Security Cooperation at the strategic level

[Bill Moore]

Xenophon,

I encourage you to look at the pacom.mil website, and then look over the strategy link to get an idea of the purpose of strategic cooperation according to PACOM. I'm not so sure there is an "endstate", since it is a process that must be sustained to various degrees to maintain the desired relationships and build the cabilities needed to enable us to operate together should the need arise. Relationships garnered from SC can be as important (or more important) as the capabilities generated from these events. The perception that they are our partners and we're their partner has contributed to the prevention of conflict the PACOM AOR in recent years, but of course there is no guaruntee that peace will continue and if we need to go war the relationships we developed through SC will be critical enablers.

I disagree with what I think Wilf implied about the need for a strategy first. The relationships we develop allow us to respond to a host of threats and disasters that we may not be able to predict (thus develop a strategy for). They allow us access to the region and the relationships allow us to reach a consensus quicker should the need arise where we have to respond. We also demonstrate our will to honor our security commitments in the region by participating in various exercises, and with the increasing instability in nK and a rising China that is important. Hard to sum up in a couple of paragraphs, but SC is critical to our overall security.

http://www.pacom.mil/web/PACOM_Resou...Sep%202010.pdf