Stop the world.

Welcome to Stop the World, the ASP Podcast.

I'm Olivia Nelson.

And I'm David Rowe.

Today we're covering land forces in the Indo Pacific with a guy who's lived and breeds it for much of his career.

And that's retired American four star and former commanding General of U.S.

Army Pacific, Charles Flynn.

And Charles has some really interesting views to share.

And some challenging ones live, whether that's the Chinese takeover of Taiwan and what that really involves in a potential situation, the hard power.

Hard power, excuse me, that army could deliver to any such conflict.

Or the technology lessons that China and North Korea are learning from Russias war in Ukraine.

Charles is a frank, very frank and passionate advocate for the role of land forces in our part of the world.

So much of the inner Pacific strategic discussion is soaked up by ASC, cyber and space, but Charles argues that humans live on land and that's where every story is ultimately decided.

He also talks up the strategic importance of Australia, pushes back against the view that the US risks becoming an unreliable partner and explains the challenges for large, large organisations, including militaries, to reorientate themselves around you and transformative technologies.

Yeah, Charles is also a senior advisor at Palantir, of course, which is a big technology firm, which means on top of his I'm the experience, he knows a lot about integrating technology into militaries.

I know we've got a lot of listeners whose primary interest is defence, so this is a real crowd pleaser for you.

But even if your interest is in other areas of security, I really do urge you to listen carefully.

It's a great way to keep on top of the strategic dynamics in our part of the world.

And please get a map and have that in front of you while you're listening, because actually being able to see some of these places on the map is really, really helpful.

You know, he talks about Luzon in northern Philippines, for instance, and the critical role that they could play in any kind of cross Strait situation.

So really interesting stuff.

And there you have it.

Yeah, it was great to have Charles back at ASBY.

We last hosted him here in 2021 as as commander of U.S.

Army Pacific.

So over to you and Charles.

Charles Flynn, retired US general, former commanding general of the US Army, Pacific.

Thanks for coming on Stop THE World.

Thanks for having me again.

So I want to start with an overview of Chinese military modernization.

Late last year, you described the trajectory as very, very dangerous.

You said no one builds that kind of arsenal to merely defend.

Right now, a lot of the public attention goes on the maritime and air capabilities that are, that are coming out of China's military modernization, right?

Tend to hear less about the land forces as a as an army general, as a land forces guy.

What do you see when you look at what China is building for the People's Liberation Army itself?

I mean, what, what they're testing, what they're training on?

What can you infer about the role of land forces in that modernization?

1st I'll start.

I'll back up a little bit and go back to 20151415, which is ironically in a little bit around the same time that we US had pivoted to the Pacific in 2013.

And during that period of time their entire military, you know, began what I would say their transformation.

So they had a, a real, a deep injection of new technologies, they were fielding new capabilities.

And maybe the most important thing that they did during that period of time was they set up training centres.

They were taking actual pages out of our book to set up these training centres and then beginning to exercise in ways that were different from the past.

So I, I, when I look back in time in 2015, I'm going to say that like their organisational changes, their technological changes and then their training changes, all those reforms kind of came together.

And since 2015, they've been at A, at a rapid acceleration with changes and, and, and they, they manifested themselves in the way they're exercising.

And so, and you know, Admiral Paparo is describing this now, but when he and I were component commanders together, we were both watching all of this happen.

And the scale, the complexity and the changes that have occurred in the way they've been exercising as a joint force with rocket forces.

Their, their, their maritime arm, their air arm and their land forces.

And I'm glad you brought up the fact that people don't pay a lot of attention to their army.

And I'll really, I'll say two things.

And I made this comment and testimony back to our U.S.

Congress in March, April time frame.

And, and I catch a lot of criticism for this.

Look, you know, in order to invade Taiwan, you actually have to generate an invasion force and that is its army.

So I don't believe, and this is where I, you know, I have debates with scholars and academics and think tankers that'll say, well, the Navy is their centre of gravity.

Well, actually I, I counted that and say, no, it's not the, the very definition of centre of gravity is that force with what you need in order to achieve your objective.

And in order for them to seize, hold and subjugate the people of Taiwan, you actually have to deliver an invasion force.

Well, in order to deliver the invasion force, China has to they have to mobilise, they have to move, they have to combat configure, and then they have to combat load.

