Every 2 years the Department of Defense (DOD) reviews the Unified Command Plan (UCP) by assessing the geographic boundaries, missions, and force structure of the unified combatant commands against the operational environment.1 Past reviews shifted lines on the map, created new theater-level organizations such as U.S. Africa Command in 2008, and shuttered others such as U.S. Far East Command in 1956. Considering the highest priorities outlined by policy, namely the long-term strategic competition against the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the next review of the UCP should evaluate how the U.S. joint force is geographically organized to counter DOD’s pacing challenge in its priority theater.2
Several changes to command and control are already under way within U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM)’s area of responsibility. The United States and Japan committed to bilaterally upgrading respective command and control frameworks. The combatant commander stood up Joint Task Force–Micronesia in 2023 to oversee homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities on Guam and neighboring territories. Furthermore, the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act requires that the “Secretary of Defense establish an operational joint force headquarters in the area of [US]INDOPACOM to, among other things, integrate joint all domain command and control . . . as well as the integration of new capabilities as they transition to operational deployment.”3 While these initiatives may enhance certain aspects of the most important of all the joint warfighting functions, they do not fully offset the growing challenges of command and control at the theater level, where high operational, strategic, and multilateral issues converge. The internal changes may even exacerbate these challenges in some cases, given limited staff capacity and leader bandwidth. The rising complexity of the security environment, the proliferation of regional threats, along with a mounting series of operational demands are likely to exceed the span of control of a single theater command responsible for an area larger than half the Earth’s surface. Rather than solely modify subordinate hierarchies, DOD should share the burden of its most consequential geographic missions and responsibilities by splitting the theater in half and establishing a new combatant command in the Indo-Pacific region—a model the United States successfully applied when it last confronted a Great Power rival in Asia. USINDOPACOM has the most complex, geographically dispersed command structure of all DOD organizations, with over a dozen major subordinate commands and task forces spread from the West Coast of the United States and Alaska, across several islands throughout the Pacific Ocean, to the Asian continent. Meanwhile, its subordinate commands are growing in quantity and taking on many new responsibilities, stretching the combatant commander’s oversight requirements. Unlike its counterpart in Europe, USINDOPACOM lacks the benefit of a collective security architecture while bearing the lion’s share of the long-term strategic competition against the PRC. Rising Demands Headquartered in Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, USINDOPACOM is the oldest and largest unified combatant command. Its area of responsibility covers 52 percent of the Earth’s surface, which is notably larger than the total area of the other five geographic combatant commands combined.4 In addition to its six service component commands (including a new Space Force component) and other direct report units in Hawaii, USINDOPACOM overseas subunified commands in Korea and Japan along with multiple joint task forces stretching across the Pacific Ocean. While there is no perfect ratio, the optimal relationship of leader-tosubordinate organization is about half of what USINDOPACOM currently oversees. Further, the sizeable portion of assigned forces in Alaska and along the West Coast of the United States involves a cloudy arrangement of overlapping authorities with U.S. Northern Command. While massive size and complexity have long characterized the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility, the demands placed on the joint force are multiplying. These trends are driving many internal adjustments to command and control and explain why Congress is requiring improvements to keep pace. The security environment in the Indo-Pacific region is arguably the most unstable since before World War II. The PRC’s response to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in August 2022, followed by the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress months later, have ushered in bolder behavior by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This “new normal” involves record volumes of airspace violations, more aggressive social media disinformation, brazenly flying drones off Taiwan’s Kinmen and Matsu islands, blockade rehearsals, plus an uptick in joint firepower exercises in the Taiwan Strait.5 The PRC and Russia show signs of militarily expanding their “no limits friendship” by conducting more elaborate joint naval exercises and strategic bomber patrols. North Korea has pledged support for Russia’s unjustified war in Ukraine, while the regime of Kim Jong Un’s historic rate of missile testing, new trash balloon tactics, and latest nuclear claims are raising fresh alarm. Conversely, defense improvements and multilateral coalescing among U.S. Allies are indeed welcome developments, but capitalizing on the new opportunities requires the combatant command to oversee higher workloads, more activities, and additional subordinate headquarters. Japan has announced the creation of a new permanent joint headquarters in 2025 (equivalent to a combatant command), driving the United States to upscale USINDOPACOM’s subunified command U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ).6 Japan and South Korea have increased defense investments while undertaking significant military modernization and related reforms, some involving cooperative development and coproduction. Following the Camp David Summit in August 2023, the political leaders of Japan, South Korea, and the United States announced a “new era of trilateral partnership” which will entail new collaborative activities like military exercises, planning efforts, and senior leader dialogues.7
Trilateral security cooperation among Japan, the Philippines, and the United States is following a similar path, requiring greater oversight of joint operations inside the first island chain. The Philippine government has appealed to the United States, namely through USINDOPACOM, to strengthen its territorial defense, improve maritime domain awareness, and support modernization efforts of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The PRC’s coercive activities near flashpoints such as Second Thomas Shoal have consisted of firing water cannons, lasing incidents, and ramming Philippine resupply vessels. “It may only be a matter of time before they [Chinese vessels] trigger an accidental escalation,” according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.8 Lacking the benefit of a regional collective security framework complicates international outreach, planning, and collaboration as each of these activities must be accomplished bilaterally or mini-laterally.
