most important observations, innovations, and – I know it’s overused – lessons from Ukraine that apply to the Pacific? I say that because, in part, there’s a number of folks in this town, again, who will say, well, that’s Ukraine. It’s all landlocked, and the Pacific is more air and maritime. So when you look at the Ukraine conflict, what are the lessons for your – for land forces in the Pacific?
Gen. Clark: That’s a great question. And I think, again, it aligns to our ability to operate in multiple domains. So having an understanding of the electronic spectrum, to be able to operate in a degraded environment, to be able to operate disaggregated, because the large grouping of troops and formations are targetable and easy to kill. The capabilities that we’re building under the Army Transformation Initiative help us to not only learn some of the lessons that we’re seeing play out day to day in conflict, but to put those into practice in real time.
So our ability to be able to use capability that we have, build tactics, techniques, and procedures around those capabilities, that allow us – you know, instead of trying to be a needle in a haystack with your electronic magnetic, you know, signature, you are a needle in a stack of needles, which then makes it that much harder to find and target you. So our ability to target our adversaries at scale and our ability to be able to be literally ubiquitous with boxes of rockets at different places, that look like boxes of something else, really gives our adversary pause, because it’s in real time providing deterrence.
Dr. Karako: Beautiful concept there. You mentioned spectrum. And I have to admit, with the debate going on in Congress about spectrum auctions and this kind of thing, I’ve spent a lot of my – more time than I have intended to in the last couple months on this. But we’ve seen a lot of the EW in Ukraine as well, right? A lot of the electronic warfare, jamming, all this sort of stuff. That’s another big piece of it. You mentioned that in your comments there. Care to elaborate on the spectrum piece?
Gen. Clark: It’s, again, one of the capabilities of the Multi-Domain Task Force, inside of the Multi-Domain Effects Battalion, is electronic warfare. So our understanding of how to operate in that environment and to be able to, again, work degraded, because it’s going to be a reality, and then to also degrade our adversaries’ ability to be able to operate inside that spectrum, is very important. So we’re developing capabilities. We’re building upon our knowledge sets. We’re putting it into the hands of soldiers on the ground who, as you well know, will take it, break it, tell us what we can do to fix it, to ensure that we’re getting the best capability into the hands of our teammates who are forward in our theater in real time.
Dr. Karako: Yeah. So one of the other wonderful things you can put in boxes, of course, is drones. And we saw with Operation Spider Web this remarkable display, which I have to say was foretold in the opening scene of the movie, Angel Has Fallen, if you may recall that. But, you know, our Ukrainian friends helped get the Russians back into compliance with New Start by taking out these bombers. There again, the use of these drones, but also the vulnerability – the potential vulnerability of our ground forces. Anything that’s out there parked on an airfield on our side is a target. And hopefully not too juicy of a target. So how are you thinking that from the defensive side as well, and operate – and kind of TTP side?
Gen. Clark: Well, fortunate for us, integrated air and missile defense nests very well with the counter-UAS portfolio. So the understanding of those air defense soldiers, of the problem set when it comes to ballistic missiles, to cruise missiles, is very helpful and enables us to transfer that experience over to our understanding of counter-UAS. The Army has taken the lead for the joint force in terms of development of counter-UAS capability through JCO, which I know you’re familiar with. But General Sean Gainey was the person who birthed that. He’s now the commander of Space Missile Defense Command.
Dr. Karako: When I had him over here we were nerding out about “Angel Has Fallen” was the movie depiction of that problem.
Gen. Clark: There you go. Yeah. So, again, to have, you know, officers who have come up – and NCOs and soldiers who have come up through that family of systems to help us understand and unpack that problem is very important.
Dr. Karako: Yeah. So what about – and maybe moving a little bit to the Middle East – lots of activity, lots of missile and drone activity there, to be sure. I wonder, from the Middle East perspective, what kind of operational or doctrinal insights, especially in terms of, like, deception, urban warfare. There’s a lot of people living on the land in the Pacific that you would have to be working about. Lessons from that theater, from your perspective?
