Hawaii-based combat teams to deploy for longer periods

No moss is gathering on the boots of Schofield Barracks soldiers in the post-Iraq and Af­ghani­stan combat era as the Army looks to downsize.

Starting next month, more than 1,000 of the Hawaii soldiers with the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team and other units will deploy for about four months to a series of exercises in Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines.

Then in July a similar number of Schofield soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team will head to Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The exercises themselves are similar to those in the past, but under a still-developing U.S. Army Pacific deployment concept called "Pacific Pathways," the Army is becoming more expeditionary — like the Marines.

Rather than shuttling smaller groups back and forth as in the past, the Army is keeping larger numbers of troops west of the mid-Pacific dateline for extended periods — and adding to security in the region in the process, it says.

It’s the largest Schofield deployment for "Pathways," which started last year using troops out of Washington state and Hawaii.

In addition, about 3,500 3rd Brigade soldiers will head to the Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana in May for complex, large-scale training.

The 2nd Brigade went through similar training — pegged at a cost of about $25 million — at the National Training Center in Cali­for­nia in May.

"So they are at the highest state of readiness that the Army invests in them," Maj. Gen. Charles Flynn, 25th Division commander, said of the soldiers.

In terms of operations and engagements, between January and July of this year, 25th Infantry Division soldiers will deploy to or engage with 11 partner nations as part of Pacific Pathways and other training, the Army said.

In late February and March, in a throwback to the past, a big division-level exercise called Lightning Forge will be held across multiple Hawaii training areas.

"We’re very busy when you look at the span of commitment and the missions that this division is going to be deployed on," Flynn said in a telephone interview.

With war deployments to the Middle East ended, the Tropic Lightning division is returning its focus to Southeast Asia, jungle fighting skills and maintaining regional stability as part of the "re-balance" to the Pacific.

It’s a tall order that the Army believes can’t be accomplished by just the Navy, Air Force and Marines in the Asia-Pacific, which, of course, is dominated by vast stretches of water and sky.

The Army likes to point out that seven of the world’s 10 largest armies are in the Asia-Pacific, and 21 of 27 nations with armed forces have an army officer serving as their chief of defense.

Brig. Gen. Dan Karbler, a former Hawaii-based officer, argued in a November opinion piece that Pacific Pathways "smartly uses Army forces overseas" at a time when there is much work to do.

Some have said the Army is trying to become the Marines. Karbler, now in the deputy chief of staff’s office at the Pentagon, said the Army and Marines should become better teammates.

"Both services have seen cuts and, as the headlines show every day, the demand for U.S. military involvement around the world is not diminishing," Karbler said on the website "War on the Rocks."

"In this time of reduced budgets, we must take advantage of what the Army and Marine Corps can do together, as neither can afford to go it alone," he said.

The Army is seeking to cut its ranks from 510,000 active-duty soldiers to between 440,000 and 450,000.

How — or whether — that will affect Hawaii-based soldiers is expected to play out later this year as Army headquarters makes its force decisions.

With the Pentagon eschewing the type of big "boots on the ground" presence that Iraq and Af­ghani­stan represented, the Army is trying to get lighter and faster.

Pacific Pathways has emerged as a way to "increase forces in more places, without more bases," said Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, commander of U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter.

Brooks said in October that the approach allows the Army "to squeeze every dollar we can and leverage every opportunity we have, to build readiness while conducting exercises."

A 2013 RAND Corp. report said that under the "largely benign conditions" in Southeast Asia, the Army will focus mainly on supporting defense reform and modernization, facilitating disaster relief response operations, addressing transnational threats and helping to balance China’s increased influence.

Those "benign" conditions could deteriorate, RAND said, and to be prepared the United States needs to "adopt an agile strategy that is thin in physical presence but broad in programmatic execution."

Part of Schofield’s 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team is heading out to Thailand for the exercise Cobra Gold, to South Korea for Foal Eagle and the Philippines for Bali­ka­tan.

The 3rd Brigade will deploy to Australia for Talisman Saber, Indonesia for Garuda Shield and Malaysia for Keris Strike.

U.S. Army Pacific said is still planning a third Pacific Pathways to occur before the end of the calendar year, but didn’t reveal the unit for it.

Flynn said the Army is going to take "that investment of readiness" that comes from training at the national centers and place it forward in the theater west of the international dateline "with Army forces in motion that are engaging, partnering, building relationships, training and helping to export the professionalism of our soldiers and our capabilities."

He added, "That regional expertise that we can gain by building relationships and by rehearsing in a lot of ways are the very things that we need to be doing in the event of everything from a disaster to something else."