September 18, 2025 • 46 mins
The Indo-Pacific is a strategic theatre named after two oceans, but according to retired US four-star general Charles Flynn, land forces would be crucial in any conflict, including over Taiwan.
In today’s episode, David Wroe speaks with Charles, who retired last year as commanding general of the US Army Pacific, about the often misunderstood and overlooked importance of land power. They consider scenarios including a Chinese full-scale invasion of Taiwan and the crucial hard power that only armies could deliver in such a conflict. Charles, who is also a senior advisor at Palantir explains the technology lessons that China and North Korea are learning from Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the challenges for large organisations including militaries to reorientate themselves around new and transformative technologies.
And to those worried about US reliability in the Indo-Pacific, he has a message: don’t panic.
Editor’s Note: In the introduction, Olivia mentions that ASPI last hosted General Flynn in 2021. ASPI hosted him in February 2022.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Stop the world. Welcome to Stop the World, the
ASP Podcast. I'm Olivia Nelson.
And I'm David Rowe. Today we're covering land forces
in the Indo Pacific with a guy who's lived and breeds it for
much of his career. And that's retired American four
star and former commanding General of U.S.
Army Pacific, Charles Flynn. And Charles has some really
(00:23):
interesting views to share. And some challenging ones live,
whether that's the Chinese takeover of Taiwan and what that
really involves in a potential situation, the hard power.
Hard power, excuse me, that armycould deliver to any such
conflict. Or the technology lessons that
China and North Korea are learning from Russias war in
Ukraine. Charles is a frank, very frank
(00:45):
and passionate advocate for the role of land forces in our part
of the world. So much of the inner Pacific
strategic discussion is soaked up by ASC, cyber and space, but
Charles argues that humans live on land and that's where every
story is ultimately decided. He also talks up the strategic
importance of Australia, pushes back against the view that the
US risks becoming an unreliable partner and explains the
(01:07):
challenges for large, large organisations, including
militaries, to reorientate themselves around you and
transformative technologies. Yeah, Charles is also a senior
advisor at Palantir, of course, which is a big technology firm,
which means on top of his I'm the experience, he knows a lot
about integrating technology into militaries.
I know we've got a lot of listeners whose primary interest
is defence, so this is a real crowd pleaser for you.
(01:29):
But even if your interest is in other areas of security, I
really do urge you to listen carefully.
It's a great way to keep on top of the strategic dynamics in our
part of the world. And please get a map and have
that in front of you while you're listening, because
actually being able to see some of these places on the map is
really, really helpful. You know, he talks about Luzon
in northern Philippines, for instance, and the critical role
(01:50):
that they could play in any kindof cross Strait situation.
So really interesting stuff. And there you have it.
Yeah, it was great to have Charles back at ASBY.
We last hosted him here in 2021 as as commander of U.S.
Army Pacific. So over to you and Charles.
Charles Flynn, retired US general, former commanding
general of the US Army, Pacific.Thanks for coming on Stop THE
(02:12):
World. Thanks for having me again.
So I want to start with an overview of Chinese military
modernization. Late last year, you described
the trajectory as very, very dangerous.
You said no one builds that kindof arsenal to merely defend.
Right now, a lot of the public attention goes on the maritime
and air capabilities that are, that are coming out of China's
(02:35):
military modernization, right? Tend to hear less about the land
forces as a as an army general, as a land forces guy.
What do you see when you look atwhat China is building for the
People's Liberation Army itself?I mean, what, what they're
testing, what they're training on?
What can you infer about the role of land forces in that
(02:56):
modernization? 1st I'll start.
I'll back up a little bit and goback to 20151415, which is
ironically in a little bit around the same time that we US
had pivoted to the Pacific in 2013.
And during that period of time their entire military, you know,
(03:19):
began what I would say their transformation.
So they had a, a real, a deep injection of new technologies,
they were fielding new capabilities.
And maybe the most important thing that they did during that
period of time was they set up training centres.
They were taking actual pages out of our book to set up these
(03:42):
training centres and then beginning to exercise in ways
that were different from the past.
So I, I, when I look back in time in 2015, I'm going to say
that like their organisational changes, their technological
changes and then their training changes, all those reforms kind
(04:04):
of came together. And since 2015, they've been at
A, at a rapid acceleration with changes and, and, and they, they
manifested themselves in the waythey're exercising.
And so, and you know, Admiral Paparo is describing this now,
(04:27):
but when he and I were componentcommanders together, we were
both watching all of this happen.
And the scale, the complexity and the changes that have
occurred in the way they've beenexercising as a joint force with
rocket forces. Their, their, their maritime
(04:48):
arm, their air arm and their land forces.
And I'm glad you brought up the fact that people don't pay a lot
of attention to their army. And I'll really, I'll say two
things. And I made this comment and
testimony back to our U.S. Congress in March, April time
frame. And, and I catch a lot of
criticism for this. Look, you know, in order to
(05:11):
invade Taiwan, you actually haveto generate an invasion force
and that is its army. So I don't believe, and this is
where I, you know, I have debates with scholars and
academics and think tankers that'll say, well, the Navy is
their centre of gravity. Well, actually I, I counted that
and say, no, it's not the, the very definition of centre of
(05:31):
gravity is that force with what you need in order to achieve
your objective. And in order for them to seize,
hold and subjugate the people ofTaiwan, you actually have to
deliver an invasion force. Well, in order to deliver the
invasion force, China has to they have to mobilise, they have
to move, they have to combat configure, and then they have to
(05:52):
combat load. And then they got to get across
this straight. And I guess that's the point I
was making, that we have to pay attention to their centre of
gravity because they actually can't achieve their ultimate
objective unless they deliver that invasion force.
And that invasion force is its army.
So if you want to buy time, you want to buy space, you want to
(06:14):
buy indications and warnings of,of ultimately what they have to
generate to achieve their objective, then watch their land
forces. And by the way, their land
forces also are integrated with their rocket forces.
And there's a very, very dangerous capability that they
have called a PCH 191. It's basically our equivalent of
(06:38):
a high Mars and and those capabilities out on the coast
when they move those into position, they actually can
range beyond the island of Taiwan.
So all that to say, 2 points, 2015 was when their reforms in
my view accelerated and those resulted in increased
(07:01):
complexity, increased scale of their exercises that they are
are demonstrations of their rehearsals.
And more to the point of your question, it would be
irresponsible of us to only pay attention to the maritime and
air component because they can'tachieve their objectives unless
(07:21):
they can deliver an invasion force to Taiwan and that
invasion force is actually theirarmy.
So we need to pay attention to what is actually happening on
the land because that's going togive us the greatest in my view,
the greatest indications and warnings time because it's going
to take time to deliver a force across it.
One last point on this. I always remind people that that
(07:46):
this is singularly the most complex type of operation a
military force can do. In fact, the last time that the
United States did one of these successfully was the Inchon
landing. And prior to that it was
Normandy. So, you know, they have a
really, really tall task in front of them to do that.
(08:06):
And everything that we can do here to sow doubt, you know,
feed paranoia and bolster what we're doing with our allies and
partners out here is a way to keep this theatre in a, in a, in
a no war stance, which is ultimately what we really all
need to be working to achieve out here.
(08:28):
They can't resist a follow up onthat.
Are they getting better broadly at those joint effects?
And if so, how does it affect the timeline?
I mean, if you think that that is what they actually need to do
with respect to Taiwan, how doesthat actually affect the
timeline? Yeah.
So again, when I, when I look over the last decade, I say,
(08:50):
yes, they are improving now. You know, we, we have, you know,
a really extraordinary joint capabilities, but it takes work
every day on these things and, and you can't let up at all.
And we, you know, I just think inherently we are doing joint
(09:13):
operations and multinational joint and combined operations
all the time. So to answer your question, are
they practising at it? Yes.
Are they getting better at it? Yes.
Are they at the level that's required for the, the scale and
the and the complexity and the risk of a crust rate invasion
(09:38):
that is still to be seen? I have my doubts because it's
going to be very, very hard. And again, if we are doing
things to prevent those from occurring and disrupting their
ability to conduct those joint operations, then there's
goodness in that. Can you project forward at all
(10:00):
and see when they might be readyto do that with a level of
confidence that they they would?Well, I mean, their leadership
has given them these gates of 2027 and and 2035.
