Gen. Robert B. Brown, U.S. Army Pacific commanding general since April 26, said multilateral operations “are really the way to go” in all future military operations, in peace and in war.

“The future is multilateral. None of us can go it alone. It does not make sense for any of us to try to go it alone,” Brown said in opening remarks at LANPAC, a symposium and exposition hosted in Honolulu by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare. “You will hear me say this again and again.”

War is more complicated, Brown said. Part of the reason is that military leaders are overwhelmed with “haystacks of information” that are difficult to sift through to find “the golden needle.”

Success is no longer just being comfortable, he said. “The professional aspects of armies are now more important,” he said.

LANPAC got underway May 22 as news came from Washington, D.C., that the U.S.-North Korean summit scheduled for June 12 in Singapore could be off, may be delayed or may be canceled.

“If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later,” President Donald Trump said. This is the second hiccup. On May 17, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un said he was calling off pre-summit talks with North Korea because of ongoing military exercises involving U.S. troops.

This is the sixth and largest LANPAC conference held by AUSA, said Michael M. Scanlan, senior director for meetings. Twenty-six nations have representatives attending the meeting, and there are 60 industry partners.

“You can get more accomplished here than if you traveled the Pacific for three or four months,” Brown said.

Retired Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, AUSA’s president and CEO, said a seventh LANPAC is planned for 2019.