The requirements for improving the defense of Guam, a U.S. territory and key power projection node, are growing more complicated and costly. As part of the Guam Defense System, DOD plans to spend $7.3 billion in military construction and invest $1.7 billion toward integrated air and missile defenses over the next 4 years. Meanwhile, 5,000 Marines are relocating from Okinawa to Guam’s newly constructed Camp Blaz along with an additional contingent of soldiers to man new air and missile defense systems.9 Integrating the Guam Defense System is perhaps enough to consume the bandwidth of a single combatant command, let alone the new two-star Joint Task Force–Micronesia that Congress views skeptically. “While establishing clear lines of authority for joint operations on Guam and surrounding areas is important,” according to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, “it is unclear if the Department [of Defense] is on track to resolve the problem that Congress intended to solve . . . establishing a crisis response chain of command.”10 Improved homeland defense and local crisis response command and control are necessary. But changes at the theater level are likewise required amid the intensifying security conditions and rising demands, especially when coupled with the changing character of war driven by artificial intelligence and new technologies. Pockets of violent extremism, climate change, food and water scarcity, frequent volcanic eruptions, typhoons and rogue waves, and other unforeseen crises such as the Red Hill fuel spill and Lahaina wildfire impose additional requirements on a combatant command headquarters and staff already overseeing a high volume of daily operations, strategic engagements, and contingency planning efforts. Moreover, it is important to consider the theater level framework best suited to rapidly absorb a fuller load of requirements during contingency operations should deterrence fail. To advance U.S. defense policy over the long term, a single combatant command will be challenged to oversee the growing volume of operations, activities, and investments in the geographic areas outlined above. Yet these areas represent only one half of the theater. Span of Control Elsewhere, in South Asia, the PLA is fomenting tension with India (between two nuclear-armed powers) along the Line of Actual Control while grabbing land areas in Bhutan and fueling a civil war in Myanmar. Open-source outlets report the PRC is secretly building naval facilities in Cambodia along with ports and airfields in other strategic areas for the exclusive use of its military. The PRC’s internal security forces are making inroads throughout Oceania in countries like the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and Papua New Guinea. Underwriting these tensions is the PRC’s quest to overcome its “Malacca Dilemma” by exerting coercive power to gain new terrestrial footholds, subsequently constructing alternative lines of communication and weakening those of the United States. The upshot is that new opportunities exist to strengthen defense cooperation, including multilaterally, and to push back more deliberately against the PRC’s predatory economic and security activities. For example, following the Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) security partnership announcement, the United States forged its closest security ties with Australia in recent memory while involving more European allies in Indo-Pacific security affairs. New Zealand’s political leaders have taken a tougher stance on Beijing, which the former prime minister blames for making the region “more contested, less predictable, and less secure.”11 Following the COVID-19 pandemic, new opportunities are up for grabs in South Asia, throughout Oceania, and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Sheena Chestnut Greitens, a visiting professor at the U.S. Army’s China Landpower Studies Center, notes the PRC “uses nontraditional forms of strategic Landpower, particularly police and internal security forces, to shape Asia’s strategic environment in Beijing’s favor.”12 Senior U.S. defense officials consistently express the need for more advanced capabilities to strengthen deterrence against the PRC, but considering how best to organize the theater for long-term strategic competition—with an edge to transition to conflict—is equally important. USINDOPACOM’S two subunified commands do offset some of the burden at the theater level, but they also impose demands on the combatant command. U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is robustly staffed with United Nations and Korean forces and has an operational mission: “to deter aggression and if necessary, defend the ROK to maintain stability in Northeast Asia.”13 Led by a four-star flag officer, the command is responsible for all activities within the Korean theater of operations, from tactical training to integration of high operational, strategic, and multilateral issues. U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), by contrast, is a smaller unilateral three-star headquarters that “manages the U.S.