Democracy. U. S. Army Charles Flynn talked about challenges during the Conversation Center for Strategic International studies. This is about an hour and ten minutes. Stop. We are really glad you e 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 let me start again by thinking csis for this partnership and we could not do it without the support of General Dynamics in making this series happen. Thanks for the great support to make this possible. Opening up the first Strategic Land power dialogue event a few weeks ago pointing out the long overdue need to have a form like this to discuss Strategic Land power. We could not have picked a better. Now chief of staff randy george really getting after the demands and changing character in the direction of the army is still going. There is no better way to follow up getting general Charlie Flynn for the army pacific really incredible war fighter and pacific expert here to discuss the rural land power in the nations priorities here. I saw when i was u. S. Army Pacific Commander that the indo pacific is a region where we most fall victim to the myth that there was a short simple and clean way of winning wars that does not require land power we should start with a Historical Perspective for the United States three major wars in the indo pacific all of them have been ground wards. The region in the nature of war has changed so much of this cannot happen again. Deterring or winning a war as a joint force in the region requires combining a unique capability of each service in every domain to pose multiple dilemmas to an adversary to our best hope of deterrent and if deterrence fails it will lead to victory. There will always be a requirement for the army to defend or impose will where land. So, fortunately, as i mentioned, but not have a better leader. General Charlie Flynn the commander of army pacific in june of 2021 a native of rhode island. Commissioned under the infantry in 1985. He has commanded numerous times in iraq. The combat leader commanding at all levels from platoon to now the largest Army Component of the land. I had the honor to serve unbelievable division commander. Just an inspirational leader that understood the region and it was just absolutely amazing what he did with the division. Lucky enough for the army pacific. Carrying me through the rest of doing unbelievable work in the indo pacific. The region that is second to none. Unbelievable. Outliers and partners in the region. Went to an easy job. As i mentioned, we are so glad that he got out of there to get to thehe pacific. I go on for hours about charlie and the region. Let me turn it over to doctor tom who will be our moderator. Tom, over to you. Thank you to the whole team for this partnership. The army is a big organization. The pacific is a big place. A lot to talk about his general flynn said. Could not do better than to have you out here sir. I hope this will not be your last. We will have to do this again soon. Land is one of the domains. A domain on which human beings spend most of their time. To that end, we will start off with the same question that we kick off the series with. What is i your view of the rolef land power for the joint force today in 2040. First of all, thanks. Thank you for allowing us to talk about this enormously important region, but also the value of land and land power. Before i get into the role of it , land is the prize. If you control land, then you can control people. We are seeing that today in europe and you are seeing it right now in the middle east. Its been going on in the middle east for a long time. And, so, what do armies do . Fundamentally we cease and defend terrain. The armies in this region are working to defend ukraine and they want to do that with their partner the u. S. Army. Why . Because what is happening in the region is the aggressive irresponsible behavior of the prc, that forest is out conducting operations where they are violating the territorial integrity and the National Sovereignty o of these countries and nation. And, the armies, the land Power Network in the indo pacific played the central role in being able to seize hold and defend their territory. At the end of the day the nation s obligation is to sprotect its people preserve its territorial integrity by defending its borders and then ultimately defending its homeland which is a really Important Mission for us as well for the indo pacifics. Americas day starts in guam. I guess the point that i make is that when land is the prize and you have a military instrument and rehearsing aunt exercising and demonstrating it intends to build land, militarize land and seas land for its own benefit, that is what is happening out in that region right now. The land Power Network, the armies in the region play a central role in the governments returning to those armies to help them find ways to preserve altheir territorial integrity ad that partnership plays a vital role in being able to protect and maintain a safe and stable indo pacific. In your new vision document which i will make reference to, territory, homeland and the political integrity, it is almost like a different way that is why we are doing this. I just came back from australia, malaysia. All in the last five months. I would just express it to you this way. The nation in the region because of the way that the chinese are behaving, i will go all the way back to prior to Speaker Pelosi s visit to taiwan, these kinds of actions, i referred to them at the time as incremental. I am adding irresponsible right now. Because of really what happened when the speaker went to taiwan. Going up and having a meeting in california. What is happened is that behavior is being seen as overly aggressive byy the region. They are b responding by participating more in my multinational exercise. Their participation inhe these exercises parading opportunities for the region to come together and exercise which was simply an hour army exercise, now