HONOLULU — Navy Adm. Sam Paparo on Friday took over for Adm. John Aquilino as commander of all U.S. forces within the Indo-Pacific Command area at a ceremony at a pier looking on the battleship USS Missouri and the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The change of command not solely represents a turnover of management in a combatant command that spans about half the Earth’s floor but additionally one which has gained significance as China’s efforts to exert management over an growing space of the Pacific have intensified.
Underscoring the importance of the place, the change of command was not solely attended by high navy officers like Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro but additionally protection ministers from Australia and the Philippines and the heads of state from the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau.
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Austin, in his remarks on the ceremony, mentioned that the “command’s mission is on the coronary heart of American safety within the twenty first century” and that Paparo is “precisely the proper chief for this second and this mission.”
Officers, together with Austin, burdened the significance of sustaining sturdy relationships with allies as a key activity of the command.
Beneath Aquilino’s tenure, America has made important efforts to develop not solely its cooperation with nations such because the Philippines and Papua New Guinea but additionally launched a historic partnership with Australia to supply the nation with U.S. nuclear-powered submarines.
In the meantime, Paparo is taking up the function after three years of main the Navy’s Pacific Fleet — the command that oversees Navy forces within the Indo-Pacific. He’s additionally doing it at a time when navy officers have mentioned the tempo and presence of U.S. forces within the area want to extend to counter the rising Chinese language menace.
Simply on Tuesday, the Philippine coast guard mentioned that the Chinese language coast guard rammed and shot with water cannons two of its vessels as the most recent in a rising variety of skirmishes over islands and reefs within the South China Sea.
“The Individuals’s Republic of China is the one state with each the intent to reshape the worldwide order … and the facility to take action,” Paparo mentioned at a Navy convention in San Diego in February.
China “makes expansive and illegal claims to waters and to options,” Paparo mentioned, earlier than including that “a have a look at its maps and a passing familiarity with the United Nations Conference on the Legislation of the Sea exposes the absurdity of its claims and its pretzel logic.”
Leaders of allied nations within the area have additionally voiced their assist for Paparo’s management.
Talking at a press convention Thursday, Australia’s deputy prime minister and minister of protection, Richard Marles, mentioned that he is “had the chance to get to know Adm. Paparo over the previous couple of years and I do know that this command couldn’t be in a safer or higher pair of fingers.”
Aquilino assured the gathered crowd that he’s leaving Paparo “probably the most built-in, deadly joint power on this planet and they’re prepared.”
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