Small Wars Journal

Theater Army Strategy – U.S. Army Pacific

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Mon, 09/16/2024 - 10:57pm

Editor's Note: Many in the national security community received the following message from the USARPAC G5 on 16 September 2024,  It is posted with permission.  

The USARPAC strategy can be downloaded HERE.

Strategic leaders, colleagues, and friends —

On behalf of General Charlie Flynn, Commander of United States Army Pacific, I want to provide you with a digital copy of the United States Army Pacific Theater Army strategy that was approved for public release this week. Please take time to review the attachment and the reader’s notes below – and incorporate into articles, analysis, discussion, research, teaching, and policy development.

I reference the classified version below, so if you can, please contact me on SIPR for the complete version.

Very important: The Commanding General who called for this strategy and shaped its development in every critical way has described his vision as building the foundation for peace, stability, and development across the incredibly important Indo-Pacific region. The higher direction is to avoid armed conflict; the military strategy is to be a useful and relevant instrument for national leaders every day, and ready for the future.

Reader’s Notes – USARPAC Theater Army Strategy: 2025-2035:

  1. In June, the Commander, United States Army Pacific approved a classified Theater Army Strategy: 2025-2035, subtitled “Get in Position to Compete, Fight, and Win!”
  2. This week, an unclassified summary was approved for general release (attached)
  3. The capstone classified strategy, which includes detailed objectives and decision points, builds on earlier work
  4. In November 2022, the USARPAC planning team distributed a White Paper: Theater Army Strategy presented and discussed at the Fall 2022 USARPAC Commanders Conference
  5. Why a theater army strategy? What does it provide? As a Theater Joint Force Land Component Command (think of a four-star general’s warfighting headquarters for the region), USARPAC is a subordinate joint force command and conducts nested campaign planning under USINDOPACOM – under the Combatant Commander’s theater campaign plan
  6. Our campaign planning is captured in the classified Theater Army Campaign Plan (or TACP)
  7. Given all of this classified work, it is both unusual and especially important for interested American citizens (and friendly non-Americans as well) to see, to get an inside glimpse of high level strategic thinking – that’s what this unclassified document provides
  8. By theater army strategy we mean an overarching construct (framework) outlining the TJFLCC’s vision for integrating and synchronizing military activities and operations with the other instruments of national power – we “work” alongside diplomacy, economic policy, and informational activities – in order to achieve national strategic and theater strategic objectives
  9. The rationale for a theater army strategy comes from: increasing geopolitical uncertainty (with China, DPRK, and Russia – and regional changes to security postures, and domestic politics) – within uncertainty, we provide national policy leaders the certainty of landpower…
  10. Previous operational assumptions about force deployment, employment, and readiness no longer fit the USINDOPACOM AOR; forces must be more compact, self-sufficient, organized to operate on joint interior lines, mobile, distributed over large areas of complex terrain, working with regional partners with varying capabilities and levels of authorities to operate with us
  11. Why a theater army strategy now? The theater army echelon is 'returning' as the echelon of land power decision 
  12. The central idea – part of a Combined Force (with Allies like Japan, Australia, and the Philippines) and part of a Joint Force (with other U.S. Military Departments), USARPAC secures the tactical basis, the locations, routes, facilities, and cooperation and agreements, for the joint force’s ability to achieve operational positional advantage
  13. Positional Advantage – that condition (or circumstance) of relative superiority over an adversary (or competitor) that comes from securing (including preventing adversary negative effects) a number of ‘points of relative advantage’ that together provide for ‘staying power’ (or maintaining operational endurance), combat power and overmatch
  14. By restoring the centrality of positional advantage we are not introducing a new buzzword, but we are reestablishing our historic experience with large scale operations over very large geographic areas
  15. Important: position of relative advantage – a location or the establishment of a favorable condition within the area of operations that provides the commander with temporary freedom of action to enhance combat (overmatch) or influence the enemy to accept risk and move to a position of disadvantage (you can find this in Army Doctrine Publication 3-0 on the Army Publishing Directorate website)
