by MAJ Ryan Crayne, USA
Landpower Essay 25-2, May 2025

In Brief

• Historical experiences underscore that strategic outcomes depend significantly on accurately assessing and influencing human actors, rather than solely relying on technological or materiel superiority.
• The decisive terrain in the Indo-Pacific goes beyond the blue expanse and is fundamentally human, constituting a strategic “linchpin” on which all other domains hinge.
• The Indo-Pacific’s landpower network secures key terrain and counters anti-access threats through deep engagement in the human dimension. Leveraging enduring regional partnerships, land forces strategically forward position the joint force to overcome operational challenges.
• Despite vast geographic expanses in the Indo-Pacific, land forces excel by operating within the human dimension, prioritizing people, partnerships and prevailing in conflict, competition and crisis.

Introduction

The U.S. Army’s operating doctrine, Multi-Domain Operations, frames warfare through the domains of air, maritime, space, cyberspace and land.[i] With the Indo-Pacific defined by its geostrategic waterways and immense distances—the blue expanses on the map—maritime and air power are undeniably critical for U.S. joint and allied force success in the region. ¬In a November 2024 discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution, U.S. Indo-Pacific Combatant Commander Admiral Samuel John Paparo, Jr. emphasized the need for “air and maritime superiority” to sustain forces and employ weapons in a hypothetical engagement with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Dr. Michael O’Hanlon, a senior policy researcher on the panel, summed up the challenges in achieving victory against the PRC in the region: “It’s the 8,000-mile by 8,000-mile problem.”[ii] Given the extensive blue on the map, the Army’s role in the Indo-Pacific may seem minuscule.

Physical space seems to be both the final frontier and the primary framework in which we view security problems in the Pacific. “From Bollywood to Hollywood, from polar bears to penguins,”[iii] the Indo-Pacific covers nearly half of the earth’s surface. Defining this region by the vast amount of blue or even green on the map, however, fails to reveal the true strategic terrain where U.S. joint forces, and particularly land forces, can achieve decisive outcomes. A conflict in the region will require “the employment of capabilities in all domains to create and exploit relative advantages that achieve objectives, and defeat enemy forces.”[iv] The U.S. Army’s landpower contributions in this joint arena must seek an asymmetric advantage. This may not be a new paradigm in conflict, but perhaps a refocus on the foundational truth that war is human. Throughout history, U.S. landpower forces have proven most adept at operating in and influencing the human dimension, drawing vital lessons from past conflicts that resonate in the Indo-Pacific. Today, through campaigning efforts and allied partnerships, land forces in the region leverage this human terrain to deliver decisive advantages for the joint force. Our landpower forces’ asymmetric advantage lies not in dominating sea, air, space or cyberspace, but in enabling all these domains by impacting the human dimension—beyond the blue of the Indo-Pacific.

The Human Dimension Is Joint Terrain

“War is chaotic, lethal, and a fundamentally human endeavor. It is a clash of wills fought among and between people.”

—U.S. Army, Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-0 Operations, 2025

Did we not just publish Multi-Domain Operations only for a discussion now on the human dimension? Is this some esoteric interpretation that seeks to avoid the objective and tangible aspects of warfare, especially in a theater like the Indo-Pacific? On the contrary, the human dimension in war predates most other contemplations on the truths of conflict. It is an axiom of combat that we cannot neglect when we look toward future threats. The current discourse on drones, hypersonics and artificial intelligence in the Pacific may be top of mind, but seeking advantages for the joint force cannot be done through a myopic lens. The human dimension encompasses and impacts all other domains, including their increasingly advanced technological developments. The human dimension that our land forces are most adept at influencing for the betterment of the joint force is holistic terrain we cannot afford to fail to secure.

Alongside the domains of operations in U.S. Army doctrine are the three dimensions of the operational environment. The physical, information and human dimensions permeate all domains concurrently.[v] The human dimension is not a physical terrain per se. It is not a ratio or percentage of the vast Indo-Pacific, but it can be secured, defended, denied, influenced and won. The human dimension of war has been defined differently across time and perspectives. It can be summarized as “the people and the interaction between individuals and groups, how they understand information and events, make decisions, generate will, and act within an operational environment.”[vi] The prevailing human interests that drive decisions to enter conflict transcend the three-dimensional domains in which these conflicts transpire. Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, USA, Ret., emphasized this truth as an enduring principle of war, noting that humans today make decisions about war for the same fundamental reasons they have for millennia.[vii] A continuity of war, he proclaimed, is that it is a human contest of wills.[viii] Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian military theorist, described the physical components of war being like the wooden hilt of the sword, while the moral factors are the noble metal, the real weapon.[ix] Discussing human factors in war, or influencing humans to prevent war, is not just a conversation of the past. One does not have to venture far into history to see where our joint force, with overmatch in many physical domains, was challenged strategically primarily within the human dimension.

