Is the ‘Pivot to Asia’ Finally Happening? | Gen. Charles Flynn (Ret.)
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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.
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.