Gen. Clark: Well, I’d start with the air defense threat. And specifically how proud we are of our teammates –
Dr. Karako: Your soldiers.
Gen. Clark: From Japan and Korea who defended Al Udeid a couple of nights ago. The description by the chairman was wonderful – by age, by demographic, with detail about their experience. What it gives us in the Indo-Pacific, specific to our formations that are responsible for air defense, is now we have an entire generation of soldiers who have fought the Patriot missile system in real time. Our adversary doesn’t have that. Where their ability to be able to fight in conflict, in a fight for their own survival and existence, and the survival and existence of their mates, is absolutely important. So they’ve been to war. Their adversary doesn’t have that experience, specifically the Chinese. So, again, really proud of them.
The description that General Caine had of those soldiers is very reminiscent of one of my own experiences. If you’ll allow me a few moments for a story. Young man grew up not too far from here. Wanted to serve in the Army. Applies to West Point. He lives in a congressional district where his local congressman was so successful in getting cadets into the service academies that he was out of nominations. He breaks the news to that young man, who was going to graduate soon from Andover High School, Glen Burnie, Maryland. And said, you know, hey, maybe next year.
So what’s a young man do? He just up and joins the Army. He doesn’t go to the prep school. Joins the Army, becomes a cavalry scout, 19Delta OSUT, old Fort Knox. Goes to Korea for his first assignment, because that’s where combat is. The armistice still is not signed. That’s where, you know, he could find, you know, the closest situation to ground combat possible. His Congressman reaches out to him a year later and says, I’d like you to accept this nomination to West Point, if you’ll take it. The young man was on his way back PCSing to Fort Campbell. So he had Air Assault School scheduled en route. So he asked his congressman, is it OK if I go to Air Assault School on my way to R-Day? The congressman said, I don’t know what Air Assault School is. (Laughter.) But it sounds fine. Go right ahead.
So that young man joins the West Point Class of ’88. A 47-month experience. Majors in and graduates with a degree in mechanical engineering, also focused on aerospace systems. Goes into the Army as an Army officer, fights as a company XO, at the tip of the spear, in Operation Desert Storm. Fast forward, goes to Fort Benning, decides to go to Ranger School while in the captain’s career course as an armor officer. We all know that that’s not a normal activity. But this is a pretty high-speed individual who is all about serving his country. Graduates from Ranger School, goes to Fort Hood, commands three companies for a total of 41 months, because he’s that good.
The Army also wants to take his intellectual acumen and expand upon that. So they send him to grad school to be an operation systems research analyst, Old Dominion University, master’s in systems research. Now, he goes back to the Army, to the operational force, and he’s an ORSA, who is also a ranger-qualified armor officer, with extensive command experience in the unit that has been most instrumental in taking the Army into the 21st century in terms of technology in armor formations. He becomes a battalion, S-3, brigade S-3, and then decides to go back into the ORSA world. Serves a full career in the Army, retires as a lieutenant colonel, and continues to this day to help our teammates across the Department of Defense with wicked problems through systems engineering.
Fred, if I could ask you to stand up. Fred Nutter. (Applause.) Stay standing. Stay standing. I’m a general. Get back up. (Laughter.) Fred is – when General Caine talked about those soldiers, and he talked about their contribution, he was talking about many men and women who are everyday people that we see on the street, that we see in rooms, that we talk to all day, and we don’t know their story. But their story is reminiscent of the valor, the service, the sacrifice that General Caine described of those young men and women the other night. I got to learn that firsthand, because the toughest job Fred’s had probably in his life is being my roommate – (laughter) – helping me through my struggle for 47 months as a cadet. So, Fred, I just want to say thank you. (Applause.)
