Strategic Landpower in the Indo-Asia-Pacific

Abstract

Abstract: The US Army has a major, strategic role to play in the Indo-Asia-Pacific theater. That role can be broken down into three broad areas--bolstering defense of allies and deterring aggression, promoting regional security and stability through security coopertion, and ameliorating the growing US-China security dilemma. Employing strategic landpower in each of these areas is not without challenges--especially in the face of sequestration--yet not making use of the Army will result in fewer policy options. ********** In the rush to the Indo-Asia-Pacific theater prompted by the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, it has become conventional wisdom to say the US Army has only a minimal role in the rebalancing effort underway. Advocates of this perspective assume that the Pacific theater--with its massive distances--is far more suitable to the platform-intensive Air Force and Navy, than the soldier-centric Army. (1) They then argue that, since the Army's primary mission is fighting and winning the nation's wars, the Army's role in the Pacific is largely limited to the Korean Peninsula. The Army is not blameless in this respect. According to one prominent analyst, the Army's, organizational culture continues to focus nearly exclusively on state-on-state war. (2) Organizational bias has also adversely affected how the institutional Army embraced the importance of promoting interoperability, developing coalition capability, and building partner capacity. (3) And this bias persists despite efforts by General Ray Odierno, the Army's Chief of Staff, to change that culture by emphasizing the importance of shaping the international environment and preventing conflict in the first place, including through the development of the Regionally Aligned Forces (RAF) initiative. (4) In fact, the US Army has significant strategic roles to play in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region that cannot be adequately performed by naval or air forces. They fall into three broad categories: bolstering defense of allies and deterring aggression; promoting regional security and stability through security cooperation; and ameliorating the growing United States--China security dilemma. As discussed below, the United States faces some hurdles in wielding strategic landpower in each of these areas, yet not employing the Army will make matters worse. Defense and Deterrence This role is the most obvious one for the United States Army in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, resting as it does on military commitments since the 1950s. Most are familiar with the Army's presence on the Korean peninsula, fielding a force of several thousand to deter large-scale North Korean aggression. The Army has deterred aggression in two ways: deterrence by punishment and deterrence by denial. The first entails the promise of punishment so severe as to outweigh any potential gains from aggression. American soldiers in South Korea accomplish this by playing the role of a tripwire that would trigger a larger response. Deterrence by denial--that is, preventing gains from occurring--was more credible when American forces on the peninsula were more numerous and deployed near the demilitarized zone. Today, the Army is relocating farther south and handing over wartime operational control to the South Koreans starting in 2015. While the South Korean military may continue to deter through denial, the US Army is gradually becoming less critical to that mission. (5) Indeed, several years ago, US officials in South Korea stated that the future American role in the defense of South Korea would be mainly an air force and naval role. (6) Although not as obvious as the case of South Korea, the US Army is also important to the defense of Japan, another critical treaty-based American ally. Roughly 2,000 American soldiers based in Japan perform vital theater enabling functions such as helping other US services fulfill their missions in support of Japanese Self-Defense Forces. …