And then they got to get across this straight.

And I guess that's the point I was making, that we have to pay attention to their centre of gravity because they actually can't achieve their ultimate objective unless they deliver that invasion force.

And that invasion force is its army.

So if you want to buy time, you want to buy space, you want to buy indications and warnings of, of ultimately what they have to generate to achieve their objective, then watch their land forces.

And by the way, their land forces also are integrated with their rocket forces.

And there's a very, very dangerous capability that they have called a PCH 191.

It's basically our equivalent of a high Mars and and those capabilities out on the coast when they move those into position, they actually can range beyond the island of Taiwan.

So all that to say, 2 points, 2015 was when their reforms in my view accelerated and those resulted in increased complexity, increased scale of their exercises that they are are demonstrations of their rehearsals.

And more to the point of your question, it would be irresponsible of us to only pay attention to the maritime and air component because they can't achieve their objectives unless they can deliver an invasion force to Taiwan and that invasion force is actually their army.

So we need to pay attention to what is actually happening on the land because that's going to give us the greatest in my view, the greatest indications and warnings time because it's going to take time to deliver a force across it.

One last point on this.

I always remind people that that this is singularly the most complex type of operation a military force can do.

In fact, the last time that the United States did one of these successfully was the Inchon landing.

And prior to that it was Normandy.

So, you know, they have a really, really tall task in front of them to do that.

And everything that we can do here to sow doubt, you know, feed paranoia and bolster what we're doing with our allies and partners out here is a way to keep this theatre in a, in a, in a no war stance, which is ultimately what we really all need to be working to achieve out here.

They can't resist a follow up on that.

Are they getting better broadly at those joint effects?

And if so, how does it affect the timeline?

I mean, if you think that that is what they actually need to do with respect to Taiwan, how does that actually affect the timeline?

Yeah.

So again, when I, when I look over the last decade, I say, yes, they are improving now.

You know, we, we have, you know, a really extraordinary joint capabilities, but it takes work every day on these things and, and you can't let up at all.

And we, you know, I just think inherently we are doing joint operations and multinational joint and combined operations all the time.

So to answer your question, are they practising at it?

Yes.

Are they getting better at it?

Yes.

Are they at the level that's required for the, the scale and the and the complexity and the risk of a crust rate invasion that is still to be seen?

I have my doubts because it's going to be very, very hard.

And again, if we are doing things to prevent those from occurring and disrupting their ability to conduct those joint operations, then there's goodness in that.

Can you project forward at all and see when they might be ready to do that with a level of confidence that they they would?

Well, I mean, their leadership has given them these gates of 2027 and and 2035.

So I, I take them for their word.

You know, it's when I left uniform, I would say that they were moving on a path to do that.

But again, the grade like how good are they at that?

You know, I, I think that that is still still to be seen.

I, I don't, I don't believe that there is joint and as capable as a joint force as they need to be in order to be successful that operation.

However, that doesn't mean they can't execute the operation, because that's a matter of risk and it's also a political question.

So our job in the military was always to have forces ready to be prepared for the military instrument of China if they actually use the instrument that we needed to be in a position to give options to the National command authority, period.

So, you know, on this particular matter, there's a lot of people that are out there, they can debate the policy of it, but when you're wearing a uniform, not your lane, it's literally just get your instrument ready to be able to give options to the National Command Authority so that in the event that something did happen, then we had options there to do things that gave us freedom of action, freedom of manoeuvre, unity of command, unity of effort.

We might as well stick with Taiwan for one more than because I do have another question.

That is what would be the role of the US Army in in counter in giving those options to the US government and I suppose by extension the role of US allies, land forces.

Well, there's, I always referred to there, there's really 4 foundational capabilities that the US Army and by extension because we're a bit of an epoxy that brings the, I refer to it as the land power network together out here in the Indo Pacific.

And those 4 fundamental roles are command and control, sustainment, protection and collection.

So what do I mean by that?

Well, you know, the, the upper technical echelon commands that we have a division and then a core and then the, the enabling commands in sustainment, missile defence, police, medical are really, really and engineering I could go on, are really robust at the division and core level.

And so when you want a command and control node to be joint, multinational, interagency and even international if need be, then a, a, a army division and Army Corps.

And then the, the, the general officer flag capabilities, LED command and control at those echelons along with the theatre army.