But, again, those air defense soldiers, it’s more than just training. Because training is practice, right? We train for the known, the problems we know we’re going to have to solve. They were trained appropriately. They prepared. They had the right leadership in place. And at a moment of crisis, took the action that makes an entire nation proud, and kept Americans safe, so thanks.
It was some good shooting, to be sure, and great that the chairman highlighted all that, and those air defenders. Well, look, it’s hard to – hard to top that, but we’re going to keep going here. (Laughter.) You know, I’ll just say, I want – I was going to ask a big question about what do you think China’s learning from how we’re operating? You know, frankly, what is China learning and their takeaway from our PAC-3s, you know, having such a good batting average. But big picture, how do you see the PLA internalizing, maybe on the ground or maybe intellectually? What’s your sense there?
I’d want them to take away several things. One, the skill and the will of American service members, specifically soldiers in this case, to be lethal and ready. Because their ability to see, sense, strike, protect, sustain, is unmatched. So that’s the first lesson. The second lesson, specific to the Taiwan problem – because that’s where we spend a lot of our time thinking about how to counter cross-strait invasion, which is the most dangerous course of action – how hard that is. We build our warfighter programs at division and corps level around the most difficult problem set a division or corps headquarters would have to plan for and execute. And that’s a wet gap crossing – the crossing of a body of water, where there’s any of a number of capabilities you have to have in place in order to do that successfully.
We’re talking about an adversary that has to cross an 80-mile wet gap that’s being watched by an unblinking eye, multiple countries working together, again, to deter them from that activity today. The chances of being able to conduct an uncontested or successful wet gap crossing of that scale is very, very small. So our efforts to continue to make that problem set more difficult for the Chinese is where we spend a lot of our time. It’s through our ability to build partnerships across the region where our allies and partners are conducting Taiwan Strait transits, they’re working closely together to build the interoperability necessary to contest their, again, aggressive, belligerent, and coercive activities across the region. It’s us focusing on our people to ensure that our teammates understand the importance of their mission and that we’re in this thing together.
Dr. Karako: So, I mean, it sounds like you’re saying is there ought to be a deterrent effect there. Look, not just the hardware but the training and the experience that – we just showed we could crack open a mountain and hit something hundreds of feet underground in Iran. And, oh, by the way, we’re hitting bullets with bullets, you know, in Iran, when they’re shooting at Al Udeid. So from a deterrence perspective, right, I hope they’re listening on that front. Do you think they are?
Gen. Clark: I know they are. And if they’re not, shame on them.
Dr. Karako: (Laughs.) OK. Well, let’s keep going here. I think you’re – Admiral Paparo has talked about the Army as the backbone of logistics in the Indo-Pacific. Wonder if you could talk about just all the different things that the Army is doing for joint logistics. You talk about the wet gaps. There’s a lot of those. Moving things around, pre-positioning stocks, medical, all this sort of stuff. From your position, talk to us about the importance of logistics.
Gen. Clark: It’s about positional advantage. The Army is largely responsible for the sustainment of the joint force. So our ability to have the appropriate systems in place, materiel on the ground to be able to sustain the joint force in not just a short, sharp war but something that’s protracted, is our responsibility. So in order to do that, we’ve established with INDOPACOM a number of joint theater distribution centers that are nascent at this point, but coming to fruition, that will allow us to essentially cheat the requirement for STRATAIR, because should there be crisis or conflict, the ability to use strategic lift to get into position will be highly contested, by ourselves.
So our efforts to get Army pre-positioned stocks on the ground in multiple locations where we can draw and then move inter-theater to a place of need is essential. Our connection with the joint force to ensure that both air and maritime stocks are pre-positioned and present – so our ability to be able to fix forward, to resupply, to move materiel, is in place so that we can move it by air or by surface to a place of need, at a time of need, before we need it.
Dr. Karako: The ability to cheat the need for STRATAIR is a big cheat.
Gen. Clark: Right.