-Japan Alliance and sets conditions within Japan to ensure U.S. service components maintain a lethal posture and readiness.”14 USFJ lacks an operational mission, which points toward the command and control shortfalls that both countries seek to improve. Elevating USFJ from a three-star to a four-star and adding an operational mission and requisite staff capacity would certainly improve bilateral integration. But these improvements would not offset USINDOPACOM’s burdens to the same degree as USFK, namely because the Korea problem set is largely confined to the Korean Peninsula. Command and control issues stemming from Japan involve multiple problem sets in Northeast Asia and would overlap with several defense treaty obligations and commitments (possibly including Taiwan) beyond the defense of Japan. Thus, upscaling a bilaterally focused USFJ is unlikely to proportionally ease span of control challenges for the combatant command like USFK but may in fact create more challenges at the theater level. The process to establish U.S. Africa Command in the 2008 UCP similarly questioned whether a subunified command would alleviate theater span of control issues. As demand to support the war on terror intensified, the Joint Chiefs were concerned about overextending U.S. European Command, whose geographic boundaries then included both Europe and Africa. They warned against adding a subunified command to the combatant command’s “already full load,” so an independent combatant command of equal status was created instead.15 Comparably, while upscaling USFJ would increase bilateral integration, USINDOPACOM would retain oversight of the lion’s share of high operational, strategic, and multilateral integration within the first island chain—while coping with the growing list of demands everywhere else throughout the theater. Alternatively, using existing authorities, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command could internally up-gun the congressionally mandated joint task force by designating one of its four-star component commands as a standing joint task force. However, strengthening one component will impose significant costs by reducing headquarters capacity across the others and thereby limiting their capacity to function effectively as component commands. During his confirmation hearing for appointment to lead USINDOPACOM, Admiral Samuel Paparo admitted that following this course “would require the augmentation of several hundred permanent staff across all services.”16 A component functioning as a joint task force is also less suited to function at this level given the added responsibilities for leading posture initiatives, joint contingency planning, and strategic dialogues on top of—continuing the analogy—an “already full load” of missions, roles, and functions as a Service component lead. USINDOPACOM’s various joint task forces are temporal by nature, but the broader competition framework requires long-term continuity in some areas. For instance, a temporary operational-level command with a host nation (common practice during exercises) is less suited to routinely interact with U.S. national policymakers and with government officials on issues such as access, basing, and overflight. The U.S. experience in the Asia/Pacific theater of World War II offers a viable framework given the similar need to reorganize at the high operational and strategic level against a Great Power rival in Asia. Furthermore, while much has changed, one aspect that has remained constant is the geography. Given the resurgence of Great Power threats, the Indo-Pacific is simply too big for a single theater headquarters to adequately command and control the volume of wide-ranging military operations across the competition continuum. These developments raise whether unity of effort is more important than unity of command, especially considering the most viable framework in wartime.
A Proven Model
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command was not always the lone geographic command responsible for such a massive area. In the Asia/Pacific theater of World War II, Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur both led forerunners of the unified combatant commands. Based in Hawaii, Nimitz and his Pacific Ocean Areas command led a Central Pacific drive comprised of decisive naval battles such as Midway and amphibious assaults on island outposts such as Peleliu and Iwo Jima. Meanwhile, MacArthur’s Australiabased Southwest Pacific Area command conducted island-hopping campaigns through the Solomon Islands archipelago, along the coast of New Guinea, and into the Philippine Islands, where his headquarters later relocated. The maritime strategist Admiral J.C. Wylie scrutinizes the rationale behind these two “sequential” strategies. “Was it because it was a strategically sound decision?” Wylie asks, “Or was it because of the involvement of the commander’s personality in the solution of the problem? In my opinion, it was the latter.” Wylie criticizes MacArthur for allowing his vanity to guide wartime strategy, pointing to the unavoidable influence of “individual personality” in military affairs.17 Louis Morton, the historian who oversaw the Army’s official history of the conflict, offers a counterpoint. Morton explains one unified command may have been both suitable and feasible, but it was not acceptable due to the friction caused by Service parochialism. Washington settled on dual commands because no one could reach consensus on any one individual—either from the Army or the Navy—to lead a single unified command.18 Despite the bizarre origins, it is worth underscoring the most important aspect of the dual command approach, which is, of course, that it worked. What matters more is valuing why because its success can be attributed to more than mollifying inter-Service feuding. Multiple theater commands (including a third British-led command on mainland Asia) provided the Allies with a winning formula. The framework fittingly apportioned the span of control for geographic missions and responsibilities across the domains of air, land, and sea, while battling a Great Power adversary across a region characterized by the “tyranny of distance.” Despite Wylie’s misgivings over two sequential strategies, he stresses above all that “the thing that counts is the cumulative effect.”19 Historians debate whether two sequential drives were necessary, but two equal theater commands—one led by a general, the other by an admiral—resulted in a collaborative joint approach that delivered victory.