So I, I take them for their word.
You know, it's when I left uniform, I would say that they
were moving on a path to do that.
But again, the grade like how good are they at that?
(10:24):
You know, I, I think that that is still still to be seen.
I, I don't, I don't believe thatthere is joint and as capable as
a joint force as they need to bein order to be successful that
operation. However, that doesn't mean they
(10:44):
can't execute the operation, because that's a matter of risk
and it's also a political question.
So our job in the military was always to have forces ready to
be prepared for the military instrument of China if they
actually use the instrument thatwe needed to be in a position to
(11:05):
give options to the National command authority, period.
So, you know, on this particularmatter, there's a lot of people
that are out there, they can debate the policy of it, but
when you're wearing a uniform, not your lane, it's literally
just get your instrument ready to be able to give options to
the National Command Authority so that in the event that
something did happen, then we had options there to do things
(11:29):
that gave us freedom of action, freedom of manoeuvre, unity of
command, unity of effort. We might as well stick with
Taiwan for one more than becauseI do have another question.
That is what would be the role of the US Army in in counter in
giving those options to the US government and I suppose by
extension the role of US allies,land forces.
(11:52):
Well, there's, I always referredto there, there's really 4
foundational capabilities that the US Army and by extension
because we're a bit of an epoxy that brings the, I refer to it
as the land power network together out here in the Indo
Pacific. And those 4 fundamental roles
(12:16):
are command and control, sustainment, protection and
collection. So what do I mean by that?
Well, you know, the, the upper technical echelon commands that
we have a division and then a core and then the, the enabling
(12:38):
commands in sustainment, missiledefence, police, medical are
really, really and engineering Icould go on, are really robust
at the division and core level. And so when you want a command
(12:58):
and control node to be joint, multinational, interagency and
even international if need be, then a, a, a army division and
Army Corps. And then the, the, the general
officer flag capabilities, LED command and control at those
echelons along with the theatre army.
(13:20):
I mean, there's, there's nothingthat can compare to them.
Protection, integrated air and missile defence, medical
commands, police commands, civilaffairs commands all come out of
the Army collection. There's a, you know, tying
together the terrestrial collection layer to the aerial
(13:41):
layer, to the space layer. You know, there's, there's two
brigades and then there is a, a,a, a sizable intelligence
enterprise back in Hawaii at U.S.
Army Pacific. And so that collection apparatus
working with the Navy and the Air Force and US Indo Paycom
(14:03):
provides the ability to do collect.
And then of course sustainment. There's a Brigadier General LED
Expeditionary sustainment command in Korea, Brigadier
General LED Expeditionary sustainment command on the West
Coast. There's a two star Major General
LED theatre sustainment command in Hawaii and their executive
(14:24):
agency is to do joint logistics for the theatre.
So those foundational capabilities are what need to be
in position for the joint force and the interdependencies that
are created by those capabilities forward to then
include those forces elsewhere in the land domain, which is not
(14:45):
just Army forces, it is also special operations forces,
marine forces when they're operating on the land, but the
sizable land forces that exist in the region.
Bringing all those together givea, in my view, a, an
asymmetrical advantage to the joint commander, US Endopacom.
(15:08):
And then the commands within thetheatre to be able to have what
we refer to as positional advantage, to be in the position
to be able to command and control, protect, collect and
sustain and take time and space away from your adversary.
OK. You've partly answered, I
suppose my next question by giving a very concrete example
(15:30):
there with Taiwan. But I'm interested in the role
of land forces in in presenting A credible deterrence.
Because of course the way we avoid everything that you've
just been describing is, is is presenting that credible
deterrence something we'll all need to contribute to.
And you've passionately talked plenty of times, including just
now about the fact that we live on land.
(15:50):
This is ultimately where decision to become.
Humans live. Decisions are.
Made we breathe air, we don't swim indefinitely.
That said, I mean to to to a layperson like myself, you look
at a map of the Indo Pacific andthere's a hell of a lot of water
with bits of bits of land sort of dotted around it.
Just talk to me a little bit about the the role in deterrence
(16:13):
of having that kind of solid defensible presence of of land
forces. It's not fragile, it's not
vulnerable. It's it can it can do all of
those things you've just been describing sustain, etcetera.
I suppose in a sense, translate what you've just been talking
about into into the sort of deterrence signal that we want
to send to China in particular. OK, so on the on the hard power
(16:37):
side, everything that I just outlined, plus fires and
manoeuvre. OK, so I'll, I'll say it this
way. The A2AD arsenal that the
Chinese have designed is primarily designed to defeat our
are air and maritime capabilities.
(16:59):
Secondarily, it's to disrupt anddeny our space in cyber.
It is not designed to find, fix and target attack distributed
mobile, reloadable and networkedland forces.
OK. So, so from a hard power
standpoint, if you were to take Type 12, Type 80, eights high
(17:23):
Mars with intermediate medium range ballistic missiles,
Brahmos that the Philippines have, Australia has high Mars
and you put those in the right locations, mind you.
Now, if you had, if I had, you know, sort of four battalions of
High Mars in Luzon and you can fire 700 to 800 missiles and
(17:48):
reload another 7 or 800 missilesin 10 minutes, that's an awful
lot of hard power forward that can do a substantial amount of
damage. Add in Brahmos from the
Philippines, add in Type Twelvesand type 80 eights from Japan,
add in Marine Corps capabilities, add in soft
capabilities. That is a forward position that
(18:12):
is hard power and provides A deterrent effect on somebody
seeking to do what they've, you know, describe they want to do,
which is to do a cross Strait invasion.
So I think having hard power forward by being in those right
positions to do sea control and sea denial also is additive to
(18:33):
what air power and the and maritime power can bring.
So what do I mean by that? Well, if you're in the right
pieces of terrain, say a straight like the Luzon
straights, then you can actuallymake the air component and the
maritime component, particularlythe maritime component appear
(18:53):
larger than they are. Why?
Because they don't have to put asurface Action Group inside of
these straights. Why?
Because we're able to do that from the land.
You can collect and now you can employ unmanned systems undersea
in the air. They have lawyer munitions.
You can do collection. You can share those targets with
your with your allies and partners.
(19:14):
So that's kind of a description,David, of like hard power.
That's for doing that. Now let me jump to another
element of this. In my view, if you want to
understand what's actually happening with the security
situation in each of these countries, the best place to
understand that is to actually be out in the interior with the
(19:36):
communities, with your fellow soldiers, with members of their
military that are out training. And so this is an asymmetrical
advantage of what I mean by the strategic land power network,
because flying over a country and sailing by a country, you
simply do not get the same fingertip feel of what's
(20:00):
actually happening inside these countries.
So if you want to find out what's going on in these
countries, talk to a soldier because they're seeing it
through. The lens and the eyes of the
soldiers, the Marines, the special operate, the commanders,
the community and the leaders that are out in these areas.
(20:24):
And that is something that I, we, we don't pay enough
attention to. That again, creates a bond and
creates A commonality and gives unity and collective commitment
of these nations out here that have large armies.
I'm going to stay on this for just a second because I think
(20:46):
it's an important point and people, when I mentioned this to
people in Congress, you name it,it, you know, like the
Philippines has more divisions than the United States Army, 70%
of their military is its army. Japan 65%, South Korea, 65%,
Indonesia, 75%, Thailand 75 to 80% Vietnam 80 to 85% India 80
(21:12):
day. The point I'm making is this
region is dominated. It's dominated by armies.
And so it's a natural point to connect and then have a
literally, we talk the same language.
And by the way, another thing that is really important is they
go to our schools, 65% of the what's called the International
(21:36):
Military education and training seats in the US are in an Army
school, 65% because we have the biggest, we have the biggest set
of schools. And so many of these leaders in
this region are are schools in the United States.
And so there's this natural connection through armies that I
(22:00):
think should, should I just, I underscore it as much as I
possibly can because as I say it, it is, it is the security
architecture that binds the region together.
Very controversial when I say that there's a lot of people
that recoil from it, but I'm telling you from my experiences,
it is very real and it's an important part of deterrence out
(22:22):
here. I've got to say, well, you've
convinced me just in those in those few minutes.
