At a time when doubts about China's military expansion are growing, Gen. Ronald Clark, commander of the U.S. Army Pacific in command of the U.S. Army in Asia, said that he hopes to clearly demonstrate and enhance the U.S. military's combat power in the Indo-Pacific region to strengthen deterrence and reduce the probability of war. "Let opponents see some capabilities that they should be worried about."
The Financial Times reported that the Pentagon has become more low-key in publicly naming and criticizing China this year, but the US military continues to step up its efforts to intimidate China on a substantive level, and military cooperation between regional countries and the United States continues to expand. As part of this operation, U.S. Army Pacific has expanded its role to include the temporary deployment of weapons in the Philippines, Japan and other areas in the region; these deployments will play a key role should a war break out with China over Taiwan and other issues.
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Clark pointed out that the "Typhon" mobile missile launch system is one example. This system has been put into use in exercises in the Philippines and Australia. It can not only launch "Standard 6" (SM-6) missiles to attack ships, but also launch "Tomahawk" cruise missiles to strike parts of China's coastal areas from the Philippines. In addition, the U.S. Army has been using the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system in specific ways to send a clear signal to China about the joint combat capabilities of the U.S. military and its allies.
Over the past year, joint exercises between the United States and regional countries have reached record highs in terms of the number of participating allies and partner countries and the scale of the exercises. Clark cited an exercise earlier this year as an example, when the U.S. military transported long-range precision weapons from the United States to the Philippines and dispatched ammunition from South Korea to conduct live-fire missions. He emphasized that making any potential adversary clearly visible at every stage of the operation was critical to achieving a deterrent effect.
One of the challenges facing the U.S. military in Asia is that some allies are uneasy about permanently deploying weapons that could anger China. For example, Beijing has strongly criticized the deployment of the "Taifeng" system by the US military. In this regard, Clark said that the U.S. Army's series of joint exercises collectively known as "Operation Pathways" are not only distributed throughout the year, but also particularly concentrated in sensitive periods considered to be the most dangerous, which means that even non-permanent weapon deployments can play a key role in peacetime deterrence and wartime conflicts.
Clark described the exercises as "quite intensive" and "covering the points in the year when we believe adversaries have the greatest opportunity to take harmful actions against other partners or allies." He emphasized that the U.S. Army has made an unprecedented level of investment in the Pacific region. It not only dispatches additional division-level troops and establishes corps-level headquarters, but also organizes multi-field task forces to create more options to support joint forces and strengthen allied deterrence capabilities.
"In my military career, I have never seen the U.S. Army invest resources and combat power on such a large scale in the Pacific region," Clark said.