In Vietnam, despite air, sea and land overmatch, misjudging the military and political wills of the Vietnamese forces, Vietnamese citizens and the American public led to withdrawal and 60,000 U.S. troops lost.[x] Despite the dramatic overmatch in the air, on the sea and even on land, the complex nature of the human dimension in Vietnam overshadowed supremacy in all other domains of war. Even more recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan, efforts to rally allies, break enemy resolve or win local support were critical in the global war on terrorism (GWOT). Land forces here found themselves face-to-face daily with “power brokers,” human leaders who held sway, rallied support, allowed safe passage or consolidated or denied political gains. Wesley Morgan said in his book on U.S. operations in Afghanistan, “Commanders were often caught between operational imperatives and the need to maintain relationships. Influential political leaders could stop the shooting—or start it—with a word. In some cases, patrols were delayed or canceled based on the outcome of meetings that took place hours before movement.”[xi]

While our success or failure in these conflicts is too nuanced to be attributed to a singular concept, we can note that despite the tactical and even strategic overmatch in the physical domains, the human dimension significantly impacted operations. Having been immersed in these problems, land forces are most adept at leveraging lessons from this dimension—such as the strategic hamlet program in Vietnam or Army Corps of Engineers civil works projects during the GWOT[xii] —to ready us for future conflicts. Influence on human factors that could lead to area access, diplomatic favor, infrastructure preparation and public support is currently of great joint force significance in the security environment of the Indo-Pacific.

In 2013, as national security objectives began to reorient on emerging threats, then–Army Chief of Staff General Raymond T. Odierno, then–Marine Corps Commandant General James F. Amos and Commanding General of Special Operations Command General William H. McRaven, penned a white paper titled “Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills.”[xiii] In it, they discussed how armed conflict is not merely a clash of standoff technologies, but a conflict of interests that is fundamentally a human endeavor.[xiv] They go on to discuss how the human dimension is of joint concern, but land operations are most adept at achieving and influencing human outcomes. A RAND report validated this assessment, pointing to a 2016 U.S. Joint Staff finding that “recent failure to translate military gains into strategic success reflects, to some extent, the joint force’s tendency to focus primarily on affecting the material capabilities—including hardware and personnel—of adversaries and friends, rather than their will to develop and employ capabilities.”[xv] A failure to grasp human aspects can, and often will, result in a prolonged struggle and an inability to achieve strategic goals. Despite naval, air, space and cyberspace supremacy, the success or failure of land forces in influencing human will can determine strategic outcomes. Could Chinese superiority in other domains still falter if U.S. land forces and their allies asymmetrically dominate the human terrain? Success here hinges not on the physical domains alone, but on landpower’s ability to influence the human dimension to achieve results in all domains.

Landpower in the Pacific

“The human aspects of operations remain paramount regardless of the technology associated with the system. Therefore, commanders base their command and control systems on human characteristics more than on equipment and processes.”

—U.S. Army, ADP 6-0 Mission Command, 2019

Although a large void of humanity exists between the United States and Japan, the Pacific and Indian Oceans wash onto the shores of countries that comprise nearly 60 percent of the world’s population, a figure projected to reach two-thirds in the coming decades.[xvi] Almost 60 percent of global trade traverses the Pacific Ocean, a share that has grown by roughly 5 percent each decade since 1980, underscoring the criticality of its economic arteries, such as the Malacca and Sunda Straits.[xvii] Securing, deterring and defending this region, particularly against China, is the top priority of the National Defense Strategy. The U.S. Army labels China and its landpower, the People’s Liberation Army, as its top “pacing threat.” [xviii] To make matters more critical, the Chinese naval fleet now surpasses the U.S. Navy in number of vessels, and China’s shipbuilding capacity dwarfs U.S. ability to even attempt to close this gap.[xix] Unlike the U.S. Navy and Air Force, whose calls for more materiel require little justification amid this paradigm, the U.S. Army has faced persistent challenges in articulating its value in a region perceived as air and maritime dominated. Yet, you would be deceived to cast land forces as mere upper orchestra players in the Symphony of Mars. Alongside allies and partners, U.S. land forces today draw on a legacy of shaping human terrain to deliver decisive joint force advantages in the Indo-Pacific.