And I, I confess I hadn't reallythought about that as an added,
as an added benefit. Well, let's, let's talk about
Australia then. I mean, it's chiefly a marine
presence, but you know, there, there are various rotations and
there's, there's equipment coming through and there's, you
know, Australia is in a, in is in a great sort of vantage point
(22:44):
with in terms of, you know, a little bit further back than
some of the other places where U.S. forces are, are stationed
around the region. I mean, just tell me about the,
the value of, of northern Australia to, to, you know, to
the, to the, to the allied strategy, I suppose.
And I mean, and is there, is there logic in in expanding the
(23:06):
role of Northern Australia in that picture?
Yes, absolutely. So let me first talk about the
relationship. So you know the and I'll say
that the entire Australian military is such a great partner
out here and they're they are everywhere.
(23:29):
And so, you know, my experiencesout here with them is that they
are constantly pressing with us on increasing our exercises to
become more multinational and more joint.
(23:50):
A couple of characteristics I point out like the very nature
because of the size and the location of the Australian
military. They they are, they work very,
very hard at being a very good joint force.
Why? Because they have to well, this
is another area of overlap with the United States military
because we work at it too. And so the value of both of our
(24:14):
forces being, you know, joint toa core is a really important
part in terms of the the terrain, the territory.
Look, if you go from the Aleutian Islands and, and I say
the Aleutian Islands deliberately and you come down
to the first island chain from Al Qaeda all the way down to the
(24:37):
Senkakus, Taiwan, the Philippines, and then run all
the way down to Australia. To me, that is really the first
island chain. And some people just talk about,
you know, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines.
But the reality of it is, and ifI added the location that we are
on the Asian continent, Korea, that is part of this as well.
(25:00):
And so, you know, up in the northeast in Townsville, as I
have long communicated that we're near the training centre,
we're near a brigade, we're neara port, we're near airfields,
you have the northern airfields,you have Darwin.
And if you just look at the nearabroad in the northern coast of
(25:22):
of the continent, again, I remind people it's a continent.
You know that from Townsville tothe northern airfields to Darwin
all the way around to Perth, those are important geographical
locations for sustainment command and control, C2 additive
manufacturing industry to come forward and work together.
(25:43):
And so I, I, I am a big fan of being able to be in Townsville.
And then I said shore, water Bayand, and, and the training area
that's there because we are, we are near forces, we are near a
training location and it is a important place to command and
(26:06):
control sustainment and to be able to project from there.
One other area that I was reallypleased to see the advances in,
in the Australian Defence Forcesis with watercraft.
I'll call them watercraft because that's what we have in
our own forces. I made a big push to get more
(26:26):
watercraft out into the Pacific.We had some, but we had some
over in the Middle East and we needed to shift it out of the
Middle East and get it out. Of course, it's so vital for us
to operate out here and I'm really happy to see the
Australian Defence Forces, namely the Army, be able to
increase their ability to have watercraft.
Our watercraft working together can create all kinds of
(26:48):
opportunities, but it can also create a number of dilemmas for
adversaries out here. And, and they're not that's,
that's not just in preparation for a crisis or conflict, it's
also in response to natural disasters that, you know, 8 out
of 10 on the planet happen out here.
So I think both countries need those capabilities along with
(27:09):
the Rotary wing, medium and heavy lift helicopters, really,
really important capabilities. You'll have to pardon my
ignorance. I've lost track of which of
which of those are currently in Australia and which are not.
But are are you talking there about things that you would like
to see included or are they things there, there and and if
if they're already there, what kind of expansion would you like
(27:30):
to see? What?
Would be useful. Well, I, I don't know the
details exactly of what the Australian Defence Forces are,
how many they're buying, but I know the, the Army is getting,
I'm going to say great, more than 20 landing craft.
And you know what, I don't exactly know where they're going
to be stationed within Australia, but I know that our
watercraft, which we have in Hawaii and Japan, actually we
(27:54):
have a couple locations in Japan.
Having the ability to have thosedeployed further into the region
and be able to use the ports in Korea, Japan, the Philippines,
because we are running them in and out of Aguila Harbour in
Subic and then Townsville and Shaltwater Bay areas.
(28:16):
Really important for us because we can regenerate and we can
ride share in many ways together.
You may not realise this, but a couple years ago after Talisman
Sabre in 23, we actually loaded up Australian tanks on U.S.
Army watercraft and brought themto exercise grew to shield in
Indonesia. So these are the kinds of
(28:37):
interoperability opportunities that we have when the Australian
Defence Forces get a advance a capability and get a little more
capacity by having those those types of capabilities in their
army. And in terms of US personnel and
assets that could also be added to to the US presence here.
(29:02):
Do I? Do I?
Yeah, I. Mean do, do.
Are there specific things that you think would be very useful
to? Oh, I think.
Some sort of, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Also I, I think so I advocated when I was in uniform that a
sustainment command of about 80 to 100 people were in
Townsville. And then you know, obviously
(29:23):
because of that area, there's also, you know, industries that
can come forward have additive manufacturing, have parts, have
depo maintenance so that where we have commonality and
equipment like HAR Mars, M1 tanks, aviation, watercraft,
etcetera and ammunition, then ifwe can have those types of
(29:47):
materials on the ground, then that is in my view a, a, a real
benefit to to our work together out here.
It certainly reduces our lines of communication.
It it puts material forward thatwe are going to use.
(30:09):
And so some combination of permanent but but also having a
location where you can dynamically deploy forces in and
out of is very helpful, not unlike what happens up in Dharma
with the Marine. Gotcha.
Okay, the, you probably seen thenews recently that Sir Anthony
(30:32):
Albanese, our Prime Minister waswent to Port Moresby, was
expected to sign a security agreement with Papua New Guinea.
That didn't happen. We don't quite know why, but we
do know that China has for a long time sought a greater
security presence in the Pacific.
I'm interested in your view, given your thoughts on that sort
(30:54):
of network of, of, of allies andpartners working together to
present that credible deterrence.
I guess the flip side is, you know, the risk of an increased
permanent and serious Chinese military presence in, you know,
further afield in the region andin particular in the Pacific.
What would it mean for our overall strategy if China were
(31:18):
to establish a serious permanentpresence here?
What? Oh so.
Sorry, in in the Pacific. Yeah, permanent.
So let me, let me, I'll just saythis, their presence is there
anyways. So I'll describe what that looks
like, what I saw. They would often times they come
(31:38):
with money and they get into a loan agreement and sometimes
they'll, they'll find a politician, a military leader,
tribal leader, you know, just a,a business leader.
It really it didn't matter. Loan can't be paid back and they
would then, you know, I'll use the word take, but they would
(32:02):
assume things like ports, airfields, warehouses, they
would get into their electrical grid, they would get into their
communications backbone. Now you have a very dangerous
situation. So that's Part 1 later, and this
started, this started emerging more in the 2021 time frame.
(32:25):
And this is particular in the Oceana area.
They would come with police trainers and equipment.
So if you can think about the combination of law enforcement
getting into their their their policing, this is a very
dangerous combination in these small island nations that you
(32:45):
know, literally they're, they're, they're really as you
know, they're not worried. They're not, they don't think
about, you know, pure war. You know, they, they're they're
concerned about recovering from a natural disaster.
Like how do they get back on their feet when they have a
typhoon RIP through or have someother natural disaster occur?
(33:07):
Terrible, you know, touch of nature here.
So that to me is the most dangerous part about the Chinese
out in the in the Oceana area. And I think that we would be
well served to work on agreements and work on ways to
(33:27):
find commonality between what the small island nations and
Oceana need. And then of course, what
countries like the United States, Australia, New Zealand,
Indonesia can do to offset some of that.
And of course no one's better atthat than than your forces here
in Australia, so I was happy to hear that there was some work on
(33:50):
that and hopefully that will endup in a more positive place.
Yes, yes, there's a dot dot dot,but hopefully it'll it'll it'll
come together. But it's, it's a work in
progress and we have to stay at it.
So sure, because the other side is true too, David.
I mean, they're, they're, they're continuing to work at
it. Absolutely.
They're they're working at it ata fever.
Space, yeah, absolutely. And I suppose hence the concern
(34:11):
that there's a reason when something that was expected to
happen doesn't come together. I'm conscious of time couple of
other ones that I just want to cover what first is the role of
technology. Obviously it's a huge amount of
of, of change in modernization going on there.
