Everybody. We are really glad you were here. For those of us joining online and certainly in person, welcome to the second installment of the Strategic Landpower dialogue. On general bob brown i am general bob brown. We cannot do it without the support of General Dynamics make in this series happen. Thank you for the great support to make this possible. He opened up the first Strategic Landpower dialogue a few weeks ago, pointing out the longoverdue need to have a forum like this to discuss Strategic Landpower. We could not have picked a better kickoff event than having secretary wormuth and now confirmed chief of staff randy george. They did a great first job on the dialogue. But there is no better way to follow up than getting general Charlie Flynn, commanding general big u. S. Army pacific, an incredible war fighter and pacific expert, here to discuss the role of land power. I saw when i was u. S. Army Pacific Commander that the indopacific is a region where we most fall victim to the myth that there is a short, simple and clean way of winning wars. That does not require land power. And we should start with the historical perspective, since 1941 the United States has fought three major wars in the indopacific and all of them have been predominantly ground wars. It would be naive to assume the region and the nature of war has changed so much that this cannot happen again. Winning the war as a joint force requires combining a unique capability of each service in every domain to pose multiple dilemmas to an adversary. If deterrence fails, it will lead to victory. There will always be our requirement for the army to defend or impose will where people live on the land. Fortunately, the army could not have a better leader at this time in the most decisive region. General Charlie Flynn assumed command in june 2021. He was commissioned in 1985. He has commanded numerous times in iraq and afghanistan. He commended it at all levels, from platoon to now the largest Army Service Component command. I had the honor to serve with him. An unbelievable division commander, an inspirational leader, understood the region and was absolutely amazing. And then he carried me through his unbelievable work. He has an understanding of the region that is second to none. He is beloved by allies and partners in the region. We are so glad he is in the pacific. I could go on for hours. Let me turn it over to dr. Tom karako, who will be our moderator. Dr. Karako thank you, general brown. The army is a Big Organization and the pacific is a big place. We have a lot to talk about. As general brown said, we cannot do better than to have you out here. We will have to do this again soon. Land is one of the domains and it is the one where human beings spend most of their time. We will start off with the same question we kick off the series with and that is, what is your view of the role of land power for the joint force . Gen. Flynn first of all, thank you for allowing this platform to talk about this enormously important region, but also the value of land. And land power. I will start by saying land is the prize because if you control land, you can control people. We are seeing that today in europe and right now in the middle east. It has been going on in the middle east for a long time. And what do armies do . They do three things. We seize, hold and defend terrain. And the armies in this region are working to seize, hold and defend terrain and they want to do that with their partner, the u. S. Army. Why . Because what is happening in the region is the aggressive, responsible and insidious behavior of the piercy p. R. C. They are violating the territorial integrity and National Sovereignty of these countries and nations. And the armies, the land Power Network plays a central role in being able to seize, hold and defend their territory. At the end of the day, a nations obligation is to protect its people, preserve its territorial integrity by defendant its borders and protect its homeland. I guess the point i would make is that when land is the prize, and that you have a military instrument that is exercising and demonstrating that it intends to militarize land and seas land for its own benefit, that is what is happening out in that region right now. Land Power Network, the armies play a central role to help them find ways to continue to preserve their territorial integrity. That partnership with the u. S. Army plays a vital role in being able to protect the indopacific. Dr. Karako in your new vision document, you talk about territory, homeland and political integrity. It is almost like a different way of talking about wars as an extension of politics. The protection of sovereignty. Gen. Flynn yes. What is happening out there again, i just came back from us trillion, malaysia, korea, japan and india. The nations in the region, because of the way that the chinese are behaving, prior to speaker pelosis visit to taiwan, these kinds of actions were incremental and insidious. I am adding irresponsible because of what happened when the speaker went to taiwan and then Speaker Mccarthy had a meeting in california. What has happened is that behavior is being seen as overly aggressive by the region. They are responding by participating more in our multinational exercises. Their participation in these exercises, parading opportunities for the region to come together. That is the way they are speaking by their actions. Their actions are trending toward being a valued partner with the United States army. Dr. Karako you mentioned the policy visit nancy pelosi visit and the tremendous chinese reaction to that. Have you seen the threat perception change . I know you spent almost 10 years in the pacific. You might talk about how that has changed. Gen. Flynn i will go back to the 2015 timeframe, an important period. In 2015, that is when their transformation and reorganization blended together. At the same time, they also put in a training methodology