For 124 years, from the Philippine-American War through the island liberations of World War II and decades of alliance building in Australia, Japan, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea (ROK), U.S. and allied landpower has exceled at shaping the Indo-Pacific’s human terrain. The U.S. Army’s monumental role in World War II in the Asiatic-Pacific theater, often overlooked in comparison to its European history, highlighted the valuable contribution of landpower there. The U.S. Army deployed three field armies, six corps and 21 divisions to fight 24 campaigns—outnumbering the 19 campaigns fought elsewhere during the war.[xx] In the Oceania region, the Army provided troop support, transportation, intelligence and engineering—building roads, airfields and ports with local assistance, mirroring the modern joint enabler and adviser roles it continues to serve.[xxi] The relationships built in the sands of Corregidor and Bataan have lasting impressions today. The ensuing collaboration with the Filipino people and military solidified trust and paved the way for operational training sites that support not just land forces but also air and naval forces, such as those established under today’s Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.[xxii]

U.S. landpower forces’ effect on the human dimension could even be seen in its advising and assisting roles with Chinese forces and their ground combat against Japan in places like Manchuria and Kwangtung. Through supplies and sustenance, the U.S. Army’s support to China allowed them to present Japan with multiple dilemmas on separate fronts.[xxiii] While large-scale U.S. combat formations did not go into China, U.S. operations extended their reach by influencing the human dimension. Today, the United States Army Pacific Command (USARPAC) harnesses these lessons as the United States Indo-Pacific Command’s joint integrator and landpower provider. USARPAC’s forces are arrayed from Washington to Guam, Alaska to Saipan, and, of course, inside the first island chain, in Japan and with the ROK. The 2nd Infantry Division in Korea is now a combined U.S. Army and ROK Army division. The 2nd Infantry Division is “the last remaining permanently forward-stationed division in the U.S. Army,” a unique status that exemplifies the joint force’s commitment to the region.[xxiv]

The seven-decade partnership with the ROK Army exemplifies the benefits and advantages that engaging in the human dimension affords the joint force. Human-to-human interactions in the Pacific scale all the way up to the region’s strategic military leaders and the forces they command. “Seven of the 10 largest armies in the world are in the Pacific theater, and 22 of the 27 countries in the region have an army officer as Chief of Defense,” according to John R. Deni of the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute.[xxv] The Pacific, on a human level, “speaks” Army, and the Army articulately converses in return. The U.S. Army leverages this “strategic landpower network,” a team of teams in the Pacific, to counteract what any singular foe in the region could muster.[xxvi] As the theater army of the Pacific, USARPAC acts as the sustainer, supplier and maintainer of the U.S. joint force in the region. In 2016, then–Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford said, “The U.S. Army is the linchpin of the joint force. I use that word—linchpin—deliberately, because the Army has been the force that has held together the joint force with critical command-and-control capabilities, critical logistics capabilities, and other enablers.”[xxvii] This hinge point for the joint force to accomplish its goals rests on land and is made possible through human dimension gains from over a century. Human dimension achievements allow our force to gain and consolidate physical terrain as joint interior lines;[xxviii] terrain we use to integrate with our allies and deny from our foes. Certainly, our joint force relies on capabilities enabled by advanced technologies that only our air and sea forces can provide. But achieving integrated deterrence for our joint objectives requires the practical integration by the “linchpin” service of our land forces.[xxvix] Although impossible to quantify by using metrics like displacement tonnage or payload capacity, the human dimension advantage our landpower forces have won over decades in the Indo-Pacific can be seen beyond the blue on the map.

The Asymmetric Advantage

“The Joint Force and its partners synchronize activities to understand, influence, and achieve human interactions which cross all domains.”

——TRADOC PAM 525-3-1 (ADP) U.S. Army in MDO 2028, 2018

In a humid Indonesian jungle, General Charles Flynn, USA, Ret., the former USARPAC commander, recalls a mortar exercise that was an engagement in the “human dimension.” U.S. Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division and Royal Thai Army Soldiers participated in exercises as part of Operation Pathways, a joint campaign effort to showcase combat credible forces in the region and build interoperability among allies. During this exercise, the two groups of Soldiers were tasked with collaboratively firing mortars. Adding to the complexity of their mission, the Soldiers lacked a translator to facilitate this key tactical partner-building effort. However, leveraging their analog tools, hand-written algorithms and, most importantly, the human interoperability that they and their predecessor Soldiers had built over weeks, months and years of partner engagements, they were able to fire together. General Flynn recounted that “they may not have spoken each other’s language, but they spoke mortarman.” This singular story, likely one of thousands in the region of Soldiers connecting human-to-human, yielded operational trust and strategic outcomes. Such moments echo across the region and compound and enable significant contributions to the joint force in the Indo-Pacific theater.