Dr. Karako: So I wonder if you could talk about where you see the gaps to getting to that aspiration. And you’ve mentioned watercraft along the way here. The Second Army made a little bit of news. You talked about canceling, at least in particular, the maneuver support vessel light, the Maneuver Support Vessel (Light), the MSVL. How do you think about the gaps? And what’s the plan for watercraft to help move these things around logistically?
Gen. Clark: Well, the MSVL is just one platform, but the capability to move inter-theater exists. And we have doubled down on our efforts to create Composite Watercraft Companies in both Japan and we’re building one in Australia to, again, move equipment, move materiel from one place to another in a way that allows us to cheat the STRATAIR challenge. The Composite Watercraft Company in Japan, the 5th company, we just visited them a week ago. Motivated soldiers, highly competent, that are set for a mission that they understand fully and are positioned and properly postured to perform.
Dr. Karako: The Navy’s talked a lot about working with the Japanese and other partners for ship repair and things like that. How are you – and which partners are you working with on that front?
Gen. Clark: Same partners. Actually, when we made our port visit last week there were Navy vessels parked right next to Army watercraft that were receiving maintenance at the same time. So, again, being able to leverage the relationships with our partners for our own mutual benefit is very important. And we’re moving out on that.
Dr. Karako: Yeah. And can you talk to us a little bit about Operation Pathways in this context? What’s that about?
Gen. Clark: Sure. Operation Pathways is how we operationalize campaigning. It’s a series of operations activities and investments across the region that allow us, again, to have positional advantage through our relationships in the first and second island chain with our partners and allies as we not just consume but build readiness. The number of activities that are going on today by USARPAC soldiers are happening across 23 operations, activities and investments in 15 countries. So it’s a persistent operational opportunity for us in real time to focus on the missions that are assigned us and to gain, again, positional advantage.
Dr. Karako: I think this is a good place to bring in a question that’s come in from the audience. Which says: You’ve stressed the importance of persistent presence and rapid response times to assist our allies. Obviously we’ve seen that Ukraine as well. In the domain of UAS and autonomous systems, what challenges does your – does the Indo-Pacific pose to rapid deployment and coordination with our allies on autonomous systems?
Gen. Clark: So our ability to develop autonomous systems, that that are not just drones, is something that’s being worked right now by the United States Army. During Project Convergence Capstone 5-Bravo, we actually tested some autonomous watercraft that, you know, when the form factor – you know, they could expand the form factor, if you will, to allow us to be able to use autonomous watercraft to move materiel in and around the Pacific. So it’s something that’s ongoing. It’s not just something in the air domain, or with loitering munitions, et cetera. It’s something that we’re looking at for sustainment as well.
Dr. Karako: So, moving to kind of multi-domain ops and fires – which you brought up a minute ago – again, Admiral Paparo has said, fires is the capability from the Army, from land forces, that I most treasure in this region. So how do you see the application of land power for the seizing and holding of terrain, especially? And how do you think about the role of fires, offensive and defensive?
Gen. Clark: So our ability to be able to put capability on the ground, disaggregated, that is survivable because it’s indistinguishable from other – from other kit that’s on the ground – you talked about boxes of rockets—
Dr. Karako: MRC.
Gen. Clark: The MRC is an example of that. Being able to put real capability on the ground, on key terrain, during Operation Pathways activities, is really how we’re looking to do that. There’s some systems in development now that will allow us not only to provide offensive but defensive capabilities from similar or same platforms. So, again, those things are working. And the Army is testing out those systems, so that they can experiment with them in the Pacific when they’re ready.
The ability to provide deterrence for the Chinese from the joint force goes back to the access – anti-access/area denial discussion. So our ability to be able to provide those fires from the land that create access for air and maritime is really where Admiral Paparo sees the value, because he is – one, he’s a great friend, great boss. And he is sensor shooter agnostic. So he doesn’t care who provides, you know, the sensing for fires. The coordination that’s associated with that is joint and our ability to be able to provide the right munition for the right mission at the right time, it matters not which service provides that air, maritime, or land.
