Excerpts from U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's speech to a conference in Singapore sponsored by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, May 31, 2014:
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U.S. Department of Defense, IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Singapore, May 31, 2014
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. . . Today, I return
on my fifth trip to the region as Secretary of Defense in about a year, again
reaffirming that America’s commitment to the Asia-Pacific is enduring.
In his remarks at
West Point earlier this week, President Obama laid out the next phase of
America’s foreign policy – particularly as we come out of 13 years of war in
Iraq and Afghanistan. He made clear we will balance our diplomacy, our
development assistance, and military capabilities, and that we will strengthen
our global partnerships and alliances.
That is how
America is implementing its strategy of rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific.
The rebalance is
not a goal, not a promise, or a vision – it’s a reality. Over the last year,
President Obama launched comprehensive partnerships with Vietnam and Malaysia,
held a summit with Chinese President Xi, and last month visited three of our
five regional treaty allies – Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines – as well
as Malaysia. In the Philippines, he and President Aquino announced a new
Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement on the rotational presence of U.S.
forces – the most significant milestone for our alliance in over a decade.
Under President
Obama’s leadership, the administration is also making progress in negotiating
the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Our State Department is
increasing foreign assistance funding to the Asia-Pacific region and expanding
assistance for maritime capacity-building in Southeast Asia.
Diplomatic,
economic, and development initiatives are central to the rebalance, and to our
commitment to help build and ensure a stable and prosperous region. But
prosperity is inseparable from security, and the Department of Defense will
continue to play a critical role in the rebalance – even as we navigate a
challenging fiscal landscape at home.
A central premise
of America’s strategy in the Asia-Pacific is our recognition that, in the 21st
century, no region holds more potential for growth, development, and prosperity
than this one.
But even while
advances in human rights, freedom, democracy, technology, and education are all
yielding better lives and futures for all people; and even as more nations are
stepping forward to contribute to regional security, the Asia-Pacific is also
confronting serious threats.
We see ongoing
territorial and maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas; North
Korea’s provocative behavior and its nuclear weapons and missile programs; the
long-term challenge of climate change and natural disasters; and the
destructive and destabilizing power of cyber attacks.
Continued
progress throughout the Asia-Pacific is achievable, but hardly inevitable. The
security and prosperity we have enjoyed for decades cannot be assured unless
all nations – all our nations – have the wisdom, the vision, and will to work
together to address these challenges.
As President
Obama said earlier this week, “America must always lead on the world stage. If
we don’t, no one else will.” He went on to say that, the “question is not
whether America will lead, but how we will lead…to help ensure peace and
prosperity around the globe.” Today, I want to highlight four broad security
priorities that the United States, as a Pacific power, is advancing in
partnership with friends and allies throughout the Asia-Pacific:
- First, encouraging the peaceful
resolution of disputes; upholding principles including the freedom of
navigation; and standing firm against coercion, intimidation, and
aggression;
- Second, building a cooperative
regional architecture based on international rules and norms;
- Third, enhancing the capabilities of
our allies and partners to provide security for themselves and the region;
and,
- Fourth, strengthening our own
regional defense capabilities.
China has called
the South China Sea “a sea of peace, friendship, and cooperation.” And that’s
what it should be.
But in recent
months, China has undertaken destabilizing, unilateral actions asserting its
claims in the South China Sea. It has restricted access to Scarborough Reef,
put pressure on the long-standing Philippine presence at the Second Thomas
Shoal, begun land reclamation activities at multiple locations, and moved an
oil rig into disputed waters near the Paracel Islands.
The United States
has been clear and consistent. We take no position on competing territorial
claims. But we firmly oppose any nation’s use of intimidation, coercion, or the
threat of force to assert those claims.
We also oppose
any effort – by any nation – to restrict overflight or freedom of navigation –
whether from military or civilian vessels, from countries big or small. The
United States will not look the other way when fundamental principles of the
international order are being challenged.
We will uphold
those principles. We made clear last November that the U.S. military would not
abide by China’s unilateral declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone
in the East China Sea, including over the Japanese-administered Senkaku
Islands. And as President Obama clearly stated in Japan last month, the Senkaku
Islands are under the mutual defense treaty with Japan.
All nations of
the region, including China, have a choice: to unite, and recommit to a stable
regional order, or to walk away from that commitment and risk the peace and
security that have benefitted millions of people throughout the Asia-Pacific,
and billions around the world.
The United States
will support efforts by any nation to lower tensions and peacefully resolve
disputes in accordance with international law.
