PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii—On a windy pier overlooking the USS Arizona memorial and the USS Missouri, Adm. Stephen Koehler took the helm of U.S. Pacific Fleet on Thursday, changing Adm. Samuel Paparo, who will take command of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command subsequent month.
Pacific Fleet consists of 145,000 troops, 200 ships, 1,200 plane, and two numbered fleets, all “positioned and accountable for the maritime area that covers half the globe,” INDOPACOM commander Adm. John Aquilino, himself a former commander of the fleet, stated Thursday. The job entails commanding naval forces in “the world’s most regarding theater, in opposition to our world’s most harmful adversaries,” he stated.
Paparo named these adversaries in his remarks: “a revisionist, revanchist, and expansionist [China], a ruthless Russia, and an intractable North Korea.” However, echoing Aquilino, he stated the purpose is to stop battle, not provoke it.
Within the Indo-Pacific, Paparo stated, “Deterring battle is our highest responsibility.”
To do this, Pacific Fleet should “present that the world’s biggest army is right here,” and show that if an adversary takes it on, “they are going to lose,” Aquilino stated, including that Paparo “has completed that past my expectations.” Koehler takes the job because the theater is “getting extra harmful, not much less,” however he was “made for this place,” the INDOPACOM chief stated.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti praised Paparo and Koehler, saying the previous “personally pushed us to assume, act and function otherwise.” Of Koehler, whom she promoted on Wednesday evening aboard the memorial for the sunken USS Arizona battleship, she stated, “ this theater, and you’re a warfighter’s warfighter.”
Koehler—an F-14 pilot, like Aquilino and Paparo—involves the job from the Pentagon, the place he was director of technique, plans, and coverage for the joint workers. However he has served a number of excursions within the area, together with as director of operations for INDOPACOM and deputy commander of Pacific Fleet.
“I couldn’t be extra fired as much as be right here,” Koehler instructed the viewers, which was peppered with worldwide companions. He confused lots of the similar themes as the opposite admirals: collaborating with allies, joint integration, innovation, and deterrence.
“As we assemble right here at the moment, our rivals proceed to problem the rules-based international order with all of the devices of their nationwide energy, of their quest for may to be made proper, and of their pursuit of a future during which the robust do what they’ll and the weak endure what they need to. I don’t see it that manner,” he stated. “We’ll guarantee regional stability by way of a constant, steady presence, and if directed, we are going to defeat any adversary within the maritime area.”