HONOLULU—As Army units from Washington state to South Korea prepare themselves for a potential war with China, the service has decided that it would like some of its reserve units to have that same Indo-Pacific expertise, the head of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command said Thursday.
With that in mind, U.S. Army Pacific in 2023 began selecting units to deploy repeatedly to the same locations, Maj. Gen. Gavin Gardner said at AUSA’s Land Forces symposium here, in an attempt to make reserve formations regional experts the way active-component units along the Pacific already are.
“We ask our reserves to be globally available, but I want them to be regionally aligned,” Gardner said. “We don’t want to just keep rotating different units through this theater, because…if you keep changing the faces, you’re not going to build the readiness that we want to do collectively.”
Those rotations have included the Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia, Tamiok Strike in Papua New Guinea, and Balikatan and Salaknib in the Philippines and Timor-Leste, Gardner said, where 9th Mission Support Command soldiers have done multiple deployments.
The continuity of units not only prepares them for what “we want them to do at the time of crisis, but more importantly, develops the relationships with allies and partners forward,” he added.
The next step would be having those units keep some of their equipment in those partner countries, so that they don’t have to pack it in and out with each deployment.
“I love Australia, but my God, I hate bringing equipment to Australia,” Gardner said. “Now, we’re just bringing the people to the theater—that’s changing the way we’re doing business.”
Prepositioning equipment in partner countries is part of a larger project the Army wants to undertake in the Pacific, as it looks to move beyond its floating equipment barges to logistical hubs on land.
“We don’t need any more bases, but we need a lot more places—places that give us access, places to give us resources that we need for the combined Joint Force,” Gardner said Tuesday during another LANPAC panel.