Unlike the other theaters where the Army held prominent sway, the Pacific was long considered “a special preserve of the navy.”20 Morton explains how in this unique setting “Army and Navy officers, with different outlooks and points of view developed over a lifetime of training and experience, weighed the issues of war in terms of service interest and prestige.”21 Yet the dual-command structure forced inter-Service and intertheater cooperation that surmounted bitter divides over how to prosecute the war in the Pacific. Because unity of command in a theater so vast and with so many variables was unattainable, according to Morton’s thesis, two theater commanders welded unity of effort at high operational and strategic levels in ways that underpinned the cumulative effect Wylie cites. “Perhaps that is the supreme lesson of the Pacific war—that true unity of command can be only on the field of battle,” Morton concludes.22 The equal footing of the two theater commanders more fulsomely informed strategy and policy. For instance, the diversity of senior commander viewpoints led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to green light the liberation of the Philippine Islands over invading Formosa. In this case, the President evaluated multiple options and, right or wrong, made a more informed policy decision that figured centrally in the outcome of the war.23 While Wylie partially concedes the “military usefulness served by the Southwest Pacific forces,” he dismisses “their political usefulness after 1942.”24 His rigid stance is peculiar considering MacArthur’s forces unshackled U.S. territorial possessions in the later years, not to mention they liberated the Filipino population and thousands of Allied prisoners of war. There was indeed political utility in both Nimitz’s and MacArthur’s efforts. Following the war, the National Security Act of 1947 and the Outline Command Plan established the unified combatant commands. Two were created in the Pacific as outgrowths of Nimitz’s and MacArthur’s headquarters, respectively: U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Far East Command. Periodic reviews of what was then relabeled the Unified Command Plan began soon after. For example, amid a dwindling troop presence following the Korean War and fading occupation duties in Japan, the 1956 UCP inactivated U.S. Far East Command and transferred its missions and responsibilities to U.S. Pacific Command. Today’s subunified commands, USFK and USFJ, were created the same year.25 Washington installed the dualcommand structure during World War II by necessity after the fighting had begun because prewar theater-level command and control was not suitable for wartime, let alone to support deterrence activities. Notably, after several false starts, the Allies consumed precious time reorganizing at the theater level while losing control of prized strategic locations, including several U.S. territories. Troops paid an exacting price in blood leading to the largest surrender in U.S. military history in the Philippines and tragedies such as the Bataan Death March. The deterrent value of splitting the theater in half in peacetime may indeed help prevent the conflict the United States seeks to avoid, unlike before, by arranging the theater to support requirements of both long-term strategic competition and war should deterrence fail. Merits and Risks The proposal to create a new theater command in the Indo-Pacific region will face skepticism, but DOD routinely reorganizes based on the changing environment. The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 is perhaps the most profound example, but another relevant organizational change occurred in 1975 when U.S. Pacific Command’s boundaries were extended past the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa.26 The arrangement suited the environment at the time considering the Vietnam War had ended, the relationship with the PRC was trending positively following Secretary Henry Kissinger’s outreach, and the Soviet threat largely manifested in Europe. But conditions have dramatically changed since DOD redrew the map a half century ago. Reorganizing in the Indo-Pacific at the theater level could take several forms beyond internal efforts already underway in Japan and Guam. DOD could add more staff capacity to the headquarters or modify the UCP boundaries of another combatant command such as U.S. Central Command, so USINDOPACOM could narrow its focus on a possible Taiwan contingency, the “pacing scenario,” according to Assistant Secretary of Defense Ely Ratner.27 The next review of the UCP should explore these options, but as World War II demonstrated, two equal theater commands in the Indo-Pacific would offer several unique advantages that are not limited to wartime. This could be accomplished by restoring the geographic boundaries for USINDOPACOM like Nimitz’s former command area. But unlike MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area, whose boundaries ended at Asia’s landmass, the newly created combatant command could include South Asia and extend from the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific. The merits of two theater commands would foremost allow for burden-sharing