So we practiced that in real time during Exercise PAC Sentry, where Admiral Paparo has built joint interoperability into each of our headquarters. So there is a plug from the Army at both Pacific Fleet and Pacific Air Forces. At PAC Fleet, we have about 45 soldiers that work and reside there, most in the fires enterprise. The same with us. We have a plug from the Air Force and a plug from the Navy where, again, they have the subject matter experts inside of our headquarters that can help us understand how to best leverage the systems we have to assist in both the maritime and air domains.
Dr. Karako: So I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the MDTFs, in particular. I mean, this is, I think, one of the great innovations the past however many years. And, oh, by the way, the MDTFs seemed to get all the cool toys. MRC, of course, just being one of them. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what they’re doing, especially in terms of integrating kinetic and non-kinetic fires. Everybody thinks about the kinetic, but the phenomenon of non-kinetic fires is important. And also, just what kind of experimentation are you seeing with them?
Gen. Clark: That’s a great question. And, again, I go back to thanking General Brown for helping us understand conceptually multi-domain operations, because our ability to be able to leverage non-kinetic fires, space, cyber, and EW is part of that creating access for the joint force. The Army, through the MDTFs, is really leading the way in the application of those domains, in application of indirect – or of fires that are nonlethal, in a way that I think the joint force is starting to learn and rely upon. So how we fight those Multi-Domain Task Forces is what the Multi-Domain Commands have been built for, so that we operate, really, at a theater level, because of the capability of the assets inherent inside those formations. The Multi-Domain Effects Battalion, the long-range hypersonic weapons, long-range precision fires through the MRC. It’s all resident inside of a formation commanded by an Army 06.
So to be able to put those formations under a two-star headquarters that’s dedicated to how that formation fights, and where it nests with the joint force, through their assignment to USARPAC and then INDOPACOM headquarters, really helps the joint force because it’s going to take us working together – it’s that interoperability we talk about, just between the joint partners, that helps us to fight and win. The relationships are also super important, so that you don’t have, you know, silos of excellence within each of the components of U.S. INDOPACOM. Because it’s the only combatant command that has all of its components in one location. Everybody’s in Hawaii. So we’re together quite often.
The relationships that are built between the commanders of those formations, that helps that integration that you see with the plug at (40, 45 ?) that’s inside your headquarters. If it’s marginalized by the folks in charge, then you never get the benefit that’s intended from the boss ensuring you’ve got the experts inside your headquarters to make this work. So the relationships between General Schneider at PACAF, Admiral Koelher at Pacific Fleet, me, Jim Glynn at MARFORPAC, soon to be Jeff VanAntwerp next week at SOCPAC, General Mastalir at Space at INDOPACOM. Most of us have worked together before.
For Gumby Schneider, Web Koehler, and I, we all worked together as general officers in the Indo-Pacific and in the Pentagon. So the relationships that we have – we parked about 100 feet from each other on the river entrance. So how do I know? Our cars were always late in the parking lot together. (Laughter.) But the three of us are able to work together in a way that, having spent nine years in that part of the world, I’ve never seen it as good. And a lot of that has to do with the relationships that are really facilitated from the top, from Admiral Paparo.
Dr. Karako: Well, there’s two categories of things I think you’re just – everybody is constantly talking about. There’s all the drones, low altitude stuff, and then there’s all the low Earth orbit stuff. I want to ask you about the really big domain in between. I’m talking about the stratosphere. And this is another fun toy that the MDTFs have. And that’s the high-altitude balloons. This is one of my favorite pet rocks. We were nerding out about this in the back. What do you see the utility of HABs to operationalize the stratosphere, and impose different dilemmas on the Chinese, for instance?
Gen. Clark: Well, first, Tom, thanks for giving me credit for nerding out about something. (Laughter.)