it is 14 countries, the councilman down in australia was an army to army exercise. That is the way that they are speaking. You mentioned the pelosi visit. Tremendous chinese reaction to that. It is almost illuminating. You maybo talk about how that is changed. I will go back to the 15th timeframe. That is when their transformation and their reorganization blended together. At the same time, they also put in a training methodology and put candidly Training Centers and. They also built their space force in 2015. The point that i would make is between 14 and 18 when myself in general brown and jim were out there in the region, what i saw them doing training wise and exercises and rehearsals was not anywhere near what i see them today. If you just rewind the clock between 14 and 21 and the advances that they made since our modernization caught up with their reorganization caught up with the centers and then i project over the next decade, that is a dangerous trajectory for them to be on absent slowing them down. What i mean is being able to create possibilities and posture and message and will and allies and Partner Network coming together as a counterweight to what, to the way that chinese are behaving. And that t is what i think is important about, you know, looking back over the last decade and looking out over the next decadeam because, you knowi will not sit here and give you my all my time on it. What i am saying is what they have done over the last 10 years and what they are signaling should be concerned for all of us. Why they are showing up in more multinational exercise. What we do. You talk about, you know, i think that it is the psychological welfare. And also all of the military stuff. Maybe walk us through that. And t some examples of how you e , especially the chinese threat and we will get to some other things. I think that there are actions in Southeast Asia from the conduct of their investments in bri. The way that they come into countries particularly close to exercises. They sort of go to low level listening. They come in with coercive power mostly money and they are trying to find individuals who are receptive to that kind of work. That tends to undermine what we are doing out there. I guess the point that ive made in all of this is that we are trying to support three pillars of the National Defense strategy , campaigning and building an advantage. We have three ways as is pointed out in the vision statement to support those three pillars of the National Defense strategy. I think our theory victory there is best articulated in those ways that we support that. The economics down the road. All of that welfare. That is all with people on land in terms of shaping. Winning without fighting. It comes down to the political aspect. You know, i think a lot of people are familiar with her grades and battalions. Before we get to the initiatives , the type of organizationge. It is theater army. It actually has more roles. A traditional equipped trying to organize under the title x authorities of the secretary. There are three other roles that we performed and trained for. Those are oner behalf of the jot force. Again, the Army Service Component command is an administrative line of authority to the army and our operational lines to the Combatant Commander reflecting with the joint force land commander which combined joint force commander or cj tf. Those three operational paths iare the other roles that i played for the commander and of course we get served by entering through exercises which we just incompleted this past year as or certification. That, in essence, what a theater army represents. We have a field army in korea. We have two Division Commanders one in alaska and hawaii. There is more than 10 flag officer enabling commands out in hawaii that give really does scale and depth that are provided to the joint force commander in my combatant role. You mentioned the three pillars. Can you walk us through i guess you are three big efforts to implement that. Operation pathways. I will start with those three pillars. Campaigning integrated deterrence and building during an advantage. The three ways that we are supporting those is joint pacific multi readiness center, the first center that the army has built in the pacific and the first one they created and close to 50 years. That has an alaskan campus and a deployable arm to it that we bring into the region. Weve done it for the last few years. Twice in indonesia 21 and 22. Though hawaii campus and the alaska campus, they revolve around the division in hawaii and then of course the 11th Airborne Division in i alaska. I think what is unique about those environments is they replicate the region. We have training areas across major training areas across three of the islands and of course up in alaska you have extreme cold weather in yukon. The ability to bring forces to those locations trained at the division and low level with enabling commands, with joint assets because we are surrounded by both hawaii and alaska gives us an advantage by remaining in the region and generating readiness. And then we deploy that readiness in the region and the second way we support the strategy which is operation pathways. Campaigning. Just going on the definition of campaigning. The definition of it is the logical and sequential arrangement of operations activities and investment that benefit u. S. Security objectives and security objectives over our allies and partners. When we have army to Army Exercises on operation pathways, that is the logical and sequential arrangement in time and space s of operations activities investments. We do over 40 of them a year. Some are joint, summer army to army. What operations pathways represent is a series of rehearsals and training venues to conduct our operational approach to campaigning in the region. It is adversary focus and it really does three things. It creates interoperability and builds confidence of our allies and