I'll just for transparency, I'llacknowledge you're a senior
advisor to to Palantir, which provides a lot of high end
(34:33):
software to towards these capabilities.
China is developing some pretty formidable tech capabilities
itself. But it seems to me the, the,
the, the, the advantage and the success will come from how you
integrate your people and your technology together, how you
integrate, you know, the, the, the tech and the skilled human
(34:54):
beings. It's actually going to decide
things. Tell me a bit about how
technology, and I think particularly in AI data
processing and analysis, are helping military commanders and
decision makers talk about the what's the smart way of
integrating all of this and how well are the Chinese doing that,
(35:16):
as far as you can tell? Does the US and and its close
allies still have an advantage in being able to mesh these
things together? Yes.
Let me talk about what we're doing 1st and then a little bit
about what I saw in my time withthem.
And probably on that there's there, there is a dangerous
(35:37):
thing that's underway that I, I want to make sure I, I touch on
as well. OK, so there's kind of three
parts. And I was going to talk about
this later today as well. But so capabilities,
technologies and organisations. So in order to create new
concepts and new approaches, the, the combination of
(36:01):
experimenting during exercises with not just, you know, legacy
capabilities or capabilities youalready have now today.
So think aeroplanes, ships, rockets, missiles, you know,
UAVs, etcetera. Those capabilities have to be
brought together. And then on the on the other
(36:22):
end, you need to change organisations when you have
these current capabilities and new capabilities that you're
bringing on. You know, a really good example
is the multi domain task forces that we began to employ out
here. Many people think that it's
like, oh, the Typhoon missile system is there.
It's like, yeah, but the Typhoonmissile system started to be, we
(36:46):
started banging metal on that back in like 2018.
And we made a decision in 2019 like we need to change the
organisation because you can't give a new capability to a old
organisation, to a legacy organisation they won't know
what to do with. By the way, I got plenty of
examples of new equipment comingto me in combat and you're
(37:10):
giving new equipment and new technologies to a legacy
formation. They, you know, you don't know
what to do with it because you don't have an organisation
that's built to employ it. So the Multi demand Task Force
was really a way of getting an organisational design in front
of the bent metal capabilities that were coming.
So and I'm glad that we decided to do that in the 2018-2019
(37:35):
because that organisation was like 3 years in front of the
actual hardware that was showingup.
I'm saying this because there's three parts to this.
There's capabilities that have to be exercised and
experimented. There's organisational changes
that have to occur and the technology changes.
(37:58):
And, and as you mentioned, like Palantir and software and Maven
smart systems, that's something we brought out here when I was a
commander in 2022, I'm happy to report, like we brought it to
Japan for Yamasakura. And now it's much more
pervasively being used by not just U.S. forces, but by other
forces in the region. And the point I'm making here is
(38:19):
that those technologies are really important.
And I'll just say on on the particular systems Maven smart
system that Palantir has is, is actually a decision advantage
tool for commanders. And the that to me is where
artificial intelligence and continuing to bring artificial
(38:41):
intelligence tools with large language models to commanders in
their operation centres and, andtools also that advantage
tactical commanders, operationalcommanders and theatre
commanders. They can't just be that we're
giving a tool to a young captainor a young Sergeant first class.
(39:01):
We have to give the same tools to four star generals all the
way down to the most tactical leaders.
And I think that that's a reallyimportant part of being able to
exercise and experiment continually.
Now on the Chinese side, they, they are advancing with their
technologies. Now back to the earlier part of
(39:22):
our conversation, though, I do believe that, that I, I didn't,
I didn't see the kind of joint integration, the levels, the,
the proficiency of joint integration that we enjoy.
However, one of the things that concerns me and we talked about
(39:44):
this, you know, before we got onair here, one of the things that
really concerns me, and I'll, I'll go back to about 18 months
ago, I remember being asked by the media because I made some
comments about 12,000 North Korean soldiers that were in
Ukraine fighting. And like, we haven't heard that.
And I said, well, you should read the news out in Asia
(40:05):
because there's 12,000 North Korean soldiers that are
fighting in the Ukraine now. But I said that's not, that's
not the most important part of what's happening.
I said first there was. Parts and platforms, howitzers
and and part, then there was ammunition, then they sent
soldiers. But actually the most dangerous
part of this is the technology that's being shared between
(40:28):
Russia, North Korea and China, and I would say to some degree
Iran as well. And in my view, this is
something we need to really, really pay attention to.
So there very good at electronicwarfare, they're very good at
cyber. They're, they're very capable in
space. They're they're gaining in their
(40:51):
knowledge of unmanned systems both underwater and, and in the
air and underground with robotics.
And so this is something I thinkwe need to pay particular
attention to with North Korea and and China, because in a way
they're indirectly benefiting from a real laboratory of war
(41:14):
where Ukraine and Russia are fighting because they're gaining
from the value of having that experience.
And we should not discount what is being picked up by North
Korea and China from actually what's happening in Russia.
So that is a concern that I have.
I can't speak to that having, you know, not seen that now for
9 or 10 months, but when I left,it was one of the ones, it was
(41:38):
one of the areas that was incredibly concerning to me.
Fascinating, really fascinating observation.
I, I'd love to go further into it, but I, I, I won't for the
purposes of time, because I do have one more that I want to
cover off in, in the couple of minutes we've got left.
Look, that is there's a lot of talk about US reliability right
now among allies. You know, I think there are,
there are lifelong supporters of, of the US alliance here in
(42:01):
Australia. It's, you know, historically
there is overwhelming support for the US alliance in
Australia. It's something that most
Australians recognise is absolutely indispensable to our
to our security. That said, I think that that
there are Australians who, you know, as as supportive as they
are, look at the US right now and, and are concerned about,
(42:22):
about things that are being said.
Decisions are being made. Give me your, I suppose, do you
have a reassuring message for them?
What, what is your, what is yourresponse to that?
What can you say that that that those sorts of people might take
on board? Never underestimate the United
States military and the United States ability to maintain a
(42:50):
tight, credible and reliable partnership with our allies and
partners here in the Indo Pacific.
I would say globally as well. And so I think that for those
that are worried, I would not worry the the mill to mill and
(43:10):
the military diplomacy that happens out here.
It's been my experience over 3 assignments out here, from the
tactical to the strategic, that in difficult times, the military
to military relationships are actually the, the, the port in
the storm. And so there's a lot of things
(43:32):
that can swirl out there that are in the economic arena, in
the information domain, in the diplomatic political space, you
know, but last I looked, the joint exercises, the
multinational exercises, the service to service exercises,
(43:57):
there's not less of them, There's more of them.
And one of one of the things that I'll point to that has that
happened, and I'm very proud of this on my, my time in command
was that we had a number of armyto army exercises that had
turned into multinational exercises.
(44:21):
I'll point to a couple of them. Garuda Shield in Indonesia is
not only a, that was an army to army exercise.
I'm, I'm not sure how many showed up this year, but last
year I think there were 12 countries and about, you know,
12,000, right, That that used tobe just the US Army and the
Indonesian Army, Yamasakura in Japan, Army to army exercise.
(44:42):
It's not a joint exercise, But now you have the Philippines
participating, you have Australia participating, you
obviously have Japan participateand you have observers coming
from other countries to it to open it up to others.
And I mean, I, I, I could go on and on, but the point I'm making
is there's been a noticeable increase in multinational
(45:08):
service to service exercises becoming more multinational and
becoming more joint. And in my view, that is a,
that's the leading indicator of,of a counter to any perception
that they may not be reliable. And I I would, I would, I
wouldn't underestimate the reliability and credibility of
(45:31):
the US military. So it's a fair empirical data
point. I think Talisman Sabre might
have been the biggest this year as well.
I apologise if no, I didn't. That's wrong.
But well, I'm gonna, I'll go back.
I'll go back over that. That used to just be an army to
army exercise. So again, this is one of those.
These are these, these are this is a great story, David, of how
(45:52):
Army to Army exercises translateover time into increased
multinational collective commitment and unifying
experiences for all of these forces out here.
And that includes the joint force because these
opportunities give the air component, the maritime
components, the Coast Guard components, all of the
(46:14):
components an opportunity to improve their readiness, to
improve their skills, capabilities, proficiency.