I mean, there's, there's nothing that can compare to them.

Protection, integrated air and missile defence, medical commands, police commands, civil affairs commands all come out of the Army collection.

There's a, you know, tying together the terrestrial collection layer to the aerial layer, to the space layer.

You know, there's, there's two brigades and then there is a, a, a, a sizable intelligence enterprise back in Hawaii at U.S.

Army Pacific.

And so that collection apparatus working with the Navy and the Air Force and US Indo Paycom provides the ability to do collect.

And then of course sustainment.

There's a Brigadier General LED Expeditionary sustainment command in Korea, Brigadier General LED Expeditionary sustainment command on the West Coast.

There's a two star Major General LED theatre sustainment command in Hawaii and their executive agency is to do joint logistics for the theatre.

So those foundational capabilities are what need to be in position for the joint force and the interdependencies that are created by those capabilities forward to then include those forces elsewhere in the land domain, which is not just Army forces, it is also special operations forces, marine forces when they're operating on the land, but the sizable land forces that exist in the region.

Bringing all those together give a, in my view, a, an asymmetrical advantage to the joint commander, US Endopacom.

And then the commands within the theatre to be able to have what we refer to as positional advantage, to be in the position to be able to command and control, protect, collect and sustain and take time and space away from your adversary.

OK.

You've partly answered, I suppose my next question by giving a very concrete example there with Taiwan.

But I'm interested in the role of land forces in in presenting A credible deterrence.

Because of course the way we avoid everything that you've just been describing is, is is presenting that credible deterrence something we'll all need to contribute to.

And you've passionately talked plenty of times, including just now about the fact that we live on land.

This is ultimately where decision to become.

Humans live.

Decisions are.

Made we breathe air, we don't swim indefinitely.

That said, I mean to to to a layperson like myself, you look at a map of the Indo Pacific and there's a hell of a lot of water with bits of bits of land sort of dotted around it.

Just talk to me a little bit about the the role in deterrence of having that kind of solid defensible presence of of land forces.

It's not fragile, it's not vulnerable.

It's it can it can do all of those things you've just been describing sustain, etcetera.

I suppose in a sense, translate what you've just been talking about into into the sort of deterrence signal that we want to send to China in particular.

OK, so on the on the hard power side, everything that I just outlined, plus fires and manoeuvre.

OK, so I'll, I'll say it this way.

The A2AD arsenal that the Chinese have designed is primarily designed to defeat our are air and maritime capabilities.

Secondarily, it's to disrupt and deny our space in cyber.

It is not designed to find, fix and target attack distributed mobile, reloadable and networked land forces.

OK.

So, so from a hard power standpoint, if you were to take Type 12, Type 80, eights high Mars with intermediate medium range ballistic missiles, Brahmos that the Philippines have, Australia has high Mars and you put those in the right locations, mind you.

Now, if you had, if I had, you know, sort of four battalions of High Mars in Luzon and you can fire 700 to 800 missiles and reload another 7 or 800 missiles in 10 minutes, that's an awful lot of hard power forward that can do a substantial amount of damage.

Add in Brahmos from the Philippines, add in Type Twelves and type 80 eights from Japan, add in Marine Corps capabilities, add in soft capabilities.

That is a forward position that is hard power and provides A deterrent effect on somebody seeking to do what they've, you know, describe they want to do, which is to do a cross Strait invasion.

So I think having hard power forward by being in those right positions to do sea control and sea denial also is additive to what air power and the and maritime power can bring.

So what do I mean by that?

Well, if you're in the right pieces of terrain, say a straight like the Luzon straights, then you can actually make the air component and the maritime component, particularly the maritime component appear larger than they are.

Why?

Because they don't have to put a surface Action Group inside of these straights.

Why?

Because we're able to do that from the land.

You can collect and now you can employ unmanned systems undersea in the air.

They have lawyer munitions.

You can do collection.

You can share those targets with your with your allies and partners.

So that's kind of a description, David, of like hard power.

That's for doing that.

Now let me jump to another element of this.

In my view, if you want to understand what's actually happening with the security situation in each of these countries, the best place to understand that is to actually be out in the interior with the communities, with your fellow soldiers, with members of their military that are out training.