partners. The second thing it provides is the ability to increase joint readiness of the joint force forward while we are operating in the region and the third thing that it does is it denies featuring human and physical terrain from thein prc and the adversary. They are in the region seeking ways to counter that terrain. The third thing, joint interior line. As a result of operation pathways is to create joint teinterior lines. Its commandnd control protectin sustainment and collection. Those elements using my headquarters. Using the Theater Enabling commands using the multiple divisions that are out operating of course we are to have second operating division in korea. What we are trying to do out there is a range in locations by bringing capabilities, posture, messaging what we are doing to both friend info and then demonstrating u. S. Will by having soldiers men and women on the ground operating amongst the people and the joint interior lines do for the air force. They provide same power and reach. They are combating a force and operating as a joint force in support of the joint force. It is featuring between the region to see for Territorial Defense operations. Followup i would love to start since you left off. Kind of stating the obvious. A region that has so much power. Why it is important why you signal it in the way you do. As opposed to exterior lines. Let me tell you that is what we do not have. Hundred miles from taiwan. So they have meg magazine depth. The second thing they created is nad rd arsenal. Primarily designed to defeat maritimeme power. Deny degrade disrupt space and style. Distributive mobile lethal non multiple reloadable fixed and semi fixed land forces. So, by creating interior lines and then distributing disbursing and connect being the joint force in the multinational partners the asymmetrical dilemma to our adversary. We are creating we are providing them contests that we will be treating the allies out there and we have obligations to help them defend as a result. I dont think it is that hard. D i think we have to get busy ad we have to get active doing it. We are starting to do it right now in places like japan and philippines and australia and singapore and thailand. I could argue that today we already have interior lines in the northern corridor of the region vibrant violent, human, unpredictable, and long. So what we are seeing is where we think we are with hightech where we think we are with hightech but the reality is low cost and committed forces well trained second part of what im taking away from the fight in europe i when i was a young officer i think my close friend, i was trained by many in the audience to kill everything in the thousand meters to suppressn everything at about 15 kilometers. Todays close round is about 30 to 45 kilometers and the unmannedat system and conduct reconnaissance in a wide range of areas. My view on this is that was a profound change in how we train. The other part of the and i will use this in the indo pacific from the land we must be able to tell down at the very most junior tactical level out to 35 kilometers, it is a major difference and they need to be able to discuss fourth suppress, identify and the maritime tutorials. That is a big difference on how we train and educate, a big difference on how we equip in development and that part is one other. My take away from europe, our equipment force, the u. S. Systems work and i guess i would say the arms dealer in my part of thehe world has largely been russian and everyone is waking up. She. The counter for you a. S. , the army is moving out nextgeneration shortrange. The capacity and training. Theyve already got commercial offtheshelf it is a challenge placed on all oft us. Theyve already got some stuff on demand right now that can be used in training to put red you a. S. Up against our forces in the field and they are profound changes, what their command post looks like an drop on top of them so they could strike your position. They are using uavs to do that against enemy forces. I think this work going on in Training Centers is important and bringing those capabilities and the region to share those regards in the region and work through the techniques and procedures being able tote identify strike using unmanned systems. Working on a number of unmanned systems, another system out there and counter those threats. Other thing is you even note in their the army has more Campaign Streamers than all expeditions outside combined. With a heavy cost but especially you highlighted experience, how you think about that . What is the episode and event and tragedies conflict we ought to think about today. There was the southwest pacific area so the size of that theater warrants an army to provide the depth, scale and operation as land components so the other aspect i find i interesting agan to the comments i made in the beginning, the objective in defeating the victory was to cease, old and depend because they needed to be able to extend, reach and regain control so they continue to advance across the pacific. I think the lesson today is given arsenal they have created. We do not want to see that space bar give terrain of because we will pay a heavy price so that is essentially why i believe our approach of training in the region conducting campaign throughout the pathways and creation of joint material line provides, and i feel an operational approach and victory if you will to deter and have a forced credible position in the event that deterrent wouldnt fail because we are going to have to have a forcing position to be able to provide capability and the will for the resolve to defend our treaty allies in the range. There is need to control terrain. What you think soldiers are folks in thehe d. C. Broade public. The trilogy is fantastic and i am a huge fan on the victory. Its a wonderful book and a soft land underbelly and there is a lot going on in the country of vietnam, aire had recen