of the increasing set of geographic missions and responsibilities involving the convergence of high operational, strategic, and multilateral issues. For example, two staffs could divide responsibilities to plan signature regional exercises such as Cobra Gold in Thailand, Garuda Shield in Indonesia, Balikatan in the Philippines, and Talisman Sabre in Australia, which are all growing in scale, duration, and multinational participation. The growth reflects a positive trend, but one that requires not only more planning and coordination but also more oversight at the theater level. Considering the human dynamics of the World War II experience, two theater commands—ideally led by members of different Services—would offer diverse but complementary views of the complex security environment. Of note, an unbroken chain of 27 Navy admirals have led USINDOPACOM for over three-quarters of a century.28 It is the only combatant command to have been led by a member from a single Service. Even U.S. European Command, its area of responsibility often characterized as land-centric, has been led by admirals and Air Force generals. Given the growing complexity of demands and intensifying nature of threats proliferating across all domains, policy would benefit from more diverse theater commander viewpoints in its priority theater.
Two sets of theater headquarters would likewise boost command and staff supervision over desired force posture improvements such as developing the immense requirements for theater logistics, distributed command nodes, hub-and-spoke airfields, and lines of communication beyond the concentration of bases in Northeast Asia and the Central Pacific. Another combatant command would similarly increase capacity to coordinate, synchronize, and integrate geographic missions with those of the nongeographic or functional combatant commands such as U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Cyber Command, enhancing the “cumulative” effect of multiple lines of operation. However, it would likewise require close coordination between the two primary geographic commands oriented on long-term strategic competition against the PRC, which would invariably involve growing pains and deconfliction based on new lines on the map.
A second commander of equal status would double the ability to conduct regional strategic military engagements, known as military diplomacy, by prioritizing defense relationships with countries such as India, where policy places high premiums. Another benefit would allow the existing Hawaii-based command to focus more on optimizing contingency plans for a possible Taiwan conflict and refining mutual defense plans with allies in East Asia. This would allow the new command to congruently enhance multilateral security relationships such as AUKUS while doggedly pursuing posture initiatives, coproduction agreements, and other security cooperation activities to advance defense policy. The added headquarters capacity would further allow the U.S. joint force to command and control higher volumes of joint operations with a more favorable span of control in all domains and in all phases of competition, crisis, and wartime. Each of these benefits would consequently strengthen integrated deterrence with allies and partners—the central plank of the 2022 National Defense Strategy— by investing more capital into developing multilateral relationships, plans and operations, and force posture in the Indo-Pacific region, thus signaling stronger resolve.29 Activating a new command would require political capital and financial investment including creating new host-nation agreements, building or refurbishing facilities, reassigning personnel, and realigning force structure from lesser priority organizations. The decision would require hard choices liable to increase risk in lower priority theaters and in other organizations. Plus, negotiating taxes that the Services and other combatant commands would incur, such as moving flag officer authorizations, is always contentious. Washington could reconstitute U.S. Far East Command in Japan by up-gunning U.S. Forces Japan into a combatant command rather than a more robust subunified command. However, such a scenario would redirect USINDOPACOM’s mission, likely spawning intense parochial backlash. Arguably the best geostrategic position for a new combatant command that would evenly divide theater missions and responsibilities is Australia, which could be possible given the AUKUS-driven momentum to expand U.S. force posture agreements.30 In fact, the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act calls for establishing a U.S. headquarters in Australia.31 The Philippines may be another option considering the momentum driven by the expansion of Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement sites, but U.S. permanent basing remains a thorny political issue in the Philippines. Regardless of the course, even just a few years ago these proposals would sound outlandish, but the PRC’s coercive behavior and mounting capability have driven many U.S. allies and partners to support deterrence in unprecedented ways. Thus, the prospect of establishing a new combatant command in theater is politically feasible.
