OAHU, Hawaii (Tribune News Service) — The chiefs of the U.S., British and Australian armies met Monday on Oahu as the three countries pursue closer ties amid boiling geopolitical tensions in both Europe and the Pacific.

The trilateral meeting was held as Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville wrapped up a tour of the region meeting with several other army chiefs across the Pacific and South Asia.

Hawaii is the home of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command at Camp Smith, the nerve center of all U.S. military operations in the region. The command currently—and always has been—overseen by a Navy admiral, and naval services aren't shy about proclaiming a degree of ownership of the region. Amid recent tensions at sea, countries around the region are trying to bolster their naval forces.

"The Indo-Pacific, when you look at the map, there's a lot of blue, " said Australian army chief Lt. Gen. Simon Stuart during a roundtable with reporters at Fort Shafter. "We're going to make sure that we've got the right maritime and air capabilities ... (but ) when you look across the Indo-Pacific, and the militaries that are important in the lives and the economies and the politics of the region, it's mainly armies."

"A lot of the attention gets drawn to maritime deployments, " said British army chief Lt. Gen. Sir Patrick Sanders, referencing the Royal Navy 2021 deployment of its newest aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, to the South China Sea in the first deployment of a British carrier group in the Pacific in decades as the U.K. sought to make its presence in the region known.

As the carrier group transited the Pacific, U.S., British and Australian officials announced they had signed a new trilateral security pact called AUKUS, which would strengthen military cooperation and technology among the three countries—particularly when it comes to submarines.

"That's an enormously important deployment, but it's transitory, " Sanders said. "What land forces provide is persistence—we're here all the time. And because we're on land, where people live and where wars ultimately are settled, we're able to develop close relationships with a range of our allies and partners in the region and help them improve their own capabilities."

The British military maintains an army garrison in Brunei and the British Defence Singapore Support Unit, a critical naval facility that the U.S. Navy regularly uses to support its own operations in the South China Sea. Sanders noted that through countries in the British Commonwealth, the U.K. continues to have strong ties—and interests—in the Pacific.

"The region matters enormously to us historically, emotionally but also, candidly, because of prosperity and because of trade, " San ­ders said. "So much of the world's trade and the future economy comes from this region. So we've got altruistic interests, and we've got national interests that we want to try and support as well."

McConville said that the among the topics of discussion during the trilateral meeting was Project Convergence, a U.S. Army program that the service calls a "campaign of learning, " designed to integrate its operations and technology with the other branches of the U.S. military and potentially with allied militaries. McConville said that would give them "the ability to move data very, very quickly between our armies, our joint force, and our two partners here are the first to be involved in that."

As militaries around the world plan for the future, they have closely watched the war in Ukraine. Russian and Ukrainian forces have faced off in a bloody slugfest as they pummel each other with heavy weaponry while also using drones and launching cyber attacks against each other. The war has killed thousands, turned thousands more into refugees and sent ripples through the global economy.

"What we've seen from the conflict in Ukraine is that regional conflicts and great-power conflicts have global consequences, " Sanders said.

"So although much of our attention is inevitably focused on supporting the armed forces of Ukraine and making sure that (Russian President Vladimir ) Putin loses this war, and reinforcing peace and security in Europe, we see the threats and the challenges that exist in the Indo-Pacific, " he said.

In the Pacific the dominant concern for the three countries is the Chinese military. Beijing has been locked in a series of territorial and navigation disputes with neighboring countries both on land and at sea, sometimes turning violent.

In particular, regional leaders worry that escalating tensions between China and Taiwan could spark regional conflict. Beijing considers Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy, to be a rouge province, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to bring it under his control by force if necessary.

"To me it's about peace through strength, " McConville said. "That strength comes from strong allies and partners like our two great partners and allies sitting here."

McConville said that as they watch Ukraine, the conflict has lessons for the Pacific in terms of "contested logistics " as both sides of the conflict work to cut each other's supply lines.

"You take a look at the distances that we have out here, logistics become extremely important, " McConville said. "Many of our weapons systems do not operate without fuel, without parts, without ammunition. And that is something that we've seen play out in Ukraine ... and we certainly see that the importance here, and we are working to develop all those capabilities with our allies and partners out here in the region."

However, even as China and the United States stare each other down, the region still grapples with a series of ongoing wars in places like Myanmar that has resulted in millions of refugees, and regional governments are concerned about terrorism, arms smuggling and other transnational crime. Stuart said that only underscores the need for meetings and exchanges.

"We can't possibly cover all the ground by ourselves, " Stuart said. "We're increasingly working with other partners in our own governments, whether that's law enforcement, whether that's trade, whether that's economic, and making sure that we're supporting our diplomats in doing their job."

McConville, Stuart and Sanders are among 14 army chiefs on the island this week as the Association of the U.S. Army prepares to kick off its Land Forces of the Pacific symposium today in Waikiki.

"I think it's a very powerful illustration of land forces and armies coming together, " said U.S. Army Pacific commander Gen. Charles Flynn, who hosted the three service chiefs at his headquarters at Fort Shafter. "It's really a demonstration of unity and collective commitment towards what we're trying to do in the region."

The Army has made Hawaii a key part of its new Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center, which includes training ranges in the islands, Alaska and an "exportable " set of training held in a different country each year. This year that training will be in Australia, with Hawaii troops set to play a central role.

"A lot of things change, particularly as they relate to geopolitics, technology, economy, but geography is a constant, " Stuart said. "Hawaii's strategic geography hasn't changed, and it's no less important—and arguably more important today—than it's ever been. So I think it's a great place for those of us that live in the neighborhood to all come together."

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