And you know, at the end of the day, the interoperability is
really what matters most. And it's not the technical and
it's not the procedural types ofinteroperability.
It's actually the human interoperability that's the most
(46:35):
important. And, and, and we have that in
spades out here I think with ourrelationship with not just
Australia but all the other countries here.
Good, good. Charles Flynn.
Great chat, Dave. Great talk with you.
Thank you. Thanks for listening to Stop the
World. That's all we have time for this
week. We'll be back with another
episode soon.
Stop the world. Welcome to Stop the World, the
ASP Podcast. I'm Olivia Nelson.
And I'm David Rowe. Today we're covering land forces
in the Indo Pacific with a guy who's lived and breeds it for
much of his career. And that's retired American four
star and former commanding General of U.S.
Army Pacific, Charles Flynn. And Charles has some really
(00:23):
interesting views to share. And some challenging ones live,
whether that's the Chinese takeover of Taiwan and what that
really involves in a potential situation, the hard power.
Hard power, excuse me, that armycould deliver to any such
conflict. Or the technology lessons that
China and North Korea are learning from Russias war in
Ukraine. Charles is a frank, very frank
(00:45):
and passionate advocate for the role of land forces in our part
of the world. So much of the inner Pacific
strategic discussion is soaked up by ASC, cyber and space, but
Charles argues that humans live on land and that's where every
story is ultimately decided. He also talks up the strategic
importance of Australia, pushes back against the view that the
US risks becoming an unreliable partner and explains the
(01:07):
challenges for large, large organisations, including
militaries, to reorientate themselves around you and
transformative technologies. Yeah, Charles is also a senior
advisor at Palantir, of course, which is a big technology firm,
which means on top of his I'm the experience, he knows a lot
about integrating technology into militaries.
I know we've got a lot of listeners whose primary interest
is defence, so this is a real crowd pleaser for you.
(01:29):
But even if your interest is in other areas of security, I
really do urge you to listen carefully.
It's a great way to keep on top of the strategic dynamics in our
part of the world. And please get a map and have
that in front of you while you're listening, because
actually being able to see some of these places on the map is
really, really helpful. You know, he talks about Luzon
in northern Philippines, for instance, and the critical role
(01:50):
that they could play in any kindof cross Strait situation.
So really interesting stuff. And there you have it.
Yeah, it was great to have Charles back at ASBY.
We last hosted him here in 2021 as as commander of U.S.
Army Pacific. So over to you and Charles.
Charles Flynn, retired US general, former commanding
general of the US Army, Pacific.Thanks for coming on Stop THE
(02:12):
World. Thanks for having me again.
So I want to start with an overview of Chinese military
modernization. Late last year, you described
the trajectory as very, very dangerous.
You said no one builds that kindof arsenal to merely defend.
Right now, a lot of the public attention goes on the maritime
and air capabilities that are, that are coming out of China's
(02:35):
military modernization, right? Tend to hear less about the land
forces as a as an army general, as a land forces guy.
What do you see when you look atwhat China is building for the
People's Liberation Army itself?I mean, what, what they're
testing, what they're training on?
What can you infer about the role of land forces in that
(02:56):
modernization? 1st I'll start.
I'll back up a little bit and goback to 20151415, which is
ironically in a little bit around the same time that we US
had pivoted to the Pacific in 2013.
And during that period of time their entire military, you know,
(03:19):
began what I would say their transformation.
So they had a, a real, a deep injection of new technologies,
they were fielding new capabilities.
And maybe the most important thing that they did during that
period of time was they set up training centres.
They were taking actual pages out of our book to set up these
(03:42):
training centres and then beginning to exercise in ways
that were different from the past.
So I, I, when I look back in time in 2015, I'm going to say
that like their organisational changes, their technological
changes and then their training changes, all those reforms kind
(04:04):
of came together. And since 2015, they've been at
A, at a rapid acceleration with changes and, and, and they, they
manifested themselves in the waythey're exercising.
And so, and you know, Admiral Paparo is describing this now,
(04:27):
but when he and I were componentcommanders together, we were
both watching all of this happen.
And the scale, the complexity and the changes that have
occurred in the way they've beenexercising as a joint force with
rocket forces. Their, their, their maritime
(04:48):
arm, their air arm and their land forces.
And I'm glad you brought up the fact that people don't pay a lot
of attention to their army. And I'll really, I'll say two
things. And I made this comment and
testimony back to our U.S. Congress in March, April time
frame. And, and I catch a lot of
criticism for this. Look, you know, in order to
(05:11):
invade Taiwan, you actually haveto generate an invasion force
and that is its army. So I don't believe, and this is
where I, you know, I have debates with scholars and
academics and think tankers that'll say, well, the Navy is
their centre of gravity. Well, actually I, I counted that
and say, no, it's not the, the very definition of centre of
(05:31):
gravity is that force with what you need in order to achieve
your objective. And in order for them to seize,
hold and subjugate the people ofTaiwan, you actually have to
deliver an invasion force. Well, in order to deliver the
invasion force, China has to they have to mobilise, they have
to move, they have to combat configure, and then they have to
(05:52):
combat load. And then they got to get across
this straight. And I guess that's the point I
was making, that we have to pay attention to their centre of
gravity because they actually can't achieve their ultimate
objective unless they deliver that invasion force.
And that invasion force is its army.
So if you want to buy time, you want to buy space, you want to
(06:14):
buy indications and warnings of,of ultimately what they have to
generate to achieve their objective, then watch their land
forces. And by the way, their land
forces also are integrated with their rocket forces.
And there's a very, very dangerous capability that they
have called a PCH 191. It's basically our equivalent of
(06:38):
a high Mars and and those capabilities out on the coast
when they move those into position, they actually can
range beyond the island of Taiwan.
So all that to say, 2 points, 2015 was when their reforms in
my view accelerated and those resulted in increased
(07:01):
complexity, increased scale of their exercises that they are
are demonstrations of their rehearsals.
And more to the point of your question, it would be
irresponsible of us to only pay attention to the maritime and
air component because they can'tachieve their objectives unless
(07:21):
they can deliver an invasion force to Taiwan and that
invasion force is actually theirarmy.
So we need to pay attention to what is actually happening on
the land because that's going togive us the greatest in my view,
the greatest indications and warnings time because it's going
to take time to deliver a force across it.
One last point on this. I always remind people that that
(07:46):
this is singularly the most complex type of operation a
military force can do. In fact, the last time that the
United States did one of these successfully was the Inchon
landing. And prior to that it was
Normandy. So, you know, they have a
really, really tall task in front of them to do that.
(08:06):
And everything that we can do here to sow doubt, you know,
feed paranoia and bolster what we're doing with our allies and
partners out here is a way to keep this theatre in a, in a, in
a no war stance, which is ultimately what we really all
need to be working to achieve out here.
(08:28):
They can't resist a follow up onthat.
Are they getting better broadly at those joint effects?
And if so, how does it affect the timeline?
I mean, if you think that that is what they actually need to do
with respect to Taiwan, how doesthat actually affect the
timeline? Yeah.
So again, when I, when I look over the last decade, I say,
(08:50):
yes, they are improving now. You know, we, we have, you know,
a really extraordinary joint capabilities, but it takes work
every day on these things and, and you can't let up at all.
And we, you know, I just think inherently we are doing joint
(09:13):
operations and multinational joint and combined operations
all the time. So to answer your question, are
they practising at it? Yes.
Are they getting better at it? Yes.
Are they at the level that's required for the, the scale and
the and the complexity and the risk of a crust rate invasion
(09:38):
that is still to be seen? I have my doubts because it's
going to be very, very hard. And again, if we are doing
things to prevent those from occurring and disrupting their
ability to conduct those joint operations, then there's
goodness in that. Can you project forward at all
(10:00):
and see when they might be readyto do that with a level of
confidence that they they would?Well, I mean, their leadership
has given them these gates of 2027 and and 2035.
So I, I take them for their word.
You know, it's when I left uniform, I would say that they
were moving on a path to do that.
But again, the grade like how good are they at that?
(10:24):
You know, I, I think that that is still still to be seen.
I, I don't, I don't believe thatthere is joint and as capable as
a joint force as they need to bein order to be successful that
operation. However, that doesn't mean they
(10:44):
can't execute the operation, because that's a matter of risk
and it's also a political question.