And so this is an asymmetrical advantage of what I mean by the strategic land power network, because flying over a country and sailing by a country, you simply do not get the same fingertip feel of what's actually happening inside these countries.

So if you want to find out what's going on in these countries, talk to a soldier because they're seeing it through.

The lens and the eyes of the soldiers, the Marines, the special operate, the commanders, the community and the leaders that are out in these areas.

And that is something that I, we, we don't pay enough attention to.

That again, creates a bond and creates A commonality and gives unity and collective commitment of these nations out here that have large armies.

I'm going to stay on this for just a second because I think it's an important point and people, when I mentioned this to people in Congress, you name it, it, you know, like the Philippines has more divisions than the United States Army, 70% of their military is its army.

Japan 65%, South Korea, 65%, Indonesia, 75%, Thailand 75 to 80% Vietnam 80 to 85% India 80 day.

The point I'm making is this region is dominated.

It's dominated by armies.

And so it's a natural point to connect and then have a literally, we talk the same language.

And by the way, another thing that is really important is they go to our schools, 65% of the what's called the International Military education and training seats in the US are in an Army school, 65% because we have the biggest, we have the biggest set of schools.

And so many of these leaders in this region are are schools in the United States.

And so there's this natural connection through armies that I think should, should I just, I underscore it as much as I possibly can because as I say it, it is, it is the security architecture that binds the region together.

Very controversial when I say that there's a lot of people that recoil from it, but I'm telling you from my experiences, it is very real and it's an important part of deterrence out here.

I've got to say, well, you've convinced me just in those in those few minutes.

And I, I confess I hadn't really thought about that as an added, as an added benefit.

Well, let's, let's talk about Australia then.

I mean, it's chiefly a marine presence, but you know, there, there are various rotations and there's, there's equipment coming through and there's, you know, Australia is in a, in is in a great sort of vantage point with in terms of, you know, a little bit further back than some of the other places where U.S.

forces are, are stationed around the region.

I mean, just tell me about the, the value of, of northern Australia to, to, you know, to the, to the, to the allied strategy, I suppose.

And I mean, and is there, is there logic in in expanding the role of Northern Australia in that picture?

Yes, absolutely.

So let me first talk about the relationship.

So you know the and I'll say that the entire Australian military is such a great partner out here and they're they are everywhere.

And so, you know, my experiences out here with them is that they are constantly pressing with us on increasing our exercises to become more multinational and more joint.

A couple of characteristics I point out like the very nature because of the size and the location of the Australian military.

They they are, they work very, very hard at being a very good joint force.

Why?

Because they have to well, this is another area of overlap with the United States military because we work at it too.

And so the value of both of our forces being, you know, joint to a core is a really important part in terms of the the terrain, the territory.

Look, if you go from the Aleutian Islands and, and I say the Aleutian Islands deliberately and you come down to the first island chain from Al Qaeda all the way down to the Senkakus, Taiwan, the Philippines, and then run all the way down to Australia.

To me, that is really the first island chain.

And some people just talk about, you know, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines.

But the reality of it is, and if I added the location that we are on the Asian continent, Korea, that is part of this as well.

And so, you know, up in the northeast in Townsville, as I have long communicated that we're near the training centre, we're near a brigade, we're near a port, we're near airfields, you have the northern airfields, you have Darwin.

And if you just look at the near abroad in the northern coast of of the continent, again, I remind people it's a continent.

You know that from Townsville to the northern airfields to Darwin all the way around to Perth, those are important geographical locations for sustainment command and control, C2 additive manufacturing industry to come forward and work together.

And so I, I, I am a big fan of being able to be in Townsville.

And then I said shore, water Bay and, and, and the training area that's there because we are, we are near forces, we are near a training location and it is a important place to command and control sustainment and to be able to project from there.

One other area that I was really pleased to see the advances in, in the Australian Defence Forces is with watercraft.

I'll call them watercraft because that's what we have in our own forces.

I made a big push to get more watercraft out into the Pacific.

We had some, but we had some over in the Middle East and we needed to shift it out of the Middle East and get it out.

Of course, it's so vital for us to operate out here and I'm really happy to see the Australian Defence Forces, namely the Army, be able to increase their ability to have watercraft.

Our watercraft working together can create all kinds of opportunities, but it can also create a number of dilemmas for adversaries out here.

