Pacific Partnership Will Go On

The news event that discouraged me this week was the announcement the USS Dubuque would not be participating in Pacific Partnership 2009. Anyone who has followed this blog since the beginning knows that I am in favor of these strategically important soft power missions.

I have been somewhat critical of the quality of ADM Willard's blog, and by that I mean the blog was generally boring. Sometime around the end of March the content began to change, and the blog is becoming more insightful as a tool for leadership. This part of the latest entry is an excellent example.

USS Dubuque has spent much of the last year preparing for its Pacific Partnership voyage in which it was to travel throughout the south Pacific providing Humanitarian Civic Assistance. Unfortunately, with the exposure of the crew and ship to the H1N1 virus I elected to cancel her deployment. We are certain we will contain this virus, and the ship will not pose a threat, however, we do not want to cause concern of the spread of this virus in such remote areas of the South Pacific. I have my team working up options to provide the Humanitarian Civic Assistance to the nations we had planned to visit through other means than the USS Dubuque. There are many non government organizations and partner nations that contribute to the Pacific Partnership effort and we will work with them and do our best to get as much aid into the region as we can. This is an unfortunate chain of events, but as with all challenges we face, the Pacific Fleet Team and her partners will find a way to get the mission done.

Navy news is reporting Pacific Partnership will go on, although details are still being worked out. I hope the joint force makes every effort to conduct the mission at the highest possible level, with or without a ship, and sends a strong message of commitment to the region.

It has become almost buzzword to say multi-national, joint agency, but the phrases apply to low intensity operations being conducted by military forces. Pacific Partnership 2009 was intended to include the five nations of Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga. The challenges of each nation are unique, but there are similarities.

Low quality education, lack of access to health care, and poor infrastructure are characteristics of those countries, symptoms of the larger problem connected to the lack of economic development. The Navy, with international and other agency partners, has made fighting symptoms the mission, specifically by providing health care, building schools, and recapitalizing infrastructure. I think the general consensus is, fighting symptoms is an effective approach.

Except when the symptom is piracy… I am left with the impression the US Navy has put considerably more intellectual weight into the soft power partnership deployments that include medical diplomacy than they have dealing with low intensity security challenges at sea like piracy. I'd welcome being told how I am wrong about this, but from my point of view, I see a mismatch in priorities.