So our job in the military was always to have forces ready to
be prepared for the military instrument of China if they
actually use the instrument thatwe needed to be in a position to
(11:05):
give options to the National command authority, period.
So, you know, on this particularmatter, there's a lot of people
that are out there, they can debate the policy of it, but
when you're wearing a uniform, not your lane, it's literally
just get your instrument ready to be able to give options to
the National Command Authority so that in the event that
something did happen, then we had options there to do things
(11:29):
that gave us freedom of action, freedom of manoeuvre, unity of
command, unity of effort. We might as well stick with
Taiwan for one more than becauseI do have another question.
That is what would be the role of the US Army in in counter in
giving those options to the US government and I suppose by
extension the role of US allies,land forces.
(11:52):
Well, there's, I always referredto there, there's really 4
foundational capabilities that the US Army and by extension
because we're a bit of an epoxy that brings the, I refer to it
as the land power network together out here in the Indo
Pacific. And those 4 fundamental roles
(12:16):
are command and control, sustainment, protection and
collection. So what do I mean by that?
Well, you know, the, the upper technical echelon commands that
we have a division and then a core and then the, the enabling
(12:38):
commands in sustainment, missiledefence, police, medical are
really, really and engineering Icould go on, are really robust
at the division and core level. And so when you want a command
(12:58):
and control node to be joint, multinational, interagency and
even international if need be, then a, a, a army division and
Army Corps. And then the, the, the general
officer flag capabilities, LED command and control at those
echelons along with the theatre army.
(13:20):
I mean, there's, there's nothingthat can compare to them.
Protection, integrated air and missile defence, medical
commands, police commands, civilaffairs commands all come out of
the Army collection. There's a, you know, tying
together the terrestrial collection layer to the aerial
(13:41):
layer, to the space layer. You know, there's, there's two
brigades and then there is a, a,a, a sizable intelligence
enterprise back in Hawaii at U.S.
Army Pacific. And so that collection apparatus
working with the Navy and the Air Force and US Indo Paycom
(14:03):
provides the ability to do collect.
And then of course sustainment. There's a Brigadier General LED
Expeditionary sustainment command in Korea, Brigadier
General LED Expeditionary sustainment command on the West
Coast. There's a two star Major General
LED theatre sustainment command in Hawaii and their executive
(14:24):
agency is to do joint logistics for the theatre.
So those foundational capabilities are what need to be
in position for the joint force and the interdependencies that
are created by those capabilities forward to then
include those forces elsewhere in the land domain, which is not
(14:45):
just Army forces, it is also special operations forces,
marine forces when they're operating on the land, but the
sizable land forces that exist in the region.
Bringing all those together givea, in my view, a, an
asymmetrical advantage to the joint commander, US Endopacom.
(15:08):
And then the commands within thetheatre to be able to have what
we refer to as positional advantage, to be in the position
to be able to command and control, protect, collect and
sustain and take time and space away from your adversary.
OK. You've partly answered, I
suppose my next question by giving a very concrete example
(15:30):
there with Taiwan. But I'm interested in the role
of land forces in in presenting A credible deterrence.
Because of course the way we avoid everything that you've
just been describing is, is is presenting that credible
deterrence something we'll all need to contribute to.
And you've passionately talked plenty of times, including just
now about the fact that we live on land.
(15:50):
This is ultimately where decision to become.
Humans live. Decisions are.
Made we breathe air, we don't swim indefinitely.
That said, I mean to to to a layperson like myself, you look
at a map of the Indo Pacific andthere's a hell of a lot of water
with bits of bits of land sort of dotted around it.
Just talk to me a little bit about the the role in deterrence
(16:13):
of having that kind of solid defensible presence of of land
forces. It's not fragile, it's not
vulnerable. It's it can it can do all of
those things you've just been describing sustain, etcetera.
I suppose in a sense, translate what you've just been talking
about into into the sort of deterrence signal that we want
to send to China in particular. OK, so on the on the hard power
(16:37):
side, everything that I just outlined, plus fires and
manoeuvre. OK, so I'll, I'll say it this
way. The A2AD arsenal that the
Chinese have designed is primarily designed to defeat our
are air and maritime capabilities.
(16:59):
Secondarily, it's to disrupt anddeny our space in cyber.
It is not designed to find, fix and target attack distributed
mobile, reloadable and networkedland forces.
OK. So, so from a hard power
standpoint, if you were to take Type 12, Type 80, eights high
(17:23):
Mars with intermediate medium range ballistic missiles,
Brahmos that the Philippines have, Australia has high Mars
and you put those in the right locations, mind you.
Now, if you had, if I had, you know, sort of four battalions of
High Mars in Luzon and you can fire 700 to 800 missiles and
(17:48):
reload another 7 or 800 missilesin 10 minutes, that's an awful
lot of hard power forward that can do a substantial amount of
damage. Add in Brahmos from the
Philippines, add in Type Twelvesand type 80 eights from Japan,
add in Marine Corps capabilities, add in soft
capabilities. That is a forward position that
(18:12):
is hard power and provides A deterrent effect on somebody
seeking to do what they've, you know, describe they want to do,
which is to do a cross Strait invasion.
So I think having hard power forward by being in those right
positions to do sea control and sea denial also is additive to
(18:33):
what air power and the and maritime power can bring.
So what do I mean by that? Well, if you're in the right
pieces of terrain, say a straight like the Luzon
straights, then you can actuallymake the air component and the
maritime component, particularlythe maritime component appear
(18:53):
larger than they are. Why?
Because they don't have to put asurface Action Group inside of
these straights. Why?
Because we're able to do that from the land.
You can collect and now you can employ unmanned systems undersea
in the air. They have lawyer munitions.
You can do collection. You can share those targets with
your with your allies and partners.
(19:14):
So that's kind of a description,David, of like hard power.
That's for doing that. Now let me jump to another
element of this. In my view, if you want to
understand what's actually happening with the security
situation in each of these countries, the best place to
understand that is to actually be out in the interior with the
(19:36):
communities, with your fellow soldiers, with members of their
military that are out training. And so this is an asymmetrical
advantage of what I mean by the strategic land power network,
because flying over a country and sailing by a country, you
simply do not get the same fingertip feel of what's
(20:00):
actually happening inside these countries.
So if you want to find out what's going on in these
countries, talk to a soldier because they're seeing it
through. The lens and the eyes of the
soldiers, the Marines, the special operate, the commanders,
the community and the leaders that are out in these areas.
(20:24):
And that is something that I, we, we don't pay enough
attention to. That again, creates a bond and
creates A commonality and gives unity and collective commitment
of these nations out here that have large armies.
I'm going to stay on this for just a second because I think
(20:46):
it's an important point and people, when I mentioned this to
people in Congress, you name it,it, you know, like the
Philippines has more divisions than the United States Army, 70%
of their military is its army. Japan 65%, South Korea, 65%,
Indonesia, 75%, Thailand 75 to 80% Vietnam 80 to 85% India 80
(21:12):
day. The point I'm making is this
region is dominated. It's dominated by armies.
And so it's a natural point to connect and then have a
literally, we talk the same language.
And by the way, another thing that is really important is they
go to our schools, 65% of the what's called the International
(21:36):
Military education and training seats in the US are in an Army
school, 65% because we have the biggest, we have the biggest set
of schools. And so many of these leaders in
this region are are schools in the United States.
And so there's this natural connection through armies that I
(22:00):
think should, should I just, I underscore it as much as I
possibly can because as I say it, it is, it is the security
architecture that binds the region together.
Very controversial when I say that there's a lot of people
that recoil from it, but I'm telling you from my experiences,
it is very real and it's an important part of deterrence out
(22:22):
here. I've got to say, well, you've
convinced me just in those in those few minutes.
And I, I confess I hadn't reallythought about that as an added,
as an added benefit. Well, let's, let's talk about
Australia then. I mean, it's chiefly a marine
presence, but you know, there, there are various rotations and
there's, there's equipment coming through and there's, you
know, Australia is in a, in is in a great sort of vantage point
(22:44):
with in terms of, you know, a little bit further back than
some of the other places where U.S. forces are, are stationed
around the region. I mean, just tell me about the,
the value of, of northern Australia to, to, you know, to
the, to the, to the allied strategy, I suppose.
