Capable, Adaptive, Partners

FORUM Staff

Twenty-six nations represented by 25,000 personnel gathered from June 29 to August 4, 2022, for the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) — the largest international maritime exercise. Taking place in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California, the five-week training mission strengthened the collective ability of allies and partners to ensure a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and fostered an environment for forces to build relationships and skills that promote accessibility, safety and security on the high seas. 

Against this backdrop, Rear Adm. Toshiyuki Hirata, Commander Escort Flotilla Four, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), and Commodore Paul O’Grady, Royal Australian Navy Commodore Flotillas, spoke with FORUM about RIMPAC and the ideas and essence of the exercise theme: “Capable, Adaptive, Partners.”

Hirata has a specialty as a surface warfare officer. During RIMPAC, he served as vice commander of the combined task force and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) force commander. O’Grady has also served extensively as a surface warfare officer. During RIMPAC, he was the combined forces maritime component commander.

FORUM: What was most significant about RIMPAC 2022?

Hirata: I was commander of the HADR force during the RIMPAC HADR exercise, July 11-18. It was very exciting for us as it was not only JMSDF and the United States, but also other nations joined our headquarters and subordinate organizations — not only military, but also some civilian agencies joined us, and we coordinated everything. And also, we conducted this as a combined exercise with the state of Hawaii. So it was a very good experience for us overall. 

O’Grady: It has been a personal and professional highlight to command the maritime component, comprising 38 ships, three submarines, many aircraft and all their fabulous crews. Just as importantly, the 250 multinational headquarters staff that ran and coordinated all the different task forces. That staff included core staff planners from Australia and Canada, who also provided the deputy maritime component commander. We incorporated staff at the whole range of command levels from 19 total countries and had to get them working together to not only support the ships but build up their tactical warfighting capabilities. This ensured that at the tactical phase they could function operationally, including medical support, dynamic fires across not only the maritime component but into the air component, as well as other supporting elements. That’s been a very exciting journey as a multinational force commander, and personally as a career highlight, too — to have an opportunity to have a team and a force like that to coordinate is unprecedented for me personally. 

FORUM: RIMPAC Commander Vice Adm. Michael Boyle stated during the exercise that it is not only interoperability but also interchangeability that is key to working with international partners. What does that mean for your respective forces?

Hirata: I think in maritime operations this interchangeability is a very wide spectrum. For example, I conducted HADR operations with other maritime operations. On the other hand, the commodore conducted maritime operations such as maritime security and other multilateral operations, so [there are] many types of operations that we have. Sometimes some countries, due to their national objectives, do not have as much experience in some of these due to their differences, and sometimes these experiences allow us to adapt to many situations. 

O’Grady: There were some great examples across all the forces. One I am very familiar with is the HMAS Canberra, the amphibious assault ship of the Royal Australian Navy, which had Australian Army embarked onboard but also during the passage from Australia had Sri Lankan Marines and Tongan Marines embarked, and they trained together all the way to Hawaii. … So before RIMPAC started, the exercise had already started for them. When they got here, U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys joined and stayed embarked for three weeks. That’s the first time we’ve done that, operating as well as doing all their maintenance with the crews and teams living on board that ship. So, from an Australian ship, the Marine Corps aircraft deployed Tongan Marines, Sri Lankan Marines and Australian Army. We talk about interchangeability; I think that is the epitome. There are many other examples across RIMPAC; that is one I happen to be familiar with as the Australian contingent commander and think it is a real highlight: Partners enabling one another in that [when] they can bring capabilities that others do not have, together they deliver much more.

FORUM: For this exercise, which countries did you work closely with? 

Hirata: The U.S. is part of our alliance, so their Navy, that is our closest relationship. Japan and Australia, similarly, we have a very tight relationship. 

O’Grady: This close relationship allows us to consider other ways in which we do exercises and coordinate activities, like through the Quad [Quadrilateral Security Dialogue]. A number of those multinational and bilateral relationships are strengthened through the broader framework of RIMPAC, which means we are not starting from zero; we have some continuity as we move on to other exercises and activities together — which
is exciting.

FORUM: Is this the first time you have met each other? 

O’Grady: Adm. Hirata and I are old friends. We, and [Royal Canadian Navy] Rear Adm. Chris Robinson, deputy commander of the Combined Task Force, all went to the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island together in the class of 2015, so it was an amazing experience and personal privilege for me to work closely with some very good friends. We have visited each other previously and learned how to work together as well as being commanders in the leadership team for RIMPAC, and it’s been fabulous.

FORUM: When is the next opportunity for the two of you to work together?

O’Grady: We are still working that out!

Hirata: I hope so! From a professional perspective, the most satisfying aspect of RIMPAC was serving as commander for HADR operations. But, in my private perspective, the most positive aspect of RIMPAC is working with my friends. 

O’Grady: Absolutely, this has taken RIMPAC to a completely different personal level. To share these things and the relationships with the other commanders — these relationships were not just shaped over the past few months, but they were built over years. This allows us to have a depth in our conversations and actions that would not normally happen in a short period of time. 

FORUM: As the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) become more of a joint force, how will that affect the JMSDF?

Hirata: Joint operations are very important for many reasons, including resources. The current security situation is complex. For JSDF, operations are conducted cross-domain. Every domain is involved in these operations. So, the air domain, maritime, ground domain, cyber domain and sometimes space domain are involved in operations — very complex. Joint exercises help us achieve the goal of cooperating and enable our forces to conduct combined operations. In conducting HADR [during RIMPAC], we conducted operations with joint and combined forces in our headquarters. 

O’Grady: One of the other great things about RIMPAC is I have met people on ships and aircrews, who I will then see again soon for exercise Kakadu 2022, which is being held in [September 2022 in Australia]. It is also a large-scale multinational exercise — not of the same scale as RIMPAC, but it includes some of our other partners from Southwest Pacific nations, allowing us to continue building our relationship that we renewed or started at RIMPAC into another environment. That’s very exciting.

FORUM: How do these events help deter evolving threats in the Indo-Pacific region?

O’Grady: It continues to build genuine trust as well as interoperability/interchangeability. It provides the human relationships from which trust flows. You can’t buy it. You have to invest in it, and you have to keep investing in it. We had a bit of a hiccup through COVID, when we did a lot via video teleconferencing. But it’s wonderful to come back to RIMPAC and Kakadu and do things face to face again, which is truly how you build relationships. 

FORUM: Any final perspectives on maritime security? 

Hirata: We always attempt to realize a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. Opportunities such as this exercise to work together and share a common understanding of maritime security are important to ensure a free and open region. It is also very important to achieve interchangeability and interoperability.

FORUM: Would you like to see any changes to RIMPAC?

O’Grady: RIMPAC provides an amazing world-class training environment hosted by the U.S. Navy, and we are very lucky to be here. But it does take us a very long time to get here and get home. It is sometimes challenging to get the right sustainment of forces, and the ability for all the partner nations to commit the forces that they would desire. That is just the tyranny of distance, and sometimes dealing with the tyranny of distance is dealing with the size and scale of the Indo-Pacific region. So even getting to and from Hawaii is part of the adventure as well.