And, and they're not that's, that's not just in preparation for a crisis or conflict, it's also in response to natural disasters that, you know, 8 out of 10 on the planet happen out here.

So I think both countries need those capabilities along with the Rotary wing, medium and heavy lift helicopters, really, really important capabilities.

You'll have to pardon my ignorance.

I've lost track of which of which of those are currently in Australia and which are not.

But are are you talking there about things that you would like to see included or are they things there, there and and if if they're already there, what kind of expansion would you like to see?

What?

Would be useful.

Well, I, I don't know the details exactly of what the Australian Defence Forces are, how many they're buying, but I know the, the Army is getting, I'm going to say great, more than 20 landing craft.

And you know what, I don't exactly know where they're going to be stationed within Australia, but I know that our watercraft, which we have in Hawaii and Japan, actually we have a couple locations in Japan.

Having the ability to have those deployed further into the region and be able to use the ports in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, because we are running them in and out of Aguila Harbour in Subic and then Townsville and Shaltwater Bay areas.

Really important for us because we can regenerate and we can ride share in many ways together.

You may not realise this, but a couple years ago after Talisman Sabre in 23, we actually loaded up Australian tanks on U.S.

Army watercraft and brought them to exercise grew to shield in Indonesia.

So these are the kinds of interoperability opportunities that we have when the Australian Defence Forces get a advance a capability and get a little more capacity by having those those types of capabilities in their army.

And in terms of US personnel and assets that could also be added to to the US presence here.

Do I?

Do I?

Yeah, I.

Mean do, do.

Are there specific things that you think would be very useful to?

Oh, I think.

Some sort of, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Also I, I think so I advocated when I was in uniform that a sustainment command of about 80 to 100 people were in Townsville.

And then you know, obviously because of that area, there's also, you know, industries that can come forward have additive manufacturing, have parts, have depo maintenance so that where we have commonality and equipment like HAR Mars, M1 tanks, aviation, watercraft, etcetera and ammunition, then if we can have those types of materials on the ground, then that is in my view a, a, a real benefit to to our work together out here.

It certainly reduces our lines of communication.

It it puts material forward that we are going to use.

And so some combination of permanent but but also having a location where you can dynamically deploy forces in and out of is very helpful, not unlike what happens up in Dharma with the Marine.

Gotcha.

Okay, the, you probably seen the news recently that Sir Anthony Albanese, our Prime Minister was went to Port Moresby, was expected to sign a security agreement with Papua New Guinea.

That didn't happen.

We don't quite know why, but we do know that China has for a long time sought a greater security presence in the Pacific.

I'm interested in your view, given your thoughts on that sort of network of, of, of allies and partners working together to present that credible deterrence.

I guess the flip side is, you know, the risk of an increased permanent and serious Chinese military presence in, you know, further afield in the region and in particular in the Pacific.

What would it mean for our overall strategy if China were to establish a serious permanent presence here?

What?

Oh so.

Sorry, in in the Pacific.

Yeah, permanent.

So let me, let me, I'll just say this, their presence is there anyways.

So I'll describe what that looks like, what I saw.

They would often times they come with money and they get into a loan agreement and sometimes they'll, they'll find a politician, a military leader, tribal leader, you know, just a, a business leader.

It really it didn't matter.

Loan can't be paid back and they would then, you know, I'll use the word take, but they would assume things like ports, airfields, warehouses, they would get into their electrical grid, they would get into their communications backbone.

Now you have a very dangerous situation.

So that's Part 1 later, and this started, this started emerging more in the 2021 time frame.

And this is particular in the Oceana area.

They would come with police trainers and equipment.

So if you can think about the combination of law enforcement getting into their their their policing, this is a very dangerous combination in these small island nations that you know, literally they're, they're, they're really as you know, they're not worried.

They're not, they don't think about, you know, pure war.

You know, they, they're they're concerned about recovering from a natural disaster.

Like how do they get back on their feet when they have a typhoon RIP through or have some other natural disaster occur?

Terrible, you know, touch of nature here.

So that to me is the most dangerous part about the Chinese out in the in the Oceana area.

And I think that we would be well served to work on agreements and work on ways to find commonality between what the small island nations and Oceana need.

And then of course, what countries like the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia can do to offset some of that.

