The White House over the weekend announced the promotion of two Navy admirals to lead military operations in the Pacific, as President Joe Biden seeks to put forth his own plans to combat China’s growing influence in the Pacific region.  

The nominations of Adm. John Aquilino to lead the Indo-Pacific command, and Vice Adm. Samuel Paparo to run the Pacific Fleet, had been expected for some time.

The announcement affirms the Trump administration’s December pick of Aquilino to take charge of the largest American combatant command that is based in Hawaii. He has served as the head of PACFLT since May 2018, is a 1984 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and a career fighter pilot flying F-14 Tomcats, F/A-18C Hornets, and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. He previously served as the commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet and also as the deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans, and strategy.

Meanwhile, Paparo, who is the current commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, has been nominated to replace Aquilino as the four-star admiral in charge of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He has served as the head of U.S. naval forces in the Middle East since August and was formerly the director of operations for U.S. Central Command. A graduate of  

Villanova University, he is a career aviator, flying F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets.  

The scale of the challenge in the Pacific has been growing rapidly over the past few years. Recently, the current Indo-Pacom command Adm. Philip Davidson released a highly ambitious five-year, $27 billion plan for bolstering missile defenses and dispersing basing in the region, which has received significant support from Congress.

In addition, the Aegis system on Guam has appeared also to receive support from Congress, but nothing in terms of actual lines in a budget. Davidson, during a virtual event last week, noted that the radar could free up three Aegis destroyers from performing the missile defense mission. It is an idea that the Navy would likely view as a positive, considering that it has been largely frustrated by the missile defense mission for several years now. 

“I think the hardest part of it will be sustaining a deployed presence to compete with China, given readiness challenges across each service, fiscal constraints, and force structure that is still too weighted toward the high-end,” Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer now at the Hudson Institute, told Breaking Defense.  

“U.S. forces will need to be able to confront Chinese aggression at various levels of escalation,” he added.  

At his own nomination hearing last week, Colin Kahl, the nominee to be undersecretary of defense for policy, told Senators that “there’s a lot of bipartisan support for supporting our allies and partners in the region,” and even went on to call the Indo-Pacific region the Biden administration’s top priority—“number one with a bullet.”  

If both Aquilino and Paparo are confirmed, then they will immediately face an array of pressing issues, including the continuing fight against the coronavirus pandemic, identifying extremists in the ranks, and ensuring gender and racial equity. 

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.  

Image: Reuters