A new geographic command in the Indo-Pacific region is likely to create disagreements within the joint force over dividing operational missions, redrawing boundaries, and reapportioning segments of assigned forces. Recalling the reality of friction caused by personality and competing Service interests in World War II, DOD should seek an organizational methodology that not only considers span of control but also accommodates various equities to enhance unity of effort. Deterrence is an ideal consequence of this approach, but the United States could deter war and still fail to achieve a policy hinged on preserving the existing order. Theater command and control must therefore be optimized for long-term strategic competition, which accounts for deterrence, with an edge to transition to conflict. A fair assessment, a deliberate plan, and decisive leadership will ensure the gains far outweigh the risks of altering theater command and control.
Time to Reorganize
The process to stand up U.S. Africa Command in 2008 revealed three applicable insights given the need to reorganize at the theater level. First, the new command required a clear mission to complement rather than compete against existing organizations. Second, a budget was required to underwrite the new command, coupled with an appropriate allocation of forces to carry out its mission. Third, splitting a command’s boundaries in half required the early involvement of key stakeholders leading to heated but necessary debates to mediate disagreements.32 DOD should consider both what is changing in its priority theater and what will never change. Permanent characteristics such as the geometry of the geography, the diversity of terrain, and the harsh environmental conditions make the Indo-Pacific the most complex operational environment on the planet. But the complexity is growing, as are the demands placed on the joint force—and fast. The stakes could not be higher. Former Commander, USINDOPACOM, Admiral Philip Davidson emphasizes this is the “decade of concern for the international community . . . [and] China is the challenge of our time.”33 Davidson and each of his successors have warned that deterrence is eroding. Restoring deterrence and more broadly organizing for long-term strategic competition calls for sweeping organizational change. Multiple efforts to reorganize U.S. military forces in the Indo-Pacific region over the last century were driven by new missions, evolving threats, and the region’s growing economic and political significance. In 2018, for example, DOD rebranded U.S. Pacific Command as U.S. Indo-Pacific Command “in recognition of the increasing connectivity of the Indian and Pacific oceans.”34 Four years later Congress directed changes at the operational level to better prepare the U.S. joint force for a possible wartime scenario, and the national leaders of the United States and Japan committed to improving their bilateral command integration. But more organizational changes are necessary to meet the demands of long-term strategic competition against the PRC, including wartime preparedness, and they must occur at the theater level. A single geographic command is likely no longer suitable for the largest, most complex, and most consequential geographic area on the planet. Now is the optimal time to reorganize the theater—ahead of a potential conflict. Doing so will require investment, resolve, and some imagination to overcome the chorus of those who will be staunchly opposed. The Department of Defense should fairly assess the existing construct alongside well-thought alternatives, including what has worked in the past under comparable geostrategic circumstances. The next review of the Unified Command Plan presents an opportunity to best organize the U.S. joint force against its pacing challenge—in its priority theater—not only amid enduring strategic competition but also as largescale war looms on the horizon. JFQ
Notes
1 Andrew Feickert, The Unified Command Plan and Combatant Commands: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Updated January 3, 2013), 1, https://crsreports.congress.gov/ product/pdf/R/R42077/11.
2 Jim Garamone, “Defense Official Says Indo-Pacific Is the Priority Theater; China Is DOD’s Pacing Challenge,” Department of Defense, March 9, 2022, https://www. defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/ 2961183/defense-official-says-indo-pacificis- the-priority-theater-china-is-dods-pacing/.
3 “Advance Policy Questions for Admiral Samuel J. Paparo, USN, Nominee for Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command,” Senate Armed Services Committee, February 1, 2024, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/ media/doc/paparo_apq_responses.pdf.
4 “USINDOPACOM Area of Responsibility,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, March 2022, https://www.pacom.mil/About-USINDOPACOM/ USPACOM-Area-of-Responsibility/.
5 Bonny Lin and Joel Wuthnow, “Pushing Back Against China’s New Normal in the Taiwan Strait,” War on the Rocks, August 16, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/08/ pushing-back-against-chinas-new-normal-inthe- taiwan-strait/.
6 Noah Robertson, “US to revamp its command in Japan amid renaissance in defense ties,” Defense News, July 27, 2024, https://www. defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/07/27/ us-to-revamp-its-command-in-japan-amidrenaissance-in-defense-ties/.