U.S. and partner forces in the Pacific today actively secure and deny the human terrain through USARPAC’s Operation Pathways campaigning efforts. Pathways campaigning takes place across the region, spanning locations from Alaska to India, and from Mongolia to Indonesia. According to USARPAC, it “strengthens defense partnerships . . . by training with Allies & Partners to increase capability, capacity and human, technical and procedural interoperability.”[xxx] An extension of Operation Pathways, the annual Garuda Shield exercise evolved from a bilateral Army effort into one that incorporates 5,500 troops from 14 countries.[xxxi] Major General Joseph Harris of the Hawaii National Guard, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 training event, said, “I encourage all participants to take advantage of the excellent opportunities provided for professional and cultural exchanges . . . to use this opportunity to develop and grow relationships with your counterparts that will last a lifetime.”[xxxii] This persistent engagement on the human terrain provides forward positional advantage to project combat power from distributed locations

Our joint force, through invitation and exercises, gains footholds in forward areas like the Philippines, where long-standing ties have expanded the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement sites, setting conditions for enduring presence without permanent basing. In 2024, after years of allied partnership and host nation support, the Philippine military and USARPAC’s 1st Multi-Domain Task Force deployed the medium-range Typhon missile system to the island of Luzon.[xxxiii] This system has the capability of hitting sea, ground and air targets stretching all the way to China’s eastern seaboard. According to the Philippine military, the system will remain there until “Washington and Manila decide to remove it.”[xxxiv] The Chinese foreign minister commented that the Philippines needed to “correct their wrongdoing and stop going further down the wrong path.”[xxxv] Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos simply responded, “Stop claiming our territory, stop harassing our fishermen, stop ramming our boats, stop water cannoning our people, and stop your aggressive and coercive behavior.”[xxxvi] This exchange illustrates the intertwined nature of how human emotions, interests and conflict are woven into strategic capabilities in the air, sea, space and land domains.

In Singapore, the U.S. Army established Exercise Tiger Balm in 1980, the first and oldest bilateral training exercise between the two countries. During the exercise’s 40th iteration, then– Deputy Commanding General of USARPAC Major General Jonathan P. Braga, noted that Tiger Balm strengthened the Army’s relationship with Singapore and was “the catalyst for solidifying interoperability and contributes to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”[xxxvii] Singapore’s chief of the army, Major General Goh Si Hou, echoed this sentiment, noting, “Through four decades of bilateral training and collaboration, we have gleaned invaluable operational insights and sharpened our professional competencies.”[xxxviii] Since Tiger Balm’s inception, significant advancements in U.S.-Singapore relations have led to an expanded joint force presence in the region. Singapore now hosts air and naval operations supporting frequent patrols in the South China Sea, along with numerous regional exercises. Building on these relationship efforts, the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force now also benefit from annual exercises such as Pacific Griffin, Valiant Mark and Commando Sling, respectively. Today, nearly 1,000 Singaporean military personnel receive training or education in the United States.[xxxix] Joint capabilities in the Philippines and Singapore are just some of several that have flourished due to the sustained and enduring partnerships built on land through consistent allied engagement in the human dimension.

General Robert B. Brown, USA, Ret., another former USARPAC commanding general, pointed out that “China’s anti-access area denial system is designed to keep US forces” from piercing the tyranny of distance that is the Pacific.[xl] The international dateline, as well as the second and first island chains, are viewed as a defense-in-depth that our naval and air forces must penetrate first to even deliver landpower to the Indo-Pacific should an unfortunate conflict arise. These systems, however, are explicitly designed to target air, maritime, space and cyberspace capabilities. They are not designed to target dispersed, forward-deployed land forces enabling our joint apparatus.[xli] Our best course of action there should not be to run this gamut, but to already be at the finish line before the starter pistol fires. Our best counter to the “8,000-mile by 8,000-mile problem” is to already be there—in touch with problems, abreast of the people, alongside our allies and service partners.

