Posted: December 8, 2015 2:20 PM
Army General Uses Novel Means for Sea Transport to Engage in Asia-Pacific
By OTTO KREISHER, Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON — The Army’s top commander in the Pacific has been using a variety of novel ways to get sea transportation for his troops to engage in an increasing number of multilateral exercises, which is part of the reaction in the region to China’s aggressive territorial claims.
“More and more countries want to engage,” Gen. Vincent Brooks said Dec. 8. “The region wants us around.”
Brooks, the first four-star Army commander in the Pacific since the Vietnam War, told a Defense Writers Group breakfast that his force has grown to 86,000 Soldiers as part of the strategic rebalance to Asia-Pacific region. Under a plan called Pacific Pathways, the command has been using a series of exercises to build partnerships with many of the nations in the region and to train his own troops.
He described the effort as “more faces in more places without more bases.”
That is similar to how top Navy commanders have described their approach to increasing presence in the critical region, calling it “places, not bases.”
But Brooks conceded that expanding the number of exercises in the vast oceanic region has been handicapped by limited funding and the shortage of U.S. ships in the Western Pacific.
To move his troops and their equipment, he has used a chartered commercial vessel to transport heavy equipment, such as his Apache attack helicopters and Stryker troop carriers, and borrowed “gray hull” Navy ships operated by the Military Sealift Command (MSC).
To get access to the limited number of ships in the region, Brooks said the command has used MSC ships that were conducting routine training of their crews, piggybacked on ships carrying Marines to exercises or gone one way on ships that were going for other reasons to where the Army wanted to conduct an exercise.
Brooks said he also has been working to get some of his aviation units experience in operating from Navy ships in the region. The Army has found that “where we can combine with other services, we gain an advantage,” he said.
“We know that things like Apache helicopters and unmanned Gray Eagle [air vehicles] improve if integrated with naval forces.”
And, he added, it is important “for our aviators to operate over the Pacific.”
The Army’s efforts to gain access to Navy ships has created some tensions because the Marines based on Okinawa often complain about the shortage of amphibious lift and have been experimenting with alternative platforms, such as the Joint High Speed Vessel, now called the Expeditionary Fast Transport, and MSC ships.
Similar to the approach taken by Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, and Adm. Scott Swift, Pacific Fleet commander, Brooks said he has been trying to improve relations with China by expanding military-to-military contacts through high-level meetings and exercises on search and rescue and humanitarian assistance.
http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20151208-brooks.html