We all know that
cooperation is possible. Last month, 21 nations signed the Code for Unplanned
Encounters at Sea – an important naval safety protocol. ASEAN and China are
negotiating a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea – and the United States
encourages its early conclusion. Nations of the region have also agreed to
joint energy exploration; this month, the Philippines and Indonesia resolved a
longstanding maritime boundary dispute; and this week, Taiwan and the
Philippines agreed to sign a new fisheries agreement.
China, too, has
agreed to third-party dispute resolution in the World Trade Organization;
peacefully resolved a maritime boundary dispute with Vietnam in 2000; and
signed ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.
For all our
nations, the choices are clear, and the stakes are high. These stakes are not
just about the sovereignty of rocky shoals and island reefs, or even the
natural resources that surround them and lie beneath them. They are about
sustaining the Asia-Pacific’s rules-based order, which has enabled the people
of this region to strengthen their security, allowing for progress and
prosperity. That is the order the United States – working with our partners and
allies – that is the order that has helped underwrite since the end of World
War II. And it is the order we will continue to support – around the world, and
here in the Asia-Pacific.
This rules-based
order requires a strong, cooperative regional security architecture.
Over the last
year, the United States has worked with Asia-Pacific nations to strengthen
regional institutions like ASEAN and the ADMM+, which I attended last year in
Brunei.
This regional
architecture is helping to develop shared solutions to shared challenges,
building strong and enduring ASEAN security community, and ensuring that
collective, multilateral operations are the norm, rather than the exception.
To make further
progress, our militaries must train, plan, and operate side-by-side – as we did
after Typhoon Haiyan, and in the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
Both these
tragedies – different as they were – showed that all nations of the region can
work together to provide rapid humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
They also demonstrated that the need for facilities and agreements that are
ready and in-place when disaster strikes, so that relief can flow as soon as it
is needed. For these missions, ASEAN members should consider Singapore’s offer
to use Changi Naval Base as another regional command and control hub. Some 80%
of the world’s large-scale natural disasters strike in the Pacific, and with
climate change threatening even more severe weather, closer cooperation cannot
wait.
This was one of
the topics discussed at the recent U.S.-ASEAN Defense Forum I hosted a couple
of months ago in Hawaii – an initiative that I suggested on this platform at
this Dialogue last year.
Over the course
of that three-day forum, my discussions with ASEAN defense ministers
highlighted a clear and shared interest in building a common understanding of
the regional security environment, including more information-sharing, greater
maritime cooperation, and more joint and combined exercises.
A common picture
of the region’s maritime space could help deter provocative conduct, and reduce
the risk of accidents and miscalculation. So I am asking Admiral Sam Locklear,
who leads the United States Pacific Command, to host his regional counterparts
to discuss concrete ways to establish greater maritime security awareness and
coordination.
The United States
is also reaching out to China. We’re reaching out to China because we seek to
expand prosperity and security for all nations of this region.
As I underscored
in Beijing last month during my visit to China, the United States will continue
to advance President Obama and President Xi’s shared commitment to develop a
new model of relations – a model that builds cooperation, manages competition,
and avoids rivalry. To help develop this model, we are increasing our
military-to-military engagement with China through our joint exercises,
exchanges, and other confidence-building measures that can help improve
communication and build understanding between our forces. Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs General Dempsey and I have led this effort, and we will continue to
focus on building this new military-to-military model. And I am glad General
Dempsey is here to help us today accomplish more progress in this area.
We must also work
more closely together to guard against North Korea’s destabilizing
provocations, and its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which threaten
regional stability and China’s own interests. The United States is looking to
China to play a more active and constructive role in meeting this challenge and
achieving complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula.
The U.S.-China
military-to-military dialogue has a long way to go. But I think we’ve been
encouraged by the progress we’ve made, and continue to make. Our dialogue is
becoming more direct, more constructive…getting at the real issues and
delivering more results.
As we expand this
dialogue, the United States also supports a sustained and substantive exchange
with China on cyber issues. Although China has announced a suspension of the
U.S.-China Cyber Working Group, we will continue to raise cyber issues with our
Chinese counterparts, because dialogue is essential for reducing the risk of
miscalculation and escalation in cyberspace.
As America
strengthens its ties across the Asia-Pacific, we also welcome the region’s
democratic development. We welcome democratic development because democracies
are America’s closest friends, and because democracies are much more likely to
live with their neighbors in peace.
The United States
will continue to strongly support our friends who are pursuing democratic
development – in Myanmar and elsewhere around the region. We will also respond
when nations retreat from democracy, as in Thailand. We urge the Royal Thai
Armed Forces to release those who have been detained, end restrictions on free
expression, and move immediately to restore power to the people of Thailand,
through free and fair elections. Until that happens, as U.S. law requires, the
Department of Defense is suspending and reconsidering U.S. military assistance
and engagements with Bangkok.