The U.S. Army’s efforts to build partner force capacity, garner political and diplomatic support, fortify forward infrastructure, deploy land-based air and missile defense capabilities and establish sustainment networks are actively setting joint force conditions to deter or defeat China in the Indo-Pacific. No force is better equipped than our land forces to harness the human dimension, where their unparalleled skill in forging trust and alliances creates an asymmetric advantage China cannot rival. This edge—unattainable in the endless sky, boundless cyberspace or vast seas—is won daily by landpower, delivering decisive overmatch for the joint force.

Conclusion

When contemplating strategic priorities in the Indo-Pacific, it is tempting to become fixated on the vast expanses of ocean and sky that dominate the region’s geographic narrative. However, the true strategic terrain—the decisive battleground—is neither maritime nor aerial, nor even strictly terrestrial, but fundamentally human. The human dimension does not occupy terrain on our maps, nor does a color depict it in the legend. In reality, it constitutes a strategic “linchpin” on which all of the other domains and dimensions hinge. The effectiveness of joint force operations across air, sea, space and cyberspace fundamentally depends on our ability to engage, influence and partner with people. To overlook this truth risks the potential for grave strategic miscalculations.

Historical experiences demonstrate the strategic importance of the human element in war. Despite overwhelming military capabilities across multiple physical domains, strategic objectives were beholden to accurately assessing and influencing local populations and allies. Success in conflict, especially in complex theaters like the Indo-Pacific, centers on winning trust, shaping perceptions and influencing the decisions of human actors. Joint forces cannot afford the strategic error of equating technological or materiel superiority with assured victory. The U.S. Army’s role in the Pacific vividly illustrates the strategic potency of landpower forces when oriented toward the human dimension. Alliances, from World War II partnerships to contemporary cooperation with regional allies, underscore the profound impact that sustained human engagement yields. In environments where linguistic and cultural barriers might impede cooperation, as seen throughout the diverse Pacific theater, human relationships and shared experiences bridge the gaps, creating resilient joint capabilities. This strength is not derived solely from superior technology but from consistent, intentional human-to-human connections. This human-centric strategy effectively counters adversaries’ anti-access and area-denial capabilities by ensuring joint forces are strategically positioned, embedded and ready, and circumvents the daunting geographic challenges inherent in the “8,000-mile by 8,000-mile” Pacific problem.

When focusing on the vast blue of the Indo-Pacific, it is easy to underestimate the role of landpower and mistakenly prioritize technology and modernization as the primary drivers of success in warfare there. Across tens of thousands of square kilometers of blue and green on the map, amid dense jungles or uninhabited islands, our land forces have consistently proven adept at operating in the human dimension. General Ronald P. Clark, the current USARPAC commander, articulates his vision for the region with three tenets: people, partnerships and prevailing in conflict, competition and crisis. The human dimension is central to the first two tenets, and the human dimension will be vital to achieving the third. The joint force, particularly landpower forces, must prioritize the human dimension, recognizing its strategic centrality and penetrating importance to all other domains and dimensions of operations. Success will be determined not merely by physical presence or technological superiority but by deep, enduring partnerships and alliances built on shared human interests and mutual trust. The U.S. joint force secures its most meaningful asymmetric advantage in deliberately cultivating and maintaining these human relationships. Beyond the blue expanse, the human dimension—forged by landpower’s unique adeptness, lessons learned and enduring influence—stands as the ultimate joint terrain, decisive in securing, deterring and prevailing in the Indo-Pacific.

★  ★  ★  ★

Author Biography

MAJ Ryan Crayne is an AUSA Scholar and a U.S. Army Marketing and Behavioral Economics Officer who has served in leadership and combat roles in the 1st Infantry Division, 75th Ranger Regiment and the 82nd Airborne Division. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and has publishing interests centered around recruiting, retention and the Army profession. MAJ Crayne currently serves as the Officer in Charge, Center for Junior Officers, is a LTG (Ret) James M. Dubik Writing Fellow and is a Senior Instructor in the Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Notes