Dr. Karako: OK, it was me. (Laughter.)
Gen. Clark: I’m sure there’s some people – like I said, nothing messes up a good war story like a witness. There’s people that are casting doubt on that right now. (Laughter.)
But, again, just a capability in the hands of the MDTF that’s low cost, high yield, in terms of the ability for that specific platform to see and sense, that allows us to be able to employ other capabilities to get at the threat. So a number of different specific variants of high-altitude balloons, they’re working with a micro high-altitude balloon right now, which, again, as the payloads are in development and it’s the kind of things that we’re testing, breaking, figuring out what works, if it, you know, goes off course, strays, whatever. It’s a balloon so you could take it down at zero cost – very limited cost. So it’s, again, a capability that we put into the hands of soldiers to be able to test it, try it, break it, fix it, help us understand how to best leverage it, so that we can continue to iterate and get better.
And, like I said earlier, all the MDTFs are working together to iterate with capabilities so we don’t all end up, you know, doing the same things over and over again with the same equipment, and not learning from each other. So that’s helping us to spiral quicker towards best solutions to solve some of the challenges.
Mr. Karako: Well, you already brought up the air and missile defense piece. And I’ve got to, of course, bring that up a bit more. Your soldiers had great success at Al Udeid this past week. But I wonder if you could talk about how you see, say, the allies’ acquisition of more air and missile defense. Australia and Japan also getting things like Tomahawk, for instance. And how are you thinking about the need to better integrate our radars and such with the Japanese, and so on?
Gen. Clark: Again, great question. Technical interoperability is why we train together, because that’s when we understand whether or not the systems we are using can pass data, can pass target-quality data, and can share common operational pictures with one another. Our ability to be able to leverage those systems on campaigning and on exercises, is really what we’re doing in Talisman Sabre. So we’re going to – we’re parked right now with the Australian 10th Brigade to really make the systems work together, pulling in other partners and allies to help understand, you know, a common air picture, a common operational picture for ground, a common threat picture, so that we can best determine how to – how to train together, which then, you know, in crisis and conflict will help us to fight and win together.
Dr. Karako: I’ve heard you say that the USARPAC patch tells the story of campaigning in the Pacific.
Gen. Clark: Sure.
Dr. Karako: What’s the story? And what’s the story that you hope that patch tells in the future?
Gen. Clark: OK. The USARPAC patch – this side. (Laughter.) See, I’m not a nerd. This side. USARPAC patch, field of blue represents the Pacific. It’s the red campaigning arrow, essentially the axis of advance that MacArthur used in 1944 across the Pacific. The stars represent the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, Polaris, the North Star, and then Crux, the southern star, where our soldiers are currently either deployed or stationed across the Pacific. And that’s from Alaska, really, to the southern tip of the Earth.
If you think about the number of stars, the number of stars is 12, for December. The number of stars in the Big Dipper is seven – the number of stars in Crux is four, and then one for Polaris – December 7th, 1941. So the patch not only talks about where we’re going, which is campaigning as MacArthur did across the Pacific to win World War II; it also helps to remind us of the necessity to be ready, because on December 7th, 1941, we were not.
So our ability to remain ready, to remain focused, to be ready so we don’t have to get ready, is resident on our left shoulder every day. So we focus on that. We make sure our soldiers are focused on that, and our families are also ready and focused on that. So thanks for mentioning that, because we’re – you know, it’s ubiquitous for us. I mean, we talk about it every day in real time. So, again, thanks.
Dr. Karako: And that campaigning is obviously going to include a lot of – a lot of allies. I’ve heard – you mentioned the Australians. You mentioned the Filipinos. What if you could talk a little bit about expanding access agreements and base agreements. You know, there’s a lot of islands in the Philippines that we could hide boxes, or LRHWs, or what have you on. Wonder if you could talk about what you’re seeing from the willingness of partners to go that way?
