New Directions for Projecting Land Power in the Indo-pacific
Wong, Jonathan P.; Mazarr, Michael J.; Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Nathan; Bohnert, Michael; Boston, Scott; Curriden, Christian; Eaton, Derek; Fauerbach, Gregory Weider; Fleming, Joslyn; Giglio, Katheryn; Goldfeld, Dahlia Anne; Grossman, Derek; Heath, Timothy R.; Jackson, John C.; Linick, Michael E.; Robinson, Eric; Saum-Manning, Lisa; Schwankhart, Ryan A.; Schwille, Michael; Seabrook, Stephan B.; Shih, Alice; Welch, Jonathan (2023-01-30). New Directions for Projecting Land Power in the Indo-pacific. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, The. ISBN 978-1-9774-1016-0.
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Abstract: This report seeks to address how the U.S. Army can most effectively project and employ land power in the Indo-Pacific, during competition and conflict, with a focus on scenarios involving China. The authors developed three concepts to guide the Army's ground force role in the theater, offering the essential architecture of basing, information, relationships, and flexible combat power needed to make the joint force effective. In addition to outlining the elements of a wide-ranging, dynamic Army role in the region, the authors produced several complementary insights that could help shape Army planning for the theater. Most of these are already a major part of thinking at U.S. Army Pacific. General principles of future Army power projection in the region are well understood; the task now is to take seriously their full implications and build the needed capabilities. The authors also identified several elements of a refined vision of power projection for the Army. That new vision includes several roles and missions apart from flowing large combat forces and focuses on smaller units that are more feasible within the assessed operational constraints.
"...Oceania is a vast region in the Pacific composed of Australasian, Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian states. One area of particular geostrategic relevance to the U.S. military is the FAS. The FAS reside in the Micronesian sub-region of the North Pacific, in the vicinity of U.S. territories Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and include the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau. These three independent and sovereign nations maintain special agreements with the United States called COFAs. COFAs provide the United States with near-exclusive military access to not only the FAS land holdings but also the ocean water and airspace between them, equal to a vast region approximately the size of CONUS. As described in past RAND research, the FAS “are tantamount to a power projection superhighway running through the heart of the North Pacific into Asia. It effectively connects U.S. military forces in Hawaii to those in theater, particularly to forward operating positions on the U.S. territory of Guam.”38 In other words, maintaining uninhibited access to the FAS would be highly beneficial for U.S. troop movements into the Indo-Pacific to address a Taiwan, South China Sea, East China Sea, or Korea contingency. The FAS countries do not field militaries of their own, and they have completely outsourced their defense to the U.S. military in exchange for annual economic assistance and benefits to their citizens usually accorded to U.S. citizens, such as special education and work visas.
From Beijing’s perspective, the U.S. military plans to leverage its advantages in these nations in the second island chain, along with the American territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands, to great effect during wartime. Thus, China has been attempting to weaken U.S. linkages with FAS countries by offering economic incentives through the Belt and Road Initiative..."
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DOI: 10.7249/rra1672-1 OpenAlex: W4312619391