• [i] U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), TRADOC Pamphlet (PAM) 525-3-1, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (Fort Eustis, VA: TRADOC, 6 December 2018).
• [ii] “A Conversation with Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo,” Brookings Institution, 19 November 2024.
• [iii] Kirk Spitzer, “The New Head of the U.S. Pacific Command Talks to TIME About the Pivot to Asia and His Asian Roots,” Time, 25 May 2015.
• [iv] Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 2022).
• [v] FM 3-0.
• [vi] FM 3-0.
• [vii] H.R. McMaster, “Continuities and Fallacies,” Military Review, 2015.
• [viii] McMaster, “Continuities and Fallacies.”
• [ix] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Colonel J. J. Graham (London, UK: 1874).
• [x] Ben Connable, Michael J. McNerney, William Marcellino, et al., Will to Fight: Returning to the Human Fundamentals of War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2019).
• [xi] Wesley Morgan, The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley (New York: Random House, 2021), 210–211.
• [xii] Joan Kibler, “US Army Corps of Engineers Continues to Build Projects Contributing to Iraq Sovereignty,” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 21 June 2012.
• [xiii] Raymond T. Odierno, James F. Amos and William H. McRaven, “Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills,” white paper, U.S. Army, 2013.
• [xiv] Odierno, Amos and McRaven, “Strategic Landpower.”
• [xv] Connable, McNerney, Marcellino, et al., Will to Fight.
• [xvi] “About USINDOPACOM,” United States Indo-Pacific Command, n.d.; Author calculation based on data from “CIA World Factbook,” Central Intelligence Agency.
• [xvii] “Trade Intensity by Ocean, 1980–2020,” in Port Economics, Management and Policy, Theo Notteboom, Athanasios Pallis and Jean-Paul Rodrigue (New York: Routledge, 2022).
• [xviii] Nina Borgeson, “TRADOC LPD Discusses the Army of 2030 and Its Near-Peer Adversaries,” TRADOC, 20 June 2024.
• [xix] Gabriel Honrada, “No Chance Trump Can Catch China’s Shipbuilding Juggernaut,” Asia Times, 13 March 2025.
• [xx] “Our History,” USARPAC, n.d.
• [xxi] John McManus, Fire and Fortitude (New York: Dutton Caliber, 2019).
• [xxii] “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement,” DoD, 28 April 2014.
• [xxiii] Donald P. Wright, Feeding the Troops: Searching for a Way Forward in China 1944–1945 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005).
• [xxiv] “2nd Infantry Division - Korea,” U.S. Army, n.d.
• [xxv] John R. Deni, “Strategic Landpower in the Indo-Asia-Pacific,” Parameters 43, no. 3 (2013).
• [xxvi] Jonathan Lewis, “US Army Pacific, Ally Military Leaders Discuss Deepening Partnership,” USARPAC, 8 May 2024.
• [xxvii] Joseph Dunford, “Remarks to the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA),” speech at the AUSA Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 5 October 2016.
• [xxviii] “Our Approach: Campaigning,” USARPAC, n.d.
• [xxix] Tim Devine, “The Theater Army and the Consequence of Landpower for the Indo-Pacific,” Military Review 101, no. 6 (2021).
• [xxx] “Our Approach: Campaigning.”
• [xxxi] Stephanie Hargett, “Super Garuda Shield 2022 Showcases Multinational Partnership and Joint Interoperability,” USARPAC, 3 August 2022.
• [xxxii] Melanie Tolen, “United States and Indonesia Kick Off Multinational Super Garuda Shield 2024,” USARPAC, 27 August 2024.
• [xxxiii] Micah McCartney, “China Responds as US Ignores Protest Over Missile Launcher on Doorstep,” Newsweek, 19 September 2024.
• [xxxiv] McCartney, “China Responds as US Ignores Protest Over Missile Launcher on Doorstep.”
• [xxxv] Joviland Rita, “China to PH: Pull Out US’ Typhon Missile Launchers Amid Redeployment,” GMA News Online, 24 January 2025.
• [xxxvi] Joviland Rita, “Marcos Dares China on US Typhon Missiles: Stop Claiming Our Territory, I’ll Return the Missiles,” GMA News Online, 30 January 2025.
• [xxxvii] “Singapore and US Armies Mark 40th Edition of Exercise Tiger Balm,” Singapore Ministry of Defence, 14 May 2021.
• [xxxviii] Matthew Foster and Lianne Hirano, “U.S. and Singapore Armies Conduct 40th Annual Tiger Balm Exercise,” U.S. Army, 21 May 2021.
• [xxxix] “U.S. Security Cooperation With Singapore,” U.S. Department of State, 20 January 2025.
• [xl] Robert Brown, “The US Army at 250 Is Still the Linchpin of the Joint Force,” Breaking Defense, 24 March 2025.
• [xli] Charles Flynn and Tim Devine, “Implementing the Strategy to Deter China Hinges on Landpower,” Landpower Essay 23-3 (May 2023): 1–10.

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