And I mean, and is there, is there logic in in expanding the
(23:06):
role of Northern Australia in that picture?
Yes, absolutely. So let me first talk about the
relationship. So you know the and I'll say
that the entire Australian military is such a great partner
out here and they're they are everywhere.
(23:29):
And so, you know, my experiencesout here with them is that they
are constantly pressing with us on increasing our exercises to
become more multinational and more joint.
(23:50):
A couple of characteristics I point out like the very nature
because of the size and the location of the Australian
military. They they are, they work very,
very hard at being a very good joint force.
Why? Because they have to well, this
is another area of overlap with the United States military
because we work at it too. And so the value of both of our
(24:14):
forces being, you know, joint toa core is a really important
part in terms of the the terrain, the territory.
Look, if you go from the Aleutian Islands and, and I say
the Aleutian Islands deliberately and you come down
to the first island chain from Al Qaeda all the way down to the
(24:37):
Senkakus, Taiwan, the Philippines, and then run all
the way down to Australia. To me, that is really the first
island chain. And some people just talk about,
you know, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines.
But the reality of it is, and ifI added the location that we are
on the Asian continent, Korea, that is part of this as well.
(25:00):
And so, you know, up in the northeast in Townsville, as I
have long communicated that we're near the training centre,
we're near a brigade, we're neara port, we're near airfields,
you have the northern airfields,you have Darwin.
And if you just look at the nearabroad in the northern coast of
(25:22):
of the continent, again, I remind people it's a continent.
You know that from Townsville tothe northern airfields to Darwin
all the way around to Perth, those are important geographical
locations for sustainment command and control, C2 additive
manufacturing industry to come forward and work together.
(25:43):
And so I, I, I am a big fan of being able to be in Townsville.
And then I said shore, water Bayand, and, and the training area
that's there because we are, we are near forces, we are near a
training location and it is a important place to command and
(26:06):
control sustainment and to be able to project from there.
One other area that I was reallypleased to see the advances in,
in the Australian Defence Forcesis with watercraft.
I'll call them watercraft because that's what we have in
our own forces. I made a big push to get more
(26:26):
watercraft out into the Pacific.We had some, but we had some
over in the Middle East and we needed to shift it out of the
Middle East and get it out. Of course, it's so vital for us
to operate out here and I'm really happy to see the
Australian Defence Forces, namely the Army, be able to
increase their ability to have watercraft.
Our watercraft working together can create all kinds of
(26:48):
opportunities, but it can also create a number of dilemmas for
adversaries out here. And, and they're not that's,
that's not just in preparation for a crisis or conflict, it's
also in response to natural disasters that, you know, 8 out
of 10 on the planet happen out here.
So I think both countries need those capabilities along with
(27:09):
the Rotary wing, medium and heavy lift helicopters, really,
really important capabilities. You'll have to pardon my
ignorance. I've lost track of which of
which of those are currently in Australia and which are not.
But are are you talking there about things that you would like
to see included or are they things there, there and and if
if they're already there, what kind of expansion would you like
(27:30):
to see? What?
Would be useful. Well, I, I don't know the
details exactly of what the Australian Defence Forces are,
how many they're buying, but I know the, the Army is getting,
I'm going to say great, more than 20 landing craft.
And you know what, I don't exactly know where they're going
to be stationed within Australia, but I know that our
watercraft, which we have in Hawaii and Japan, actually we
(27:54):
have a couple locations in Japan.
Having the ability to have thosedeployed further into the region
and be able to use the ports in Korea, Japan, the Philippines,
because we are running them in and out of Aguila Harbour in
Subic and then Townsville and Shaltwater Bay areas.
(28:16):
Really important for us because we can regenerate and we can
ride share in many ways together.
You may not realise this, but a couple years ago after Talisman
Sabre in 23, we actually loaded up Australian tanks on U.S.
Army watercraft and brought themto exercise grew to shield in
Indonesia. So these are the kinds of
(28:37):
interoperability opportunities that we have when the Australian
Defence Forces get a advance a capability and get a little more
capacity by having those those types of capabilities in their
army. And in terms of US personnel and
assets that could also be added to to the US presence here.
(29:02):
Do I? Do I?
Yeah, I. Mean do, do.
Are there specific things that you think would be very useful
to? Oh, I think.
Some sort of, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Also I, I think so I advocated when I was in uniform that a
sustainment command of about 80 to 100 people were in
Townsville. And then you know, obviously
(29:23):
because of that area, there's also, you know, industries that
can come forward have additive manufacturing, have parts, have
depo maintenance so that where we have commonality and
equipment like HAR Mars, M1 tanks, aviation, watercraft,
etcetera and ammunition, then ifwe can have those types of
(29:47):
materials on the ground, then that is in my view a, a, a real
benefit to to our work together out here.
It certainly reduces our lines of communication.
It it puts material forward thatwe are going to use.
(30:09):
And so some combination of permanent but but also having a
location where you can dynamically deploy forces in and
out of is very helpful, not unlike what happens up in Dharma
with the Marine. Gotcha.
Okay, the, you probably seen thenews recently that Sir Anthony
(30:32):
Albanese, our Prime Minister waswent to Port Moresby, was
expected to sign a security agreement with Papua New Guinea.
That didn't happen. We don't quite know why, but we
do know that China has for a long time sought a greater
security presence in the Pacific.
I'm interested in your view, given your thoughts on that sort
(30:54):
of network of, of, of allies andpartners working together to
present that credible deterrence.
I guess the flip side is, you know, the risk of an increased
permanent and serious Chinese military presence in, you know,
further afield in the region andin particular in the Pacific.
What would it mean for our overall strategy if China were
(31:18):
to establish a serious permanentpresence here?
What? Oh so.
Sorry, in in the Pacific. Yeah, permanent.
So let me, let me, I'll just saythis, their presence is there
anyways. So I'll describe what that looks
like, what I saw. They would often times they come
(31:38):
with money and they get into a loan agreement and sometimes
they'll, they'll find a politician, a military leader,
tribal leader, you know, just a,a business leader.
It really it didn't matter. Loan can't be paid back and they
would then, you know, I'll use the word take, but they would
(32:02):
assume things like ports, airfields, warehouses, they
would get into their electrical grid, they would get into their
communications backbone. Now you have a very dangerous
situation. So that's Part 1 later, and this
started, this started emerging more in the 2021 time frame.
(32:25):
And this is particular in the Oceana area.
They would come with police trainers and equipment.
So if you can think about the combination of law enforcement
getting into their their their policing, this is a very
dangerous combination in these small island nations that you
(32:45):
know, literally they're, they're, they're really as you
know, they're not worried. They're not, they don't think
about, you know, pure war. You know, they, they're they're
concerned about recovering from a natural disaster.
Like how do they get back on their feet when they have a
typhoon RIP through or have someother natural disaster occur?
(33:07):
Terrible, you know, touch of nature here.
So that to me is the most dangerous part about the Chinese
out in the in the Oceana area. And I think that we would be
well served to work on agreements and work on ways to
(33:27):
find commonality between what the small island nations and
Oceana need. And then of course, what
countries like the United States, Australia, New Zealand,
Indonesia can do to offset some of that.
And of course no one's better atthat than than your forces here
in Australia, so I was happy to hear that there was some work on
(33:50):
that and hopefully that will endup in a more positive place.
Yes, yes, there's a dot dot dot,but hopefully it'll it'll it'll
come together. But it's, it's a work in
progress and we have to stay at it.
So sure, because the other side is true too, David.
I mean, they're, they're, they're continuing to work at
it. Absolutely.
They're they're working at it ata fever.
Space, yeah, absolutely. And I suppose hence the concern
(34:11):
that there's a reason when something that was expected to
happen doesn't come together. I'm conscious of time couple of
other ones that I just want to cover what first is the role of
technology. Obviously it's a huge amount of
of, of change in modernization going on there.
I'll just for transparency, I'llacknowledge you're a senior
advisor to to Palantir, which provides a lot of high end
(34:33):
software to towards these capabilities.