Gen. Clark: Sure. We talk about access, basing, and overflight as a concept. But the best way to think about it is it’s not bases, it’s places. It’s our ability to be able to have our partners and allies allow us to operate on their sovereign territory, or to fly through their sovereign airspace, if necessary. But, again, those are relationships that we build now so that when, in time and space, we need to be able to position stocks, to position munitions, or capability, lethal or nonlethal, where we’re having those conversations ahead of time. And we’re working on the agreements that are necessary to make that happen now.
And in some cases, it’s not necessarily with access or basing or overflight, but it’s relationships that have not been as forthcoming in recent times that we’re able, again, based on the threat, to work with countries that, in the past, were not necessarily as friendly with us when it comes to working mil-to-mil. So one of the first visits I made was to Cambodia, where I met with the president – or, Prime Minister Cambodia Hun Manet, who’s West Point class of ’99, I think – ’98, ’99 – which was great. And his chief of army, General Mao Sophan, was all in on how we can work together, specific to a couple of things.
First, we have a mission that remains from really the Vietnam War to repatriate the remains of our fallen comrades on foreign soil. So to be able to have access in Cambodia to the areas where we can have our teammates go in and, with the Cambodians, work through the repatriation of our remains of our fallen comrades, to return them home to their families, was one of his priorities to work with us. So, again, it starts with small gestures. That’s just one of them. But since that meeting, he was at LANCPAC. We had an extensive conversation and time there during a bilat. We sat together during the evening – the evening social event. And it continues to grow.
So my interaction with him, person to person, is the kind of activity that I think works best, because you have a name and a face and a personality and a human being that you’re working with that has similar interests that you can work together on, that you can then potentially grow into something that helps not just the joint force but the nation during a time of crisis.
Dr. Karako: I saw that with the multinational conference that the 94th AAMDC put on in December, bringing all these partners and allies across the whole region. Really, really impressive. In a similar vein, the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade, I wonder if you could talk about that and its role in your campaigning strategy.
Gen. Clark: It’s a small organization with an outsized impact. So 5th SFAB today is operating inside of seven countries across the region. Our ability to have persistent engagement in some places where we just don’t have a lot of U.S. engagement period, the SFAB can build some relevance for the armed forces that they’re working with that stretches into diplomatic areas as well. One great example of that is the SFAB presence in Mongolia. So a landlocked country between China and Russia is partnering with us, through the SFAB, to build relationships that – my Command Sergeant Major Jason Schmidt’s in the front row – to help professionalize their non-commissioned officer corps.
Which, when you think about the strengths of the United States military, specifically the United States Army, our non-commissioned officer corps is literally not just the backbone, but the muscle of the Army. And it’s the envy of every adversary or friend on the planet, because of their expertise, their will, fitness across every measurable measure. As a son of a non-commissioned officer, couldn’t be more proud of our non-commissioned officer corps. And the Mongolians have recognized that through their armed forces. And they are leveraging that NCO power from the United States Army inside of SFAB 5 to continue to build inside their own force a professional non-commissioned officer corps.
Dr. Karako: Well, as we kind of begin to wrap up here, let me focus on people and personnel. There’s been an uptick in recruitment over the past year. I wonder how you are thinking about connecting and communicating the history of the Army in the Indo-Pacific to soldiers and other audiences as well.
Gen. Clark: It’s an honor to talk about the Army, an organization I love, because, I mean, my teammates in row three all know this, but I was born at Kimbrough Army Hospital right up the road, Fort Meade, Maryland. So I’ve either been an Army family member, a cadet, or a soldier. So I’ve been in DEERS for 58 years. (Laughter.) So, like I said before, my father served as a career non-commissioned officer. The Army, and the United States military in general, is a relatively easy sell in the Pacific, because one in 12 souls in the state of Hawaii is a military veteran – U.S. military veteran. In Guam, it’s one in seven. If statistics are what they are, and roughly 80 percent of us come from military families that serve and wear the cloth of the nation, it’s not – it’s not difficult to have conversations with people who understand who you are and what you do. But we have to get outside of that.
