| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Chinese Threat Dominance
00:02:20
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| This is the one thing about the U.S. military that I found to be so important is that, at least for me out in the Pacific over the last decade, every day I woke up, I woke up and thought about the Chinese threat. | |
| Secondarily, I thought about the North Korean threat, and tangentially, I thought about the Russian threat. | |
| And that gives a military great focus. | |
| Now, my trouble with it is that we've said we've pivoted to the Pacific for more than a decade. | |
| And in actual behavior and actions, that's not accurate. | |
| I'm going to give you an example and a story. | |
| So in April of 2022, I was in a ASEAN country and I was at a meeting with the Chief of Defense, the Chief of Army, and their Minister of Defense. | |
| And an announcement had been made that evening that a $33 billion support package was going to Ukraine because the war had just started in February of 22. | |
| And the Chief of Army and the Chief of Defense stood there with me next to the Minister of Defense, and they asked me this question. | |
| They really made a comment to me. | |
| And they said, are you serious? | |
| $33 billion to Ukraine? | |
| You've been talking about pivoting to the Pacific for more than a decade. | |
| What is going to happen now? | |
| Are you going to be here? | |
| And I think that that really struck me at that particular point. | |
| And I thought, boy, if we don't signal and message our will to our treaty allies and partners in the region, we're going to create a lack of confidence in the United States in the Indo-Pacific at a time when we can ill afford to have that. | |
| And that story rung true with me throughout the rest of my time in uniform out there because I tried to hustle all the best I could to pull together the Army leaders in the region. | |
|
All Forces, Joint and Multinational
00:01:45
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| And again, I think the Army leaders in the region, not only do they leave the Army and go into political positions, they also go into important business positions. | |
| And they're influential in all of these countries. | |
| So I was, you know, making heavy investments in my time in the region to pull together those countries because I honestly believe the greatest counterweight that we have to China is the network of allies and partners that we have across the region. | |
| We need to maintain the United States being the security partner of choice, even though China may be the economic partner of necessity in the region. | |
| And I think the best way to keep that security architecture bound together is by applying all domain, all forces, joint and multinational in the region. | |
| And that includes the land power network that is actually central to maintaining security in the region. | |
| And again, I'm making this point because I run afoul or at odds sometimes when I hear, well, I mean, just this morning before I came over here, I hear, the theater is an air and maritime theater, and it's not. | |
| It's a joint theater. | |
| It's a multinational theater. | |
| It's got joint and multinational problems. | |
| It's only going to be solved by the joint force and multinational forces. | |
| And so we have to do that with our allies and partners. | |
| Clearly, there's an economic component to this. | |
| Clearly, there's an information. | |
| Clearly, there's a diplomatic component to it. | |
| But make no doubt about it, the Chinese military and the military instrument that they have created in the last 15 to 20 years is a very, very dangerous, very dangerous arsenal. | |