The
Asia-Pacific’s shifting security landscape makes America’s partnerships and
alliances indispensable as anchors for regional stability. As we work to build
a cooperative regional architecture, we are also modernizing our alliances,
helping allies and partners develop new and advanced capabilities, and
encouraging them to work more closely together.
In Southeast
Asia, that means continuing to help nations build their humanitarian and
disaster relief capabilities, and upgrade their militaries. One important
example is our first-ever sale of Apache helicopters to Indonesia, which I
announced during my visit to Jakarta last year. This sale will help the
Indonesian Army defend its borders, conduct counter-piracy operations, and
control the free flow of shipping through the Straits of Malacca. We are also
providing robust assistance to the Philippines’ armed forces, to strengthen
their maritime and aviation capabilities.
In Northeast
Asia, our capacity-building efforts include strengthening Allies’ capabilities
with sophisticated aircraft and ballistic missile defense – especially to deter
and defend against provocation by Pyongyang.
Two months ago,
we signed an agreement with the Republic of Korea. We signed that agreement for
its purchase of Global Hawk, which will dramatically enhance its intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. South Korea also intends to
acquire the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – which means that America and its most
capable allies in this region, including Australia and Japan, will soon be
operating the world’s most advanced, fifth-generation tactical aircraft.
We are also
making significant progress in building a robust regional missile defense
system. Last month in Tokyo, I announced that the United States will deploy two
additional ballistic missile defense ships to Japan – a step that builds on the
construction of a second missile defense radar site in Japan, and the expansion
of America’s ground-based interceptors in the continental United States, which
I reviewed this week in Alaska during my trip to Singapore.
Modernizing our
alliances also means strengthening the ties between America’s allies, enhancing
their joint capabilities – such as missile defense – and encouraging them to
become security providers themselves. Yesterday, I held a trilateral meeting
with my counterparts from Australia and Japan, and today I will host another
trilateral meeting with my counterparts from Korea and Japan.
The enhanced
cooperation America is pursuing with these close allies comes at a time when
each of them is choosing to expand their roles in providing security around the
Asia-Pacific region, including in Southeast Asia. Seven decades after World War
II, the United States welcomes this development. We support South Korea’s more
active participation in maritime security, peacekeeping, and stabilization
operations. We also support Japan’s new efforts – as Prime Minister Abe
described very well last night – to reorient its Collective Self Defense
posture toward actively helping build a peaceful and resilient regional order.
To complement
these efforts, the United States and Japan have begun revising our defense
guidelines for our first time in more than two decades. We will ensure that our
alliance evolves to reflect the shifting security environment, and the growing
capabilities of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
America’s global
partnerships also reach across the Asian continent and extend to India, one of
the United States’ most important, democratic partners – and a country with
historic influence across Asia.
The United States
looks forward to working with India’s new government led by Prime Minister
Modi. We welcome India’s increasingly active role in Asia’s regional
institutions, which strengthens regional order. We also welcome India’s growing
defense capabilities and its commitment to freedom of navigation in the Indian
Ocean. To further strengthen U.S.-India defense ties, I am directing the
Pentagon’s Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics to lead
the U.S.-India Defense Trade and Technology Initiative with India’s new
government. I plan to play an active and very personal role in expanding this
initiative because it is a centerpiece of America’s defense cooperation with
India, and it should reflect the trust and confidence President Obama and I
have in our nation’s relationship with India. To reinforce this effort – and to
drive even more transformational cooperation – I hope to visit India later this
year.
The United States
also remains committed to building the capacity of allies and partners in the
region through as many as 130 exercises and engagements, and approximately 700
port visits annually. And across the Asia-Pacific region, as part of the
rebalance, the United States is planning to increase Foreign Military Financing
by 35%, and military education and training by 40% by 2016.
Next month, the
United States will host its annual Rim of the Pacific exercise, the world’s
largest maritime exercise that will feature for the first time a port visit by
a New Zealand naval ship to Pearl Harbor in more than 30 years, and it will
include Chinese ships for the first time. All told, RIMPAC will include some 23
nations, 49 surface ships, 6 submarines, more than 200 aircraft, 25,000
personnel, and even, I understand, a few highly trained sea lions.
Beyond
capacity-building efforts, a stable and peaceful regional order depends on a
strong American military presence across the Asia-Pacific region… a presence
that enables us to partner with our friends and allies, and help deter
aggression. We are no strangers to this part of the world. America has been a
Pacific power for many years. Our interests lie in these partnerships and this
region.
Today, America
has more peacetime military engagement in the Asia-Pacific than ever before. I
want to repeat: today, America has more peacetime military engagement in the
Asia-Pacific than ever before. And America’s strong military presence – and our
role in underwriting the region’s security – will endure. Our friends and
allies can judge us on nearly seven decades of commitment and history of
commitment. That history makes clear, America keeps its word.
