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June 28, 2025 01:02-02:14 - CSPAN
01:11:57
U.S. Army General Discusses Indo-Pacific Landpower
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gen ronald clark
53:08
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
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Ronald Clark, Commanding General of the U.S. Army in the Pacific, sat down for a discussion on American military land power in the Indo-Pacific.
He talks about the strengths and accomplishments of the men and women serving in the region and the challenges they face.
It's hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Well, good morning, everyone.
Both 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 Land Power Dialogue.
I can't believe 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.
Well, yeah, thanks.
I'll pay you later, Ronya.
That way, I'll increase his bio a little bit there, just to thank you.
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 I could spend the full 75 minutes going through his bio.
He's got such incredible experience.
I won't do it.
And it's in both online.
You can look up an 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.
He's 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 in 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 me.
But he extends beyond the region as well.
He commanded U.S. Army Central.
He served as senior military advisor, assistant to the Secretary of Defense, and he has multiple deployments in 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 Carrico, who I might note came off vacation for this.
And we're grateful, Tom.
Nobody is better.
And so, Tom, we'll lead the discussion with General Carl.
Tom, over to you.
Well, thank you, General Brown.
Really appreciate it.
And again, the CSISA-USA 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 in 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're going to 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?
gen 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've provided to me and many others over the years.
I also want to open up by saying we're not taking any questions out of row three.
Four members of the worst West Point class ever in that row, which includes two of my former roommates.
So, yeah, nothing messes up a good war story like a witness.
unidentified
So, I ask you guys, hold your fire.
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
But back to the question at hand: never more than now the importance of land power is coming to 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 just the geography, 36 countries, 80% 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 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 own 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.
unidentified
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 careabouts these days?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Sure.
First, I'd want to talk about the region itself.
It's 52% of the Earth's surface.
It's 16 time zones.
The way General Brown described it when he was a user PAC 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.
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 UK to Spain to Turkey to Finland.
And that's just the part around the South China Sea.
So the ability to move from the continent of the 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.
unidentified
Well, it is a big place, and this is the sort of an AOR that gets a lot of frequent flyer bowels.
So talk a little bit about where you've been traveling and who you've been talking with in your area.
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Sure.
I'll start with just recently, last week we were in Japan.
So their Chief of Army, Yazu Morista, 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 Koh, there, their acting chief of army, to again stay connected to our responsibilities on the peninsula.
Ironclad relationship, ironclad alliance with the ROCs.
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 ROC 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.
A fantastic officer.
He's actually in town.
You can probably get him tonight if you try.
The teammates in the Philippines, we conduct a series of exercises, Balakatan and Salik Nib, 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 Galito, 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, largest we've ever had in Talisman Sabre.
35,000 soldiers total at Talisman Sabre, 19 countries participating.
We're going to display and demonstrate some pretty exquisite capability down there.
The Secretary of Defense, when he's at Shangri-Lai Dialogue, talked specifically about the mid-range capability that we're deploying to Australia to conduct a live fire.
First time we've done that outside the continent of the United States.
So that would be great.
But the interesting part of this for us is that we're doing it with the third MDTF, third-main task force, side by side with the Australian 10th Brigade.
So Simon Stewart 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.
unidentified
That's great.
And we've had General Stewart here from Australia as well on the stage.
Let me take a step back.
And at the end of the day, this is all about the threat.
And the 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 do you see in today?
And how does that kind of affect the big heavy priorities for your command?
gen ronald 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've 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've built the A2AD threat to focus specifically on the air and maritime domains to keep 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 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.
unidentified
Yeah, well, I want to dig into a number of those things.
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 ronald 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'd 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 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.
unidentified
Well, I specifically ask 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 ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
That's a great question.
The connectivity between the North Koreans, the North Koreans and Russians in the problem set in Ukraine is concerning because both countries are learning from each other.
It really 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.
Our 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 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 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.
unidentified
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 partners, there's active cooperation, and there's a lot of learning going on in terms of that connectivity, is that right?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Well, it's the difference between interoperability and being in 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.
unidentified
And I know that in this town especially there's a lot of focus on the Taiwan contingency, for instance.
But you just emphasized Filipinos, 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 ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Again, if we only had the luxury of thinking of one problem, that would be okay.
But again, you're talking about multiple problem sets.