  16. Positions of advantage are achieved primarily through maneuver – synchronization of fires (and information) and movement – but of course non-maneuver, non-fires actions are also critical to military success
  17. Against a peer adversary, friendly forces must have positional advantage to successfully advance and secure objectives (this is how we return decisiveness to operations in large scale combat operations) – like in 1968, 1976, 1982, 1986, 1993, and so forth, the U.S. Army must do the work that ensures joint operations will be decisive
  18. Landpower – the ability – by threat, force, or occupation – to gain, sustain, and exploit control over land, resources, and people (also in ADP 3-0) – important: deterrence and assurance (implied by occupation) may be seen as incorporated
  19. Competition – infinite game – “wins” today shape the next round of competition – players may change game board, pieces, rules
  20. War – the ultimate decision sought by states when interests clash and violence is chosen – is one important, but not the only, underlying idea to the Theater Army Strategy
  21. Considering the strategic environment – China is developing A2/AD capabilities not just to deny opponents the ability to strike its homeland but also to enable its own regional power projection
  22. The combined/joint force must be prepared to disrupt and defeat the adversary’s combination of mass, interior lines, and magazine depth from and across all warfighting domains (land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace)
  23. China works to negate U.S. military advantages in space, cyberspace, the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), and information environment – is developing significant anti-satellite capabilities, integrating cyber into all aspects of operations, and developing sophisticated air and missile defenses to challenge U.S. power projection and to deny U.S. space-based communications, GPS navigation and precision-guided munitions
  24. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invests in technologies to undermine U.S. ability to achieve overmatch – that is, the ability to enter combat and not lose the initiative: long-range precision fires, air defense systems, electric fires, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS)
  25. At the higher tactical and operational levels, the intelligence, fires, and air defense equipment and systems that are collectively described as anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) capabilities challenge the Joint Force’s ability to achieve air superiority and sea control as well as its ability to project power onto land from the air and maritime domains
  26. To be clear, this tactical description of a battlefield adversary is something the U.S. military has not faced directly in decades
  27. The PLA is developing cyberspace capabilities such as disruptive and destructive malware and space capabilities such as anti-satellite weapons to disrupt U.S. communications and freedom of maneuver
  28. Especially considering a potential war over such a large geographic area like the Indo-Pacific, losing what we call freedom of maneuver can lead almost directly to strategic defeat
  29. Adversary systems have been designed and postured to defeat primarily sea and air forces, and secondarily, to deny, degrade, and disrupt space and cyberspace – not designed to find, fix, and finish distributed, mobile, lethal, non-lethal, reloadable, fixed, and semi-fixed land forces
  30. In a war against a peer enemy, the U.S. military cannot discount key terrain: this Theater Army Strategy takes on key terrain directly (there are important classified details here)
  31. Key terrain – beginning here with the geographic sense – (we work in accordance with Department of Defense doctrine and policy) any locality, or area, the seizure or retention of which affords a marked advantage to either combatant (in Joint Publication 2-0) or (in accordance with Army doctrine) an identifiable characteristic whose seizure or retention affords a marked advantage to either combatant (found in ADP 3-90)
  32. Key terrain and the Joint Force – importance: by putting combat-credible capabilities on key terrain, the land forces can make the Joint Force, such as the Joint Force Maritime Component Command, appear larger than it actually is – this is because the JFMCC wouldn’t have to commit a surface action group to overwatching the Luzon Strait, or the Sunda Strait, or the Lombok Strait, or the Malacca Strait – those surface maritime assets can be used elsewhere and against other key operational tasks
  33. The Joint Force must have sea control and sea denial for joint all-domain operations – and with Army modernization, the Pacific Theater Army can threaten hostile ships from the shore around key terrain like maritime chokepoints
  34. Additionally, land forces can bring together multinational forces in and around key terrain to be able to see, sense, and understand the operational environment for follow on missions like interdiction, air strikes, and raids