America’s treaty
alliances remain the backbone of our presence in the Asia-Pacific, and our
friends and allies have seen our significant steps in recent years to enhance
our posture in Northeast Asia, to expand our partnerships in Southeast Asia,
and to ensure our forces can operate effectively regardless of other nations’
capabilities.
Consider that
just three years ago, the strength of our alliance with Japan was being
overshadowed by disagreements over the future of the U.S. presence in Okinawa.
Today, we have a
fully agreed force realignment roadmap, and we achieved a major breakthrough
last December with the approval of the permit to build the Futenma Replacement Facility.
We have also deployed our most advanced capabilities to Japan – including two
Global Hawks at Misawa, F-22 fighter aircraft at Kadena, and MV-22 Ospreys on
Okinawa.
Meanwhile, we are
enhancing our posture on the Korean Peninsula and sustaining the readiness of
our forces. To reflect a dynamic security environment, including the evolving
North Korean nuclear and missile threat, the U.S. and South Korea decided we
can reconsider the current timeline for the transition of wartime operational
control to a Seoul-led defense in 2015. We have enhanced the U.S. Army’s force
posture and deployed even more advanced intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance capabilities. And we recently reached a new Special Measures
Agreement that codifies our shared resource commitment to defending the
peninsula.
Further south, we
have strengthened our partnership and alliance with Australia. Three years ago,
we had no forces operating in Australia. Today, we have more than 1,000 Marines
rotationally deployed in Darwin. With Australian troops, these Marines will
conduct training and exercises throughout the region.
In the coming
years, the United States will increase its advanced capabilities that are
forward-stationed and forward-deployed in the entire region, particularly as we
draw down our forces in Afghanistan. And we will ensure that we sustain our
freedom of action in the face of disruptive new military technologies.
Next year, the
Navy will introduce the Joint High Speed Vessel in the Pacific and an
additional submarine forward-stationed in Guam. As many as four Littoral Combat
Ships will be deployed here by 2017. By 2018, the Navy’s advanced,
multi-mission Zumwalt-class destroyer will begin operating out of the
Pacific. And by 2020, as we achieve our target of operating 60% of both our
Navy and Air Force fleets out of the Pacific, we will also be flying the
Hawkeye early warning and unmanned Triton ISR aircraft in the region.
Because U.S.
force posture in Asia is a priority for DoD, I am directing our Deputy Secretary
of Defense to oversee the implementation of our ongoing enhancements to
America’s military presence in this region, and with particular emphasis on our
posture in Japan, Korea, and Guam. The Deputy Secretary will also continuously
review the posture of our forces, to ensure they remain prepared for all
necessary contingencies.
Finally, to
ensure that the rebalance is fully implemented, both President Obama and I
remain committed to ensuring that any reductions in U.S. defense spending do
not come – do not come – at the expense of America’s commitments in the
Asia-Pacific.
Here, and around
the world, a peaceful, prosperous, and durable order will not sustain itself.
The nations of the Asia-Pacific must come together to accomplish this.
We must support
the peaceful resolution of disputes…and oppose intimidation and coercion no
matter where they are.
We must build a
cooperative regional security architecture that builds trust and confidence.
And we must
continue to develop, share, and maintain advanced military capabilities that
can adapt to rapidly growing challenges.
From Europe to
Asia, America has led this effort for nearly seven decades, and we are
committed to maintaining our leadership in the 21st century.
Later this
morning, I will meet with Vietnamese General Thanh. General Thanh joined the
Vietnamese army in 1967, the same year I joined the United States Army and
arrived in Vietnam. Today, General Thanh and I will meet as America’s Secretary
of Defense and Vietnam’s Minister of Defense…working to strengthen our nations’
emerging defense ties. History is full of irony, which is why America must lead
and will continue to lead with humility.
But America must
lead, and our leadership must always reflect an enduring truth: As United
States Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and General George Marshall
once said, “the strength of a nation does not depend alone on its armies,
ships, and planes…[but] is also measured by…the strength of its friends and
[its] allies.” Very wise words from General Marshall. Those words ring more
true today than ever before.
Today, perhaps
more than ever, one of America’s greatest sources of strength is its network of
partners and allies. As President Obama put it at his West Point speech, from
Europe to Asia, America is “the hub of alliances unrivalled in … history of
nations.”
Across this
region, and across the globe, the United States has been – and always will be –
committed to a peaceful and prosperous international order that rests not
merely on America’s own might, but on our enduring unity and partnership with
other nations.
* * *U.S. Department of Defense, IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Singapore, May 31, 2014