and put Training Centers in. They also built their space force in 2015. Between 20142018 when we were out there in the region, what i saw them doing training wise in exercises and rehearsals was not anywhere near what i see them doing today. If you rewind the clock between 2014 2021 and d advances they have made, and i project out over the next decade, that is a dangerous trajectory for them to be on absent us slowing them down. Being able to create capabilities and message and allies and Partner Network coming together as a counterweight to what to the way the chinese are behaving. That is what i think is important about looking back over the last decade and looking out over the next decade, because i am not going to sit here and give you a time on it. What they have done over the last 10 years and what they are signaling over the next 10 years should be consuming for all of us. And it is definitely concerning for the region. Dr. Karako lets pull that thread. In your vision statement, you talk about psychological warfare, Public Opinion and all the military stuff. Maybe walk us through that and some examples of how you see the chinese threat. Gen. Flynn i think their actions in south asia, from the conduct of their investments in bri, the way they come into countries post exercises. An air intercept is easy because it is a video. And on ground intercept, they conduct reconnaissance before the exercise. During the exercise they go to low level listening. Then they come in with coercive power, mostly money, and they are trying to find individuals who are receptive to that. That undermines what we are doing out there. The point i would make in all of this is that we are trying to support the three pillars of the National Defense strategy deterrence, campaigning and building during advantage. I think our theory of victory there is best articulated in those three ways. Dr. Karako you mentioned belt and rode. That is all with people on land. If there is one thing people know about sun tzu, it is winning without fighting. A lot of people are familiar with brigades and battalions. Talk to us about the type of organization that you command. Gen. Flynn it is a theater army and it actually has four rules. One role is as a Army Service Component commander. There are three of the roles that we perform. Those are on behalf of the joint force. There is the Army Service Component command, an administrative line of authority to the army. Our operational minds of authority to the combatant commander. Those operational hats is the other rules i play for the combatant commander. We get certified in training. That in essence is what the theater army represents. We have a field army in korea. We have Army Service Component command in japan. We have two division commanders, one in alaska and hawaii. We have a core commander at joint base lewismcchord. There are more than 10 flag officer enabling commands in hawaii that give really a scale and depth that are provided through the joint force commander in my joint combat commander role. Dr. Karako you mentioned the three pillars. Can you walk us through your three big efforts to implement that. Jpmrc, operation pathways. Gen. Flynn campaigning, integrated deterrence and building during an advantage. The three ways we are supporting those pillars is jpmrc. The first combat Training Center the army has built in the pacific in the first one they have created in close to 50 years. That one has a hawaiian campus and an alaskan campus. The hawaii campus and the alaska campus are basically revolving around the 23 Infantry Division in hawaii and the 11th Airborne Division in alaska. What is unique about those environments is that they replicate the regions. In eight island archipelago where we have training areas across three of the islands. Up in alaska i grabbed highaltitude, you have highaltitude, cold weather, mountainous. We are surrounded by joint assets in both hawaii and alaska. It gives us an advantage by remaining in the region and generating readiness. We deployed that readiness in the region in a second way. We support operation pathways. Campaigning and the definition is the logical arrangement of operations, activities and investments that benefit security objectives. When we have more than 40 joint exercises on operation pathways, that is the logical arrangement in time and space of operations activities investments. We do over 40 a year. Some are joint. Some army to army. What operations pathways represents is a series of rehearsals and training venues to conduct our operational approach to campaigning in the region. It is adversary focused and it does three things. It creates interoperability between allies and partners and builds confidence. The second thing is it provides us the ability to increase joint readiness of the joint force while we are operating in the region. The third thing it does is it denies terrain from the prc and the adversary. They are in the region seeking ways to counter, that by seizing terrain. We are doing joint interior lines. As a result, we create joint interior lines and there are four parts. Command control, protection, sustainment and collection. Those elements using my headquarters, using the Theater Enabling commands, using the multiple divisions that are out uprooting. What we are trying to do out there is a range in locations by bringing capabilities, posture, messaging what were doing and demonstrating u. S. Will by having soldiers on the ground operating amongst the people. What the joint interior lines do for the joint force is provides think power and operational reached for our ability to conduct operations in the region. All of that has a deterrant element by being forward and presenting a combat credible force that is operating as a joint force, in support of the joint force. And then on key terrain throughout the region to be able to seize, hold and defend that terrain. Dr. Karako let me walk through each of those. I