It is no secret that there is increased urgency to U.S. Army Pacific’s mission in the Indo-Pacific. In 2024, America’s adversaries simulated a blockade of Taiwan, expanded their incursions into the Arctic, harassed our allies and partners with persistent and insidious gray zone activities, expanded missile testing and boosted their illegal collaboration and weapons sales.
Accordingly, virtually every current U.S. strategic document identifies the Indo-Pacific as the priority theater and China as the nation’s pacing challenge, or opponent. It is critical that our theater army successfully contributes to a free and open Indo-Pacific by applying land power for maximal effect in this theater.
U.S. Army Pacific has a strategy to counter our adversaries that includes organizing and transforming a battle-winning mix of capabilities, generating joint and combined war-fighting capacity through world-class training and applying land power through campaigning to build joint interior lines on key terrain across the region.
We will execute our strategy through an operational approach that prioritizes people, enhances our partnerships and ultimately prevails in competition, crisis or conflict.
Training Soldiers
First, our theater army will prioritize people—as we are a people-centric Army that embodies the Warrior Ethos. Our soldiers deserve tough, realistic training that emphasizes a war-winning mix of combat capabilities in any environment. This year, the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center will stress and test them in the unforgiving mountainous Arctic climes of Alaska, the complex jungles of Hawaii and the Philippines, and the high-altitude volcanic conditions of Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawaii. Upcoming exercises in Thailand, the Philippines and Australia will enable troops on key terrain, shoulder to shoulder with allies and partners, to collectively hone their warfighting skills in dynamic and challenging environments. These exercises will serve as transformative rehearsals as we campaign where we expect to fight and with new equipment and capabilities that deter our adversaries.
While soldiers train, families must remain ready as well, so they can thrive in the high operational tempo of the Indo-Pacific. We will prioritize the resilience of Army families by fully implementing quality-of-life provisions signed into law in December, and by continuing to advocate for equitable cost-of-living allowances to address the current challenging fiscal environment.
We value our civilian workforce, and we will implement recent initiatives that enable us to more easily hire and retain the best and brightest teammates. The Army is a family, and we will ensure that the readiness of our soldiers, civilians and families remains our priority, and key to our ability to prevail.
Partner of Choice
Second, our theater army will enhance key partnerships across the Indo-Pacific. Our partnerships are our asymmetric advantage against our opponents across this region. Nearly every day, the unprofessional and threatening words and actions of our opponents—coupled with our own efforts to grow our partnerships—improve our ability to serve as the security partner of choice across the Indo-Pacific.
The strategic land power network, with the U.S. and its allies and partners working together, has never been stronger, and the Land Forces Pacific (LANPAC) Symposium and Exposition, hosted in mid-May in Honolulu by the Association of the U.S. Army, provides another opportunity to strengthen our network. LANPAC 2025 builds upon our successful campaigning over the past year with activities on key terrain as we operate within the reality of a fiscally constrained environment.
Our partnerships include our mutual defense treaty allies—and our regional partners with whom we will build interoperability and trust. This year, we will maintain our midrange capability in the Philippines, exercise with Australia as part of the multinational Talisman Sabre and conduct Exercise Cobra Gold in Thailand with some 30 partner nations.
We value our Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve partners, and we will preserve their collective training opportunities in the region, which are critical to the success of our joint exercises. We will invest in our NCO corps, capitalizing upon their unrivaled experience and their embodiment of the Warrior Ethos, which drives our military’s success.
Our partnerships include the state and local communities where our soldiers live and train. We will strengthen our relationships with them and remain mindful of our responsibilities to protect cultural sites and honor our shared history. We will continue to partner with local communities and law enforcement agencies to foster positive relationships and work effectively with them to defend the U.S. homeland and provide defense support of civil authorities.
Only Option
Finally, our theater army, in support of the joint force, will prevail. There is no other option. We will enable the joint effort to prevail by campaigning throughout the region and prioritizing multidomain operations and land-based precision fires. By campaigning at scale—forward—we achieve positional advantage and rehearse on key terrain.
Campaigning features capabilities that we provide to the joint force to create a deterrent effect on and from the land. In addition to deploying the midrange precision fires capability to the Philippines twice, we have flown high-altitude balloons in Guam, sunk moving ships as part of joint exercises and assisted allies with maritime domain awareness capabilities.
Our ability to position combat-credible, ready, lethal forces forward enables joint rehearsals where we are likely to fight, reassures our allies and partners, and strengthens deterrence. By leveraging multidomain operations, precision fires and cutting-edge technology, we ensure that U.S. Army Pacific remains lethal—capable of deterring aggression and, if necessary, decisively defeating any opponent who threatens a free and open Indo-Pacific.
This year, we will extend our midrange capability deployment in the Philippines and conduct a long-range precision fires (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) live-fire exercise as well. We will deploy the Mid-Range Capability Typhon Missile, long-range hypersonics, Patriot missile system and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System to Australia for Talisman Sabre, the region’s signature capstone event. We will deploy and employ our cutting-edge multidomain task force to Japan and employ long-range non-kinetic space and cyber effects across the theater.
Paying Off
The positive effects of our efforts were on display in late January when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines confidently responded to China’s insistence that U.S. midrange missile capability be removed from the Philippines.
“Let’s make a deal with China: Stop claiming our territory, stop harassing our fishermen and let them have a living, stop ramming our boats, stop water cannoning our people, stop firing lasers at us, and stop your aggressive and coercive behavior, and we’ll return the [Typhon] missiles,” Marcos said.
The U.S. Army does not anticipate that China will curb these activities and accordingly will continue to campaign forward to prevent conflict. We will continue to deploy deterrent capabilities like the midrange capability with our allies and partners, and we will remain ready to fight tonight if required.
Our focus on people, partnerships and prevailing will guide how we execute the theater army strategy in 2025 and beyond. While fiscal constraints and resurgent opponents may seem daunting, our theater army—in America’s priority theater—stands ready by taking care of our people, enhancing our partnerships and, ultimately, prevailing against any challenge.
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Gen. Ron Clark assumed command of U.S. Army Pacific, Fort Shafter, Hawaii, in November. Previously, he commanded U.S. Army Central and Third Army. He deployed to operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom and Inherent Resolve. He graduated in 1988 from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. He also is a graduate of the U.S. Army War College Fellowship at Duke University, North Carolina, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI National Security Studies Program.