We have, obviously, O-plans 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.
unidentified
Well, you've emphasized, you know, both the allies and our partners, and also the Russians are currently, and 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 U.S. RPAC?
gen ronald 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 Exercise Yama Sakura and a warfighter 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 and Accord, 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. 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 warfighters 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 2nd 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 intertheater 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 warfighters 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.
unidentified
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, there's a whole lot of contacts going on lately.
First up, Ukraine.
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.
And 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 land forces in the Pacific?
gen ronald 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, instead of trying to be a needle in a haystack with your electronic magnetic 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.
unidentified
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 time 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 ronald 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.
unidentified
So one of the other wonderful things you can put in boxes, of course, is drones.
And we saw with Operation Spiderweb 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 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 of that from the defensive side as well and kind of the TTP side?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Well, fortunate for us, integrated air 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 Ganey was the person who birthed that.
He's now the commander of Space Missile Defense Command.
unidentified
When I had him over here, we were nerding out about Angel Has Fallen as the biggest movie depiction of that problem.
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, so again, to have 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.
unidentified
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 ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Well, I'd start with the air defense threat and specifically how proud we are of our teammates from Japan and Korea who defended Al Udid a couple 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 to Chinese.
So again, really proud of them.
The description that General Kane had of those soldiers is very reminiscent of one of my own experiences.
If you 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 Burney, Maryland, and said, you know, hey, maybe next year.
So what's the young man do?
He just up and joins the Army.
He doesn't go to prep school, joins the Army, becomes a cavalry scout, 19 Delta OSIT, Old Fort Knox.
Goes to Korea for his first assignment because that's where combat is.
The armistice is still not signed.
That's where, you know, he could find 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 PCS into Fort Campbell.
So he had air assault school scheduled en route.
So he asked his congressman, is it okay if I go to aerosol school on my way to R day?
The congressman said, I don't know what air assault school is.
But it sounds fine.
Go right ahead.
So that young man joins West Point Class of 88, 47-month experience, majors in and graduates with a degree in mechanical engineering, also focused on aerospace systems, goes into the Army as an armor 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 operations 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 URSA 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 S3, brigade S3, and then decides to go back into the URSA 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, stay standing.
Stay standing.
I'm a general.
unidentified
Get back up.
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Fred is, when General Kaine 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 Kane 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, helping me through my struggle for 47 months as a cadet.
So, Fred, I just want to say thank you.
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.
unidentified
It was some good shooting, to be sure, and great that the chairman highlighted all that, those air defenders.
Well, look, it's hard to top that, but we're going to keep going here.
You know, I'll just say, I was going to ask a big question.
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?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
I wanted 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 a 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 straight 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.
So that's.
unidentified
So, I mean, it sounds what 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, when Iran.
So when they're shooting at LUD.
So from a deterrence perspective, right, I hope they're listening on that front.
Do you think they are?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
I know they are.
And if they're not, shame on them.
unidentified
Well, let's keep going here.
I think Admiral Paparo has talked about the Army as the backbone of logistics in the Indo-Pacific.
I 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 ronald 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, material 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 IndoPaycom 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 strat air.
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 intertheater 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 material 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.
unidentified
The ability to cheat the need for strat air is a big cheat.
So I wonder if you can talk about where you see the gaps to getting to that aspiration.
And you've mentioned Watercraft along the way here.
The SEC Army made a little bit of news.
You talked about canceling at least a particular 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 ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Well, the MSVL is just one platform, but the capability to move intertheater 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 material from one place to another in a way that allows us to cheat the strat air challenge.
The composite watercraft company in Japan, the fifth 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.
unidentified
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 ronald 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.
unidentified
And can you talk to us a little bit about Operation Pathways in this context?
What's that about?
gen ronald 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 user-PAC 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.
unidentified
I think this is a good place to bring in a question that's come in from the audience.
It says, you've stressed the importance of persistent presence and rapid response times to assist our allies.
Obviously, we've seen that in Ukraine as well.
In the domain of UAS and autonomous systems, what challenges does your Indo-Pacific pose to rapid deployment and coordination with our allies on autonomous systems?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
So our ability to develop autonomous systems 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 loadering munitions, et cetera.
It's something that we're looking at for sustainment as well.
unidentified
So moving to kind of multi-domain ops and fires, which you've 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 terrain, especially?
And how do you think about the role of fires, offensive and defensive?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
So our ability to be able to put capability on the ground, disaggregated, that is survivable because it's indistinguishable from other kit that's on the ground.
You talked about boxes of rockets.
unidentified
MRC.
gen ronald 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 of his great friend, great boss.
And he is sensor, shooter, agnostic.
