The last four presidential administrations have assessed the Indo-Pacific region to be the world's most consequential theater for U.S. national security. In Rising Stars Over the Pacific? Cultivating Indo-Pacific Expertise in the U.S. Armed Forces, Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas P. Mahnken explore how the policies and practices of the U.S. armed Services have reflected this political and strategic shift toward the Indo-Pacific. More broadly, they examine how the prioritization of various geographic theaters has evolved over the past quarter century as well as the extent to which the incentive structures of the Services have accommodated those changes.
The authors demonstrate the value of military expertise in key regions by exploring how senior military leaders with deep regional knowledge led to the development of innovative operational concepts during the interwar period and in the late Cold War. They examine historical and contemporary shifts by creating a dataset of the careers of senior uniformed joint and Service leaders from 2010 to present and assessing trends in assignments by Service over time. They augment their quantitative data with a series of structured interviews with current and former joint and Service leaders, recent Service promotion board precepts, and an analysis of changes to Service concepts of operations and associated force structure.
They conclude that despite 15 years of emphasis on the growing threat posed by China and the strategic importance of the broader Indo-Pacific region across presidential administrations, focus on the theater among the U.S. armed Services remains uneven. This is reflected in the career paths of senior leaders, the value that the individual Services place on tours of duty in the region, and the organizational culture of the Services. Given the importance of the region to the United States, they argue senior defense leaders should develop tangible incentives promoting the development of intellectual capital on the Indo-Pacific region.