  35. Key terrain, at the operational level and in this particular area of responsibility (AOR), allows movement and maneuver, improves effectiveness of intelligence collection and fires, helps assure allies and key military partners, and enables more effective sustainment and protection
  36. In such a large potential theater of war (or operations) like the Indo-Pacific, the older idea of operational geometry is resurging in relevance and importance to planning –
  37. We see four broad approaches (northern, central, southern, and western), corresponding to four major ocean areas (eastern Pacific, central Pacific, western Pacific, and Indian Ocean)
  38. The four approaches are much more than just simple geographic areas – they are planning constructs for organizing many, in some cases complicated activities including partner nation efforts, training, security presence, physical development for improved multinational military actions, and so forth
  39. In wartime, these approaches might be entire theaters of operations
  40. In campaigning, these references help to spread efforts out oriented on key terrain – in armed conflict, these references would be used to define operational areas, axes of advance, lines of operation, lines of communications, bases of operation, and objectives
  41. We think and plan in terms of a campaigning framework – described in the unclassified strategy as Organize – Generate – Apply – Build
  42. Spatially our operational framework includes at least one Strategic Support Area – a number of Rear Areas – Joint Security Areas – Close Areas – a Deep Area – and an Extended Deep Area
  43. This geometry allows commanders to visualize and describe forces and operations in time, space, and purpose
  44. In campaigning it describes the employment of forces and capabilities – the campaigning framework
  45. The decisive points are generally found where approaches cross close areas (specifics here are classified)
  46. Commanders at echelon define their operational framework, nested with this, and based on the mission, friendly forces, opposing forces, allies and partners, and terrain
  47. Organize – Generate – Apply – Build also describes our Strategic Approach; we operate according to four strategic methods: organizing – generating – applying – building
  48. Intermediate military objectives (classified) – are used because the campaigning (and potential armed conflict) unfold over great distances and extended in time – in a very complex operational environment of allies, key partners, other actors and entities that influence the national military tool
  49. This strategy – and the strategic approach generally represents a ten year block of time
  50. The classified Theater Army Strategy decision points should – if we do our work right – describe how USARPAC changes over time to be more effective within the emerging operational environment
  51. The decision points are by definition strategic, and define the broad course of the Pacific Theater Army and the ‘weight’ of effort – especially at the overall theater army level – they also indicate priority in time – all matters, issues, actions, and activities associated with the decision points are important, worked on continuously (they are always ‘in effect’)
  52. Combined partners – such as the Japan Self-Defense Forces, Australian Defence Force, and Armed Forces of the Philippines, among others – rely on us, our plans and readiness to defend – the Joint Force in the Indo-Pacific needs to appreciate the unique and, frankly, strategic role of the U.S. Army to security and stability, and the American people and the populations of allies should have a broad understanding of how military force may legitimately protect what is strategically valuable (at a minimum) – and we hope this strategy serves this purpose
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Thank you for your attention and consideration of everything provided here.

Comments, questions, issues, elaborations, etc. are welcome. Take care, mjl

Colonel Marco J. Lyons
United States Army
Assistant Chief of Staff, G5 Plans
United States Army Pacific
Fort Shafter, Hawaii

 

About the Author(s)

Marco J. Lyons

Colonel Marco J. Lyons is Assistant Chief of Staff G5 Plans at United States Army Pacific, where he oversees mid- to long-term strategy, planning, and war games. Col. Lyons has served in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Okinawa in Army and joint positions. Col. Lyons earned a master’s degree in strategic studies from Naval Postgraduate School where his distinguished thesis, under the supervision of David Yost, was an early comparative study of the 1994, 2001, and 2010 nuclear posture reviews. For two years Col. Lyons was part of Army Science Board studies of the multi-domain operations concept. He has published for Infantry, The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the China Landpower Studies Center, and Divergent Options.