So, he doesn't care who provides 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 practice that in real time during Exercise PAC Century, where Admiral Poparo 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.
unidentified
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 of the past however many years.
And, oh, by the way, the MDTF 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 ronald 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 and application of indirect or of fires that are non-lethal 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, 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 USERPAC and then Indo-PACOM 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.
that relationships are also super important so that you don't have silos of excellence within each of the components of U.S. Indo-PACOM 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 that helps that integration that you see with the plug of 4045 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 Snyder at PACAF, Admiral Kaler at Pacific Fleet, me, Jim Glenn at Marfor PAC, soon to be Jeff Van Antwerp next week at SOCPAC, General Master at Army Space at Indo-Paycom.
Most of us have worked together before.
For Gumby Schneider, Webb Kaler, and I, we all work 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.
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.
unidentified
Well, there's two categories of things I think 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 a stratosphere and impose different dilemmas on the Chinese, for instance?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Well, first, Tom, thanks for giving me credit for nerding out about something.
unidentified
Oh, God.
It was me.
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
I'm sure there's some people.
Like I said, nothing messed up.
Good war story like a witness.
There's people that are casting doubt on that right now.
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, the payloads are in development, and it's the kind of things that we're testing, breaking, figuring out what works.
If it goes off course strays, whatever, it's a balloon.
So you can 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, that all the MDTFs are working together to iterate with capabilities so we don't all end up 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.
unidentified
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 LUD 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 are 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 ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Well, 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 Talsima Sabre.
So 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 a common air picture, a common operational picture for ground, a common threat picture, so that we can best determine how to train together, which then in crisis and conflict will help us to fight and win together.
unidentified
I've heard you say that the U.S. RPAC patch tells the story of campaigning in the Pacific.
Sure.
What's the story, and what's the story that you hope that patch tells in the future?
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Okay, the user pack patch, this side.
See, I'm not a nerd.
This side.
User PAC 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 it's ubiquitous for us.
I mean, we talk about it every day in real time.
So again, thanks.
unidentified
And that campaigning is obviously going to include a lot of allies.
I've heard you mentioned the Australians, you mentioned the Filipinos.
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about expanding access agreements and base agreements.
There's a lot of islands in the Philippines that we could hide boxes or LRHWs or what have you on.
I wonder if you could talk about what you're seeing from the willingness of partners to go that way.
gen ronald 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 non-lethal, 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 mill-to-mill.
So one of the first visits I made was to Cambodia, where I met with the president or prime minister of Cambodia, Hung Manette, who's West Point class in 99, I think, 98, 99, which was great.
And his chief of army, General Mao Sapan, 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 LAMPAC.
We had an extensive conversation and time there during a bylap.
We sat together during 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.
unidentified
I saw that with the multinational conference, the 94th AAMDC put on in December, bringing together 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 in its role in your campaigning strategy.
gen ronald 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 SFAP 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, I couldn't be more proud of our non-commissioned officer corps, and the Onolians have recognized that through their armed forces, and they are leveraging that NCO power from the United States Army inside of SVAP 5 to continue to build inside their own force, a professional non-commissioned officer corps.
unidentified
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 ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
It's an honor to talk about the Army, an organization I love, because, I mean, my teammates in Row 3 all know this, but I was born at Kimberle 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 Deere's for 58 years.
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% of us come from military families that serve and wear the cloth of the nation, 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 helped 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 passerby in Waikiki.
We also opened up our installations to allow 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, 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.
unidentified
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 ronald 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 mill-to-mill, of where it's about diplomatic and really economic levers and informational levers that we need to understand better in the military category of things that I think will help us be more effective in understanding how to deter.
The goodness about USERPAC and leader development in our organization is all the leaders in USERPAC are reading the same book right now.
We're going to have a discussion with Dr. Economy during our commanders conference in November.
So the fact that we're all reading the same book at the same time, discussing the merits of the book and not the NBA draft, is it creates energy and synergy that will enrich the conversations that we have in smaller groups during the commanders conference.
But also, I just reread a book that I think was issued to us.
It's called America's First Battles by Stoft 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, 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 JPMRCX 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.
unidentified
Good advice.
Well, again, I really want to appreciate, thank you for all your time.
Again, we kicked off the series with USRPAC.
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 your classmates who came out to join you.
gen ronald clark ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, they're in row five now, too.
So they'll be in a row.
unidentified
Please join me in thanking General Clark.
That's good.
Thank you.
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