want to start with joint interior lines. Joint intern lines is hard for land forces in the region that has so much water. Can you talk about the challenges of pulling that off . And why you signal it in the way that you do in your top three efforts . Gen. Flynn let me tell you why we need interior lines. The chinese have three things we do not. They are operating on interior lines 100 miles from taiwan. They have mass and they magazine depth. And we are trying to counter those three things. The second thing they have is they have created an arsenal that is primarily designed to defeat air and maritime power. It is designed to disrupt space and cyber. It is not however designed to find, fix and finish land forces. So by creating interior lines and distributing, dispersing, connecting the joint force and the multinational partners forward, we are presenting an asymmetrical dilemma to our adversary. While we are forward, we are not just presenting at the limit our adversary. We areating opportunities for interoperability and we are providing confidence that we are going to be there because we have treaty allies and we have obligations to help them defend as a result of our treaties. I do not think it is that hard. We have to get busy and we have to be active doing it. We are starting to do it right now in japan, philippines, australia, singapore and thailand. I could argue that today we are ready have interior lines in the northern corridor of the region, korea and japan. Where we have to create opportunities is in the central corridor, in the southwestern corridor and the western corridor. That is basically the rest of the theater. This is where we are trying to improve our forward position. Dr. Karako you said we have to get busy. To what extent are the joint interior lines still a vision as opposed to them being . I am thinking about infrastructure. That was really important in february 2022 to rapidly mobilize in europe. To what extent does that manifest today . Gen. Flynn we are making a lot of progress. For example, after australia, we left equipment in australia. We are working with their government on the placement of that. In the philippines, there are five enhanced sites that are now nine. We also have police a lease in the bay. We are doing maintenance of equipment in the port today. That is a great location to support the sites there. Many of you know we have stocks in japan and korea. What we are trying to do in places like japan throughout the southwest silence, in southwest silence islands is to be able to distribute stocks. This is the work that is ongoing. Which is to disperse those people positioned stocks. What we are trying to do is activate them more often during training, rehearsals, deployments and exercises so that we are exercising the issuance and recovery of that material. The other aspect is that i refer to the material we put their as consumables and dual purpose. There consumables we can use while we are training, but they are also dualpurpose because a bandaid is a bandaid is a bandaid, but is also a repair kit. Your going to need it in order to repair damaged airfield. I mix i did about the gains being made with our posture. There is still miles to marx before we rest. However, some of those gains that have been made in the past two years are very positive and their trending in a positive direction. Dr. Karako you already mentioned the philippines and australia. Talk to us how are they being manifested . Gen. Flynn the Security Forces brigade is a great addition to the region. I could use two of them because of the expensive nature and the role they play. Generally speaking, it is in 1214 countries. The way we are using Security Forces systems brigade is in my dialogue with the army chiefs in the region, i asked them what are their needs. How do they need assistance with training, education, leader development, any number of things. In the dialogue i have with the army chiefs, we come up with a path for that particular advisor team to work with their army. Some countries we have one advisor team of 18 people. In other countries, we have a number of them, two or three, depending on scale and the needs of that particular force. So this is one of the important elements that is added to our capability in the region. I think one of the more important parts of the armies modernization armys modernization is the organizational changes that are happening in the army. Let me point to four of them that have been central in the indopacific, particularly for u. S. Army pacific. The first is the Security Forces systems brigade. The second are the Multidomain Taskforces which were with me this week on a panel. The third is a theater buyer element that is in my headquarters to conduct joint fires. The third the fourth rather is a theater information advantage directory. One of the missed stories in the army plus ps transformation is the organizational adaptation going on. It is adding value to the theater army and adding value to the joint and combined force at the operational and theater strategic levels of war. These organizations and i will use the Multidomain Taskforces as an good example. The Multidomain Taskforces came out of a concept. In 1819, we were having difficulty understanding its role and at what exelon should operate at. Echelon it should operate at. The owen no is the organizational table to do it. A decision was made to put that at joint base lewismcchord. It went there when the current chief randy george was the first corps commander. We put a Brigadier General in charge of it. In broad terms around 2019, that was getting built and organized. It is 2023 today and what i think is really important here is that organization is three years in front of the delivery of the new Weapons Systems that are on the way. Midway capability, tomahawk, prism, hypersonic, you can go down the list. While those things are important, the most important part i believe of the continuou