7 Joseph R. Biden, Fumio Kishida, and Suk Yeol Yoon, “The Spirit of Camp David: Joint Statement of Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States,” The White House, August 18, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/18/ the-spirit-of-camp-david-joint-statement-ofjapan- the-republic-of-korea-and-the-unitedstates/.
8 “Tracking Tensions at Second Thomas Shoal,” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, January 30, 2024, https://amti.csis.org/ tracking-tensions-at-second-thomas-shoal/.
9 Andrew Tilghman, Guam: Defense Infrastructure and Readiness, R47643 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, August 3, 2023), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/ pdf/R/R47643.
10 The Chinese Communist Party’s Ongoing Uyghur Genocide: Policy Recommendations, House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, 11, https://selectcommitteeontheccp. house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/ selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evomedia- document/ten-for-taiwan-pdf.pdf. 11 “New Zealand PM Says Pacific Region Less Secure Amid China’s Rise,” Guardian, July 17, 2023, https://www.theguardian. com/world/2023/jul/17/chris-hipkins-newzealand- pm-prime-minister-pacific-region-lesssecure- china. 12 Sheena Chestnut Greitens, “China’s Use of Nontraditional Strategic Landpower in Asia,” Parameters 51, no. 1 (Spring 2024), https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/ vol54/iss1/5/. 13 “About USFK,” United States Forces Korea, https://www.usfk.mil/About/USFK/.
14 “About USFJ,” U.S. Forces Japan, https://www.usfj.mil/About-USFJ/.
15 Edward J. Drea et al., History of the Unified Command Plan: 1946–2012 (Washington, DC: Joint History Office, 2013), 97, https:// www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/ Institutional/Command_Plan.pdf.
16 To Consider the Nomination of: Admiral Samuel J. Paparo, Jr., USN, for Reappointment to the Grade of Admiral and to Be Commander, United States Indo-Pacific Command, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), 118th Cong., 2nd sess., February 1, 2024,
https:// www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/ to-consider-the-nomination-of_admiral-samuelj- paparo-jr-usn-for-reappointment-to--thegrade-of-admiral-and-to-be--commander-united- states-indo-pacific-command.
17 J.C. Wylie, Jr., “Reflections on the War in the Pacific,” USNI Proceedings 78, no. 4 (April 1952), 590, https://www.usni.org/magazines/ proceedings/1952/april/reflections-war-pacific.
18 Louis Morton, “Pacific Command: A Study in Interservice Relations,” U.S. Air Force Academy Harmon Memorial Lecture #3, U.S. Air Force Academy, 1961, https://www.usafa. edu/app/uploads/Harmon03.pdf.
19 Wylie, “Reflections on the War in the Pacific.”
20 Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), 146.
21 Morton, “Pacific Command.”
22 Morton.
23 Alfred L. Castle, “President Roosevelt and General MacArthur at the Honolulu Conference of 1944,” The Hawaiian Journal of History 38 (2004), 166.
24 Wylie, “Reflections on the War in the Pacific.”
25 Drea et al., History of the Unified Command Plan, 19.
26 Drea et al., 34.
27 Garamone, “Defense Official Says Indo-Pacific Is the Priority Theater; China Is DOD’s Pacing Challenge.”
28 The “unbroken chain” refers to the flag officers confirmed by the U.S. Senate to execute duties as the Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, and later Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. See “Previous Commanders,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, May 3, 2024, https://www.pacom.mil/About-USPACOM/ USPACOM-Previous-Commanders/.
29 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, 1.
30 “Joint Statement on Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) 2023,” Department of Defense, July 29, 2023, https:// www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/ Article/3476104/joint-statement-on-australiaus- ministerial-consultations-ausmin-2023/. 31 S.4638–National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, https://www. congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senatebill/ 4638/text 32 Drea et al., History of the Unified Command Plan, 97. 33 Rexon Ryu and Valerie Rozman, “Admiral Phil Davidson on Indo-Pacific Security Dynamics,” The Tea Leaves Podcast, March 29, 2024, https://podcasts. apple.com/us/podcast/adm-phil-davidson- on-indo-pacific-security-dynamics/ id1355207045?i=1000631228875. 34 Tara Copp, “INDOPACOM, It Is: U.S. Pacific Command Gets Renamed,” Defense News, May 30, 2018, https://www.defensenews. com/news/your-military/2018/05/30/ indo-pacom-it-is-pacific-command-getsrenamed