And of course no one's better at that than than your forces here in Australia, so I was happy to hear that there was some work on that and hopefully that will end up in a more positive place.

Yes, yes, there's a dot dot dot, but hopefully it'll it'll it'll come together.

But it's, it's a work in progress and we have to stay at it.

So sure, because the other side is true too, David.

I mean, they're, they're, they're continuing to work at it.

Absolutely.

They're they're working at it at a fever.

Space, yeah, absolutely.

And I suppose hence the concern that there's a reason when something that was expected to happen doesn't come together.

I'm conscious of time couple of other ones that I just want to cover what first is the role of technology.

Obviously it's a huge amount of of, of change in modernization going on there.

I'll just for transparency, I'll acknowledge you're a senior advisor to to Palantir, which provides a lot of high end software to towards these capabilities.

China is developing some pretty formidable tech capabilities itself.

But it seems to me the, the, the, the, the advantage and the success will come from how you integrate your people and your technology together, how you integrate, you know, the, the, the tech and the skilled human beings.

It's actually going to decide things.

Tell me a bit about how technology, and I think particularly in AI data processing and analysis, are helping military commanders and decision makers talk about the what's the smart way of integrating all of this and how well are the Chinese doing that, as far as you can tell?

Does the US and and its close allies still have an advantage in being able to mesh these things together?

Yes.

Let me talk about what we're doing 1st and then a little bit about what I saw in my time with them.

And probably on that there's there, there is a dangerous thing that's underway that I, I want to make sure I, I touch on as well.

OK, so there's kind of three parts.

And I was going to talk about this later today as well.

But so capabilities, technologies and organisations.

So in order to create new concepts and new approaches, the, the combination of experimenting during exercises with not just, you know, legacy capabilities or capabilities you already have now today.

So think aeroplanes, ships, rockets, missiles, you know, UAVs, etcetera.

Those capabilities have to be brought together.

And then on the on the other end, you need to change organisations when you have these current capabilities and new capabilities that you're bringing on.

You know, a really good example is the multi domain task forces that we began to employ out here.

Many people think that it's like, oh, the Typhoon missile system is there.

It's like, yeah, but the Typhoon missile system started to be, we started banging metal on that back in like 2018.

And we made a decision in 2019 like we need to change the organisation because you can't give a new capability to a old organisation, to a legacy organisation they won't know what to do with.

By the way, I got plenty of examples of new equipment coming to me in combat and you're giving new equipment and new technologies to a legacy formation.

They, you know, you don't know what to do with it because you don't have an organisation that's built to employ it.

So the Multi demand Task Force was really a way of getting an organisational design in front of the bent metal capabilities that were coming.

So and I'm glad that we decided to do that in the 2018-2019 because that organisation was like 3 years in front of the actual hardware that was showing up.

I'm saying this because there's three parts to this.

There's capabilities that have to be exercised and experimented.

There's organisational changes that have to occur and the technology changes.

And, and as you mentioned, like Palantir and software and Maven smart systems, that's something we brought out here when I was a commander in 2022, I'm happy to report, like we brought it to Japan for Yamasakura.

And now it's much more pervasively being used by not just U.S.

forces, but by other forces in the region.

And the point I'm making here is that those technologies are really important.

And I'll just say on on the particular systems Maven smart system that Palantir has is, is actually a decision advantage tool for commanders.

And the that to me is where artificial intelligence and continuing to bring artificial intelligence tools with large language models to commanders in their operation centres and, and tools also that advantage tactical commanders, operational commanders and theatre commanders.

They can't just be that we're giving a tool to a young captain or a young Sergeant first class.

We have to give the same tools to four star generals all the way down to the most tactical leaders.

And I think that that's a really important part of being able to exercise and experiment continually.

Now on the Chinese side, they, they are advancing with their technologies.

Now back to the earlier part of our conversation, though, I do believe that, that I, I didn't, I didn't see the kind of joint integration, the levels, the, the proficiency of joint integration that we enjoy.

However, one of the things that concerns me and we talked about this, you know, before we got on air here, one of the things that really concerns me, and I'll, I'll go back to about 18 months ago, I remember being asked by the media because I made some comments about 12,000 North Korean soldiers that were in Ukraine fighting.

And like, we haven't heard that.