And part of the reason why I think the Army is doing a great job of reaching out into areas to recruit where we have not been as successful before, while still leveraging the areas where we have been very successful pulling young men and women into the Army, is that we help them to understand that they’re part of an organization that creates what I think is the strongest human emotion, which is the feeling to belong to something that is greater than self, that has a mission, a purpose, a calling greater than self. So to meet and understand what makes soldiers tick is what we have to do as an Army to ensure that we get the right young men and women into our formations to help us continue the mission.
For example, the Army celebrated its 250th birthday across the globe. In Hawaii, we conducted our Army birthday week activities downtown. So we showcased soldiers, equipment, capability for just the general passer-by in Waikiki. We also opened up our installations to allow the average American to come on post with an ID card and to meet our soldiers and see what we’re doing. Because if we’re not careful, we can find ourselves insulated inside the fence because we can shop, worship, recreate, live, inside the – educate ourselves and our children inside the fence, and not enrich the communities around our camps, posts, and stations.
Because that’s the other part of this. It’s not just what we get from the great American public understanding what we do, but it’s what our soldiers and families bring to every community that they live in. I am living proof of the investment of everybody who gave to every community that I ever lived in as a kid that helped me to, you know, at least have an idea of what my future could be. So we do that every day. It’s ubiquitous. No one seeks credit for it. But, again, it’s a part of the fabric of who we are as an Army. And I think it’s only getting more rich, more thick, and better.
Dr. Karako: Well, this has been a very rich discussion. I appreciate you taking all this time. I wonder if you could kind of close us out by letting us know what’s on your reading list. What are you reading, and what would you like soldiers and folks in the policy world to consider reading to better understand the Pacific, to better understand, perhaps, just the future of war, or any other wit and wisdom that you’d like to direct us to.
Gen. Clark: As a son of a reading teacher, great question. I’m reading “The World According to China” by Dr. Elizabeth Economy. Because, again, to understand our adversary from a perspective other than mil-to-mil, of where it’s about diplomatic and really economic levers, and informational levers, that we need to understand better in the military – in the military category of things, that I think will help us be more effective in understanding how to deter.
The goodness about USARPAC and leader development in our organization is all the leaders at USARPAC are reading the same book right now. We’re going to have a discussion with Dr. Economy during our commander’s conference in November. So the fact that we’re all reading the same book at the same time, discussing, you know, the merits of the book and not the NBA draft – (laughter) – it creates, you know, energy and synergy that will enrich the conversations that we have in smaller groups during the commander’s conference.
So it’s – but also, I just reread a book that I think was issued to us. It’s called “America’s First Battles,” by Stofft and Heller, which is a collection of essays about America failing, specifically the Army failing, in the initial fights of – the United States Army failing in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Korea, and Vietnam. Again, to try to learn from some of the challenges we’ve had in the past. Now, granted, you know, since that book was written the advent of the Combat Training Centers and our ability to be able to learn through failure, without bloodshed, has really been what I believe is the secret to our success in combat since the ’80s.
We continue to work that through JPMRC and JPMRC-X to ensure, again, that our soldiers are ready, and they sweat hard in training, which is easy if you’re getting after it, so that we’re limiting bloodshed of our own in combat.
Dr. Karako: Good advice. Well, again, I really want to appreciate – we want to thank you for all your time. Again, we kicked off the series with USARPAC. Great to have you here. Thanks again to our sponsor, General Dynamics, our partner, the Association of the U.S. Army, everybody online, including all of your classmates who came out to join you, so.
Gen. Clark: Yeah, they’re in row five now too. So they’re being – (laughter) – yeah.
Dr. Karako: Please join me in thanking General Clark. (Applause.)
(END)
