Competition and tensions continue to build in the Indo-Pacific as the Army works to increase its readiness and presence in the region, the commander of U.S. Army Pacific said.

“The most important thing we can do is make sure we have ready forces forward,” Gen. Charles Flynn said Oct. 5 during a virtual conference hosted by the Modern War Institute at West Point. “Those ready forces forward allow us to deny the [People’s Republic of China] terrain, it allows us to increase our joint readiness, and it increases the confidence of our allies and partners in our relationship.”

The Indo-Pacific is experiencing an “incredibly competitive state of affairs right now,” Flynn said. Competition is escalating in the Arctic, Russia is a great-power competitor, North Korea remains a “dangerous, dangerous regime,” and instability continues in places such as Myanmar, where the government was deposed earlier this year in a military coup.

Violent extremist organizations continue to wreak havoc in places such as Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, and China continues to make territorial claims in the South and East China Seas, has an ongoing border dispute with India, continues to conduct access and influence campaigns, and looms over Taiwan, he added. “There’s a lot of activity,” Flynn said. 

In response, the Army has about 106,000 soldiers and civilians assigned, allocated or aligned to the Indo-Pacific, Flynn said. The Army also has been busy exercising and training with its allies and partners. In 2021 alone, the Army participated in exercises such as Orient Shield in Japan, Cobra Gold in Thailand, Garuda Shield in Indonesia, Talisman Sabre in Australia and Balikatan in the Philippines. 

The Chinese “took note of all these activities,” Flynn said, as the Army fired the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, conducted joint forcible entry exercises, moved watercraft across the region and exercised its maneuver, aviation and command and control capabilities.

In the coming years, the Army looks to keep up and even increase its activities and presence in the region, Flynn said. “COVID had an impact on us in ’21 … but we would like to do more and further forward,” he said. “I’d like to have more faces in more places operating in the region.”

More robust home-station training is also in the works, as the Army seeks to replicate a combat training center-like rotation in Hawaii and Alaska, with the goal of continuing to “operate and learn and understand what it’s like to fight, live and operate in jungle, tropic, high-altitude, mountainous and extreme cold weather,” Flynn said.

Combined, these efforts are critical to what the Army is trying to do in the region, particularly when it comes to deterring conflict and building relationships with allies and partners. “This is the most consequential theater against the most consequential adversary at, arguably, the most consequential time,” Flynn said.