China is developing some pretty formidable tech capabilities
itself. But it seems to me the, the,
the, the, the advantage and the success will come from how you
integrate your people and your technology together, how you
integrate, you know, the, the, the tech and the skilled human
(34:54):
beings. It's actually going to decide
things. Tell me a bit about how
technology, and I think particularly in AI data
processing and analysis, are helping military commanders and
decision makers talk about the what's the smart way of
integrating all of this and how well are the Chinese doing that,
(35:16):
as far as you can tell? Does the US and and its close
allies still have an advantage in being able to mesh these
things together? Yes.
Let me talk about what we're doing 1st and then a little bit
about what I saw in my time withthem.
And probably on that there's there, there is a dangerous
(35:37):
thing that's underway that I, I want to make sure I, I touch on
as well. OK, so there's kind of three
parts. And I was going to talk about
this later today as well. But so capabilities,
technologies and organisations. So in order to create new
concepts and new approaches, the, the combination of
(36:01):
experimenting during exercises with not just, you know, legacy
capabilities or capabilities youalready have now today.
So think aeroplanes, ships, rockets, missiles, you know,
UAVs, etcetera. Those capabilities have to be
brought together. And then on the on the other
(36:22):
end, you need to change organisations when you have
these current capabilities and new capabilities that you're
bringing on. You know, a really good example
is the multi domain task forces that we began to employ out
here. Many people think that it's
like, oh, the Typhoon missile system is there.
It's like, yeah, but the Typhoonmissile system started to be, we
(36:46):
started banging metal on that back in like 2018.
And we made a decision in 2019 like we need to change the
organisation because you can't give a new capability to a old
organisation, to a legacy organisation they won't know
what to do with. By the way, I got plenty of
examples of new equipment comingto me in combat and you're
(37:10):
giving new equipment and new technologies to a legacy
formation. They, you know, you don't know
what to do with it because you don't have an organisation
that's built to employ it. So the Multi demand Task Force
was really a way of getting an organisational design in front
of the bent metal capabilities that were coming.
So and I'm glad that we decided to do that in the 2018-2019
(37:35):
because that organisation was like 3 years in front of the
actual hardware that was showingup.
I'm saying this because there's three parts to this.
There's capabilities that have to be exercised and
experimented. There's organisational changes
that have to occur and the technology changes.
(37:58):
And, and as you mentioned, like Palantir and software and Maven
smart systems, that's something we brought out here when I was a
commander in 2022, I'm happy to report, like we brought it to
Japan for Yamasakura. And now it's much more
pervasively being used by not just U.S. forces, but by other
forces in the region. And the point I'm making here is
(38:19):
that those technologies are really important.
And I'll just say on on the particular systems Maven smart
system that Palantir has is, is actually a decision advantage
tool for commanders. And the that to me is where
artificial intelligence and continuing to bring artificial
(38:41):
intelligence tools with large language models to commanders in
their operation centres and, andtools also that advantage
tactical commanders, operationalcommanders and theatre
commanders. They can't just be that we're
giving a tool to a young captainor a young Sergeant first class.
(39:01):
We have to give the same tools to four star generals all the
way down to the most tactical leaders.
And I think that that's a reallyimportant part of being able to
exercise and experiment continually.
Now on the Chinese side, they, they are advancing with their
technologies. Now back to the earlier part of
(39:22):
our conversation, though, I do believe that, that I, I didn't,
I didn't see the kind of joint integration, the levels, the,
the proficiency of joint integration that we enjoy.
However, one of the things that concerns me and we talked about
(39:44):
this, you know, before we got onair here, one of the things that
really concerns me, and I'll, I'll go back to about 18 months
ago, I remember being asked by the media because I made some
comments about 12,000 North Korean soldiers that were in
Ukraine fighting. And like, we haven't heard that.
And I said, well, you should read the news out in Asia
(40:05):
because there's 12,000 North Korean soldiers that are
fighting in the Ukraine now. But I said that's not, that's
not the most important part of what's happening.
I said first there was. Parts and platforms, howitzers
and and part, then there was ammunition, then they sent
soldiers. But actually the most dangerous
part of this is the technology that's being shared between
(40:28):
Russia, North Korea and China, and I would say to some degree
Iran as well. And in my view, this is
something we need to really, really pay attention to.
So there very good at electronicwarfare, they're very good at
cyber. They're, they're very capable in
space. They're they're gaining in their
(40:51):
knowledge of unmanned systems both underwater and, and in the
air and underground with robotics.
And so this is something I thinkwe need to pay particular
attention to with North Korea and and China, because in a way
they're indirectly benefiting from a real laboratory of war
(41:14):
where Ukraine and Russia are fighting because they're gaining
from the value of having that experience.
And we should not discount what is being picked up by North
Korea and China from actually what's happening in Russia.
So that is a concern that I have.
I can't speak to that having, you know, not seen that now for
9 or 10 months, but when I left,it was one of the ones, it was
(41:38):
one of the areas that was incredibly concerning to me.
Fascinating, really fascinating observation.
I, I'd love to go further into it, but I, I, I won't for the
purposes of time, because I do have one more that I want to
cover off in, in the couple of minutes we've got left.
Look, that is there's a lot of talk about US reliability right
now among allies. You know, I think there are,
there are lifelong supporters of, of the US alliance here in
(42:01):
Australia. It's, you know, historically
there is overwhelming support for the US alliance in
Australia. It's something that most
Australians recognise is absolutely indispensable to our
to our security. That said, I think that that
there are Australians who, you know, as as supportive as they
are, look at the US right now and, and are concerned about,
(42:22):
about things that are being said.
Decisions are being made. Give me your, I suppose, do you
have a reassuring message for them?
What, what is your, what is yourresponse to that?
What can you say that that that those sorts of people might take
on board? Never underestimate the United
States military and the United States ability to maintain a
(42:50):
tight, credible and reliable partnership with our allies and
partners here in the Indo Pacific.
I would say globally as well. And so I think that for those
that are worried, I would not worry the the mill to mill and
(43:10):
the military diplomacy that happens out here.
It's been my experience over 3 assignments out here, from the
tactical to the strategic, that in difficult times, the military
to military relationships are actually the, the, the port in
the storm. And so there's a lot of things
(43:32):
that can swirl out there that are in the economic arena, in
the information domain, in the diplomatic political space, you
know, but last I looked, the joint exercises, the
multinational exercises, the service to service exercises,
(43:57):
there's not less of them, There's more of them.
And one of one of the things that I'll point to that has that
happened, and I'm very proud of this on my, my time in command
was that we had a number of armyto army exercises that had
turned into multinational exercises.
(44:21):
I'll point to a couple of them. Garuda Shield in Indonesia is
not only a, that was an army to army exercise.
I'm, I'm not sure how many showed up this year, but last
year I think there were 12 countries and about, you know,
12,000, right, That that used tobe just the US Army and the
Indonesian Army, Yamasakura in Japan, Army to army exercise.
(44:42):
It's not a joint exercise, But now you have the Philippines
participating, you have Australia participating, you
obviously have Japan participateand you have observers coming
from other countries to it to open it up to others.
And I mean, I, I, I could go on and on, but the point I'm making
is there's been a noticeable increase in multinational
(45:08):
service to service exercises becoming more multinational and
becoming more joint. And in my view, that is a,
that's the leading indicator of,of a counter to any perception
that they may not be reliable. And I I would, I would, I
wouldn't underestimate the reliability and credibility of
(45:31):
the US military. So it's a fair empirical data
point. I think Talisman Sabre might
have been the biggest this year as well.
I apologise if no, I didn't. That's wrong.
But well, I'm gonna, I'll go back.
I'll go back over that. That used to just be an army to
army exercise. So again, this is one of those.
These are these, these are this is a great story, David, of how
(45:52):
Army to Army exercises translateover time into increased
multinational collective commitment and unifying
experiences for all of these forces out here.
And that includes the joint force because these
opportunities give the air component, the maritime
components, the Coast Guard components, all of the
(46:14):
components an opportunity to improve their readiness, to
improve their skills, capabilities, proficiency.
And you know, at the end of the day, the interoperability is
really what matters most. And it's not the technical and
it's not the procedural types ofinteroperability.
It's actually the human interoperability that's the most
(46:35):
important. And, and, and we have that in
spades out here I think with ourrelationship with not just
Australia but all the other countries here.
Good, good. Charles Flynn.
Great chat, Dave. Great talk with you.
Thank you. Thanks for listening to Stop the
World. That's all we have time for this
week. We'll be back with another
episode soon.
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