Adm. Harry Harris

WASHINGTON: Neither President Trump’s transition in DC nor President Duterte’s eruptions in Manila will derail America’s 70-year military commitment to the Pacific, Adm. Harry Harris said today. US-Philippine cooperation continues unabated despite Duterte’s denunciation of the alliance, the head of Pacific Command said. (The senior State Department official for the Pacific, Daniel Russel, recently dismissed Duterte’s statements as “a lot of noise” and noted nothing had actually changed despite the Philippine president’s public comments). Despite the turbulence of domestic politics, “American never has a lame duck commander in chief,” Harris said. “I’ll continue to serve President Obama until January 20th, at which point I’ll serve President Trump.

Rodrigo Duterte and Xi Jinping in Beijing (Credit: Xinhua)

“I want to ease any concerns from our partners and our potential adversaries,” Harris said. “It would be inappropriate for me to speculate on potential policy initiatives of the next administration, (but) that said, I have no doubt we’ll continue our steadfast commitment to our allies and partners in the Indo-Asia-Pacific.”

If foreign partners aren’t reassured, it’s not through any lack of trying on Harris’s part. He’s just sent the USS Sampson to help New Zealand after an earthquake and his personal travel is enough to kill a lesser man. “I was in Vietnam a few weeks ago; Mongolia; Japan; we cohosted the Chiefs of Defense conference in Manila,” Harris said. “I’ll be in Canada…then heading out back to Manila… I’ll go on to Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and Australia.

It’s no accident that the Philippines show up twice. Harris is heading back there Sunday for a major meeting Tuesday to determine US-Philippine joint exercises in 2017. Those exercises might be reduced, he said: “I’ll know more on Tuesday…but I’m optimistic about it.’

So far, “I’m not seeing any slowdown in the Philippines,” Harris said. “What I’ve seen is some statements that, I’ll be frank with you, are concerning to us, to me, coming from the new president there in the Philippines, but despite what he has said there’s been no change in anything with the Philippines, with one exception.” The meeting he’ll attend Tuesday was originally scheduled for last month.

Not only does Harris not fear for the US-Philippine bilateral relationship He sees a promising increase in multilateral cooperation among Pacific countries. The Philippines are working with Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore to counter pirates and terrorists in the often-lawless waters of Southeast Asia. Even Bangladesh is a potential partner in counterterrorist preparations against the return of an estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters — “That’s a very soft number,” Harris said — from the Mideast to their home countries, Harris said. To the north, South Korea and Japan are slowly overcoming decades of distrust to cooperate with each other and the US against North Korea.

Then there’s China. “I’m concerned about Chinese assertiveness particularly in the South China Sea, but also with the East China Sea,” Harris said. “That said, the mil-to-mil relationship with China, on one level, is actually good.”

Harris has visited China himself and Gen. Robert Brown, the head of US Army Pacific, is there now. US troops have gone to China for major exercises in disaster relief. China has twice sent its “best ships” to the biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise. “They even brought an extra ship in 2014,” laughed Harris, referring to the Chinese spy vessel that monitored RIMPAC ’14, “but they did not do that in 2016… I think that’s good.”

Nevertheless, “what I do as a military commander is I assume the worst…I look through a glass darkly,” Harris said. “That applies to China; that really applies to North Korea.”

Army land-based missiles could form a virtual wall against Chinese aggression (CSBA graphic)

Prepare For The Worst

Against North Korea, preparing for the worst means ever increasing emphasis on missile defense: Navy Aegis ships at sea; Army Patriots and, soon; THAAD batteries on land. Against China, it seems to mean putting anti-ship missiles everywhere you can, from Navy Littoral Combat Ships to Army ATACMS batteries ashore.

As a young Cold Warrior aboard the USS Saratoga in the 1980s, Harris recalled, he spent a huge amount of time and worry on the Soviets’ smallest ships. “These are tiny, relatively tiny ships, but we had to track all of them,” Harris said, “because they had Styx (anti-ship) missiles.”

“So they were a threat beyond their size… I want the LCS to be viewed by our adversaries in the region in the same way,” Harris said. (The Navy calls this proliferation of well-armed platforms “distributed lethality“).

Yes, LCS “has had problems,” Harris said, praising the Senate Army Services Committee’s oversight of the program, but he looks forward to it being upgunned with anti-ship weapons.

Likewise, “I think the Army should be in the business of sinking ships with land-based surface-to-ship missile systems,” Harris said. “Other countries do this, Japan has an outstanding system,” while even Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched (unsuccessful) attacks on the US Navy.

“If you put these weapon systems on (islands) in the Western Pacific, they could place at risk potential adversaries in the South China Sea, the East China, Sea of Japan, East Sea, West Sea area, all of that,” Harris said.

“What the Army brings traditionally is what they always bring, which is mass and firepower and capability. What they could bring, which I’ve encouraged the Army to think about, is this idea of cross-domain fires,” Harris said, referring to the emerging Army doctrine called Multi-Domain Battle. Harris’s so enthusiastic he got up at 5am Hawaii time to participate via video in a panel discussion of the new concept at October’s Association of the US Army conference. He will host a major joint exercise to test out Multi-Domain Battle next year.