Report from the Rising Sun

Ensuring a Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Allies and Partners at Home and Abroad

By LT Rob “OG” Swain, USN

Matta atta ne ( ), Naval Helicopter Association, on behalf of the "Report from the Rising Sun!" If current events have highlighted anything to the global audience over the past several weeks, it is how the human advantage, maximized through selfless leadership, can command respect and garner worldwide support in the face of wanton aggression. The conflict in EUCOM has validated to all Combatant Commands not only the resilience of the human spirit, but the force-multiplying effect of support-based relationships. In short, human virtue inspires partner and ally trust and optimizes the human advantage.

I believe the human advantage’s capacity to increase readiness and lethality in order to deter adversarial aggression directly correlates to how well leaders can collaborate to foster effective teamwork and pursue aligned objectives. In accordance with President Biden’s IndoPacific Strategy, the human advantage is leveraged in INDOPACOM through strong, respectful relationships with our regional allies and partners. To better understand the existential crisis facing a free and open Indo-Pacific, and how the Navy’s allies on the home front will prove critical to controlling the region’s ongoing narrative, we’ll begin with a story.

In 1947, 30-year-old Chinese geographer, Yang Huairen, worked on a map designed for the National Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party). The map introduced a line with eleven dashes encompassing 286 rock outcroppings in the South China Sea (SCS). Each dash represented the median line between the “islands” in the SCS and the large landmasses encompassing the area’s littorals. Yang contributed to naming each annotated rock and reef (almost entirely uninhabited and in some cases completely submerged), and labeled the area the “South China Sea Islands.”

In 1949, when Mao Zedong and the Chinese communist revolutionaries overtook the Chinese Nationalist Party, most of the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan. Yang, however, stayed on mainland China, ostracized as an “anti-revolutionary authority.” Though Yang himself was persecuted by the new government, his eleven-dash line endured. The asserted territory remained on People’s Republic of China (PRC) maps until Mao relinquished the PRC’s claim to the Gulf of Tonkin to Vietnam as a token of communist solidarity in 1952. The eleven-dashes were reduced to nine, and PRC leadership scarcely referenced the nine-dash etching for the next sixty years.

In 2009, the PRC submitted modernized Chinese maps to the United Nations during a territorial dispute with Vietnam. These 2009 maps averred the ninedash line as Chinese territorial waters, however, the boundaries had drifted further toward the coasts of other Southeast Asian nations. By 2013, a tenth line appeared; formally connected to the nine-dash line. The tenth line “symbolically subsume[d] Taiwan’s territorial claims” and ran close abeam Japan’s westernmost islands in the Ryuku chain. This contentious and expansive claim to the waterway caused outrage throughout the region.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague (the permanent home of the United Nations’ International Court of Justice) determined the nine-dash line lacked legal basis and violated both international law and the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea

9-Dash Line: “Joining the Dashes,” The Economist, Oct 4 2014

The PRC refused to accept this outcome, and currently continues to claim “indisputable sovereignty” over the SCS. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the PRC had begun construction of artificial islands on top of the desolate rock formations and sunken reefs. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) equipped the “islands'' with military airstrips and anti-axis area denial (A2AD) weapons systems. On July 18, 2016, China’s naval chief flatly informed the United States Chief of Naval Operations that China would not stop its controversial campaign of SCS military expansion.

The Indo-Pacific represents our global community’s center of gravity. It houses more than half of the world’s population, nearly two-thirds of the world’s economy, and seven of the world’s largest militaries. In our post-World War II world order, the United States recognizes the importance of the region and has forged “ironclad treaty alliances” with Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. Into the modern day, the United States has demonstrated a renewed commitment to leading regional partners including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Pacific Islands.

Ever-increasing PRC operations to establish a competitive sphere of influence threaten a free and open Indo-Pacific for each of these allies and partners. PRC economic coercion of Australia, border conflicts with India, growing pressure on Taiwan, human rights violations in China, freedom of navigation harassment, and the “bullying of neighbors in the East and South China Seas” compel the United States to challenge power with power by providing capable deterrence and reinvigorating coalition ties throughout the region.

The power of the human advantage that the Navy rotarywing community, all-domain Navy, and greater joint force provides to our strategic Indo-Pacific allies and partners is not possible without first evaluating the strength of the strategic partnerships within our own Carrier Air Wings, within our own squadrons, and on our collective home front. The Navy has invested considerable time, personnel, and resources to keep the Fleet ready and lethal. A key factor in achieving maritime superiority is the Navy's success at providing each service member with the tools to achieve and maintain personal life stability at home – an essential task to ensuring sustained and effective operations abroad.

Understanding the programs the Navy offers to facilitate personal and professional success is not a passive function. Leaders must maximize Sailor exposure to resources such as Military One Source and Fleet and Family Support Center, as well as encourage Sailor participation in core command programs such as mentorship, indoctrination, and ombudsman services. These services on the home front arm our Sailors and aviators with the education and control to deploy with focus and resilience.

Our coalition partners look to the U.S. Navy as the steward of maritime stability around the world. We cannot attend to that global responsibility without first attending to the stability of our own people. This is where you, the aviator, can effect change at the lowest tactical level. Engaging face-toface with your maintainers and aircrewmen, taking ownership of your shop or wardroom’s professional development in and out of the aircraft, encouraging open discussion about personal life challenges, and fostering an environment of inclusivity and respect among your peers and subordinates all contribute to solidifying trust-based partnerships within our rotary-wing community’s ranks. One wonderful benefit of flying a multi-crewed platform is gaining appreciation for the fact that a high-functioning team will always out-perform a high-functioning individual. Translating to the strategic level – strong, trust-based relationships with our allies and partners will continue to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific despite unilateral PRC aggression.

The most expeditious way to instill trust throughout our ranks is for leaders at all echelons to embrace Navy core values and to respect the universal needs of our people. You cannot employ the human advantage without first acknowledging the human need for support. In this way, harnessing the human advantage out here in the Indo-Pacific applies from the deck plate to the highest levels of strategic preparation for the full range of military operations and everywhere in between. Continuing to foster strong relationships with our allies and partners will prepare you to answer all of our multi-mission rotary-wing requirements and standby for future Reports from the Rising Sun! Fly Navy!

CTF-70 Multi Carrier: “Multiple Allied Carrier Strike Groups Operate Together in 7th Fleet,” Navy.Mil, Oct 8, 2021

CTF-70 Multi Carrier: “Multiple Allied Carrier Strike Groups Operate Together in 7th Fleet,” Navy.Mil, Oct 8, 2021