And I said, well, you should read the news out in Asia because there's 12,000 North Korean soldiers that are fighting in the Ukraine now.

But I said that's not, that's not the most important part of what's happening.

I said first there was.

Parts and platforms, howitzers and and part, then there was ammunition, then they sent soldiers.

But actually the most dangerous part of this is the technology that's being shared between Russia, North Korea and China, and I would say to some degree Iran as well.

And in my view, this is something we need to really, really pay attention to.

So there very good at electronic warfare, they're very good at cyber.

They're, they're very capable in space.

They're they're gaining in their knowledge of unmanned systems both underwater and, and in the air and underground with robotics.

And so this is something I think we need to pay particular attention to with North Korea and and China, because in a way they're indirectly benefiting from a real laboratory of war where Ukraine and Russia are fighting because they're gaining from the value of having that experience.

And we should not discount what is being picked up by North Korea and China from actually what's happening in Russia.

So that is a concern that I have.

I can't speak to that having, you know, not seen that now for 9 or 10 months, but when I left, it was one of the ones, it was one of the areas that was incredibly concerning to me.

Fascinating, really fascinating observation.

I, I'd love to go further into it, but I, I, I won't for the purposes of time, because I do have one more that I want to cover off in, in the couple of minutes we've got left.

Look, that is there's a lot of talk about US reliability right now among allies.

You know, I think there are, there are lifelong supporters of, of the US alliance here in Australia.

It's, you know, historically there is overwhelming support for the US alliance in Australia.

It's something that most Australians recognise is absolutely indispensable to our to our security.

That said, I think that that there are Australians who, you know, as as supportive as they are, look at the US right now and, and are concerned about, about things that are being said.

Decisions are being made.

Give me your, I suppose, do you have a reassuring message for them?

What, what is your, what is your response to that?

What can you say that that that those sorts of people might take on board?

Never underestimate the United States military and the United States ability to maintain a tight, credible and reliable partnership with our allies and partners here in the Indo Pacific.

I would say globally as well.

And so I think that for those that are worried, I would not worry the the mill to mill and the military diplomacy that happens out here.

It's been my experience over 3 assignments out here, from the tactical to the strategic, that in difficult times, the military to military relationships are actually the, the, the port in the storm.

And so there's a lot of things that can swirl out there that are in the economic arena, in the information domain, in the diplomatic political space, you know, but last I looked, the joint exercises, the multinational exercises, the service to service exercises, there's not less of them, There's more of them.

And one of one of the things that I'll point to that has that happened, and I'm very proud of this on my, my time in command was that we had a number of army to army exercises that had turned into multinational exercises.

I'll point to a couple of them.

Garuda Shield in Indonesia is not only a, that was an army to army exercise.

I'm, I'm not sure how many showed up this year, but last year I think there were 12 countries and about, you know, 12,000, right, That that used to be just the US Army and the Indonesian Army, Yamasakura in Japan, Army to army exercise.

It's not a joint exercise, But now you have the Philippines participating, you have Australia participating, you obviously have Japan participate and you have observers coming from other countries to it to open it up to others.

And I mean, I, I, I could go on and on, but the point I'm making is there's been a noticeable increase in multinational service to service exercises becoming more multinational and becoming more joint.

And in my view, that is a, that's the leading indicator of, of a counter to any perception that they may not be reliable.

And I I would, I would, I wouldn't underestimate the reliability and credibility of the US military.

So it's a fair empirical data point.

I think Talisman Sabre might have been the biggest this year as well.

I apologise if no, I didn't.

That's wrong.

But well, I'm gonna, I'll go back.

I'll go back over that.

That used to just be an army to army exercise.

So again, this is one of those.

These are these, these are this is a great story, David, of how Army to Army exercises translate over time into increased multinational collective commitment and unifying experiences for all of these forces out here.

And that includes the joint force because these opportunities give the air component, the maritime components, the Coast Guard components, all of the components an opportunity to improve their readiness, to improve their skills, capabilities, proficiency.

And you know, at the end of the day, the interoperability is really what matters most.

And it's not the technical and it's not the procedural types of interoperability.

It's actually the human interoperability that's the most important.

And, and, and we have that in spades out here I think with our relationship with not just Australia but all the other countries here.

Good, good.

Charles Flynn.

Great chat, Dave.

Great talk with you.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Stop the World.

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