 Yeah, welcome to think tech Miller military in Hawaii when talking about rim pack That's so what is that rim of the Pacific and it's a military exercise involving dozens of countries and it's happening actually ending Today today We're right about now anyway, and and we have James Dobson He is lieutenant commander in the Australian Navy and if you've never met a lieutenant commander in the Australian Navy You could call him mate So James, it's so nice to have you on the show and I'm so interested in rim pack Um, can't you know rim pack is what about 10 or 12 years older older? So rim pack started in 1971. So we've been It started with a trilateral exercise between Canada Australia in the US And like all things in the military, we decided that we needed to grow And we got a little bit too ambitious in what we wanted to do So from 1974 instead of it being done every year. We went to every two years And it's grown steadily from there, but what I will say is from about 2012 We really opened it up to everybody around the Pacific to fulfill some leadership roles sort of Historically being held by the US So in that sort of 2010 2012 period We were sitting in about 12 countries and from 2012 onwards. We've been averaging mid 20s For the countries that have been coming on and only growing from there So it's been a really interesting to see that growth path Is this ground yet in a leadership position and rim pack? We are so at the moment we've fulfilled the role of the combined maritime forces commander So in effect our one star that we brought out here was in charge of all of the surface units and maritime patrol aircraft for the four weeks at sea Oh marvelous um, you know, you have 26 countries involved This year is that an all-time high? I'm not saying they're all active at sea, you know with um, you know Either ships or aircraft would have you but there are 26 involved some of some of our observer countries, right? Can you give us a smattering of how of how wide geographically those countries are? Sure. So, uh, we have From denmark Is probably our highlight And the uk from that european theater we look at All the way around to our south american countries as well So so we are growing in scale and scope of the countries that we invite And the integration and interoperability that we're really pushing for So it's not just the rim of the pacific countries Nowadays we are really pushing into that Indo-pacific area and up through europe as well Yeah And so oh gee a few questions about just exactly how you do it. So first of all When I when I looked a little on the web, I saw that There were more than there was more than one language involved Because some some of these countries, um either the principles or the observers Don't necessarily speak english or is the whole thing conducted in english? The whole thing's conducted in english, uh, and that's just as a standardized safety language across As you can probably imagine trying to having an english-speaking country Controlling a foreign aircraft and working through the intricacies of those languages Is why we we run the whole exercise as an english-based language That's not to say that we have uh, we don't have other languages here In fact for the first time ever in a rim pack We had the republic of korean navy run our amphibious task group And they bring a lot of interpreters so that nothing is misconstrued And everything's nice and clear and conducted safely throughout the exercise Yeah, they're an active player this year for sure. So is this this group Um, is it fair to say this group represents countries who are either members of what we would consider the west Or friends of the west, uh, you know, how how do you define your invitees? So our invitees or who runs that ultimately rests with the u.s government Uh, and we send out invites for all of those countries that have participated before As we consider them like-minded partners And talking through I guess why we run rim pack and it's all about getting our like-minded partners together So that we can increase our interoperability and through no force or Specific outcome just so that we know that we know how to work together We know what our capabilities are and we know where these countries are best fit So that at a pinch we can come together We know Some key individuals throughout the various countries and we can really put together a cohesive unit Yeah, I'd like to explore two things what you said what one is interoperability. What is that in terms of, you know, the operations the exercises You know the daily Schedule of events in rim pack So helpful us and we we build I'll answer this question I guess in a A little bit of a roundabout way and I'll apologize that it will make sense as we pull through But when we pull the exercise together we go out to the 26 countries What exactly do you want to get out of the exercise? Who do you want to work with what assets are you going to bring? And what are the training outcomes that you really want to get out of this? So my job is to collect all of that information together And then from there we build what the exercise looks like So when we talk about interoperability, it's all about how do these specific countries and these units work together communicate together to conduct serials together be that live fire serials be that anti-submarine exercises any surface exercises or anti-air exercises and who they want to do that with And once we we pull that together we execute it like we have over the past four weeks here in Hawaii And we build capacity for the crews and understanding for the ships and the aircraft and the soldiers and Marines that head ashore so they know how each country works together and how they can fit in And complement the strengths and weaknesses of the other countries that do come along So when we talk interoperability, it's putting all of that together and actually seeing that outcome So but it operates on the assumption that one day These countries may have to work together in a real live combat situation Isn't that the fundamental point? It is in effect that and we we exercise that such that when we do end up coming together If there is an operation or a conflict that we need to fight together with We already have that baseline knowledge And those key pieces or those individuals so we know we can slot in with relative ease together as opposed to working through The normal group think of forming storming and norming When we've got that already Okay, the other thing that caught me from what you said was that that that the the officers The men and women they get to meet each other And i'm reminded of apc ss, which is the asia pacific center for security studies Established by dan in oa some decades ago in waikiki and and what happens there is the do d department of defense Invites people from all over the asia pacific Um, and they go to school together. They have various classes on security and what have you and And uh, they they spend time together They actually live together in various condos around around waikiki with these specific intention They should know each other. They should know each other going forward forever And they should be able to pick up the phone, you know 10 years 20 years from now and be able to collaborate on things Does that happen in rimpac? So we have a really Really unique success story in this particular rimpac So I spoke about australia holding that a leadership role comrade or a grady Was our maritime component commander? He actually went to the u.s. War college with The humanitarian and disaster relief commander admiral rata who's out here at the moment as well and the deputy commander for the exercise a canadian reoval robinson so while uh, I think KSS does a fantastic job. It is a in fact not just the only avenue that we do that. So our Commanders for this exercise have already met each other. They've gone through war college together And they know how to work with each other From previous experience, which is excellent and it makes running the exercise a lot better What we do on the ground however And we spend 10 days at the right of the start of the exercise doing this Is getting all of the ships commanders or the aircraft Commanders or the land component commanders together Introducing them to each other And we do we hold a number of official functions throughout the period A number of training symposiums and safety briefs and they really get to know each other. So If they need something while they're out at sea or or something's perhaps not going like they would Like it to they can pick up the phone and they know who they're talking to And that's very really key in developing those relationships Yes, I think that's exactly what I was what I was thinking of this is really beneficial on that level if no other level um, the the next question that comes out to me is um, you know Having 26 countries out there associated with the united states And including, you know all the the western countries european countries and and uh, australia new zealand, of course Um, you know, it makes a statement. It makes a statement to everyone in the world at least everyone who's watching and a lot of people are watching Um, so what statement is that? Uh, what what what kind of message does this send to? Um, you know the world order so to speak So when we put together impact, um, and particularly as we're developing our scenarios, um, there's no, uh, I guess common enemy or common common opposing force that we're putting it through So there are our op for our opposing force all made up of uh, repack participants so when we talk about Building and putting all of these countries together You're right in the fact that a statement is made but it is more of a general statement about Look at these 26 like-minded partners Who are all operating together and have the ability to be interoperable? And then bordering on at the end of the exercise interchangeable Because ultimately that's where we would like to go that the one-for-one swap these countries that we work so hard to build these relationships with Uh, and to be able to deploy at sea or on land or or in the air with these countries You know every country has its own arsenal its own fleet so to speak of aircraft submarines You know ship surface ships, of course and the technology is not always the same I mean, I suppose the american military industrial establishment would like to You know supply everybody with American things But it isn't like that. I remember seeing a movie not too long ago about french submarines And of course the french always have to do it differently, right? The french the french submarines are completely different than the american submarines And so I imagine that a lot of these countries have equipment. That's really different from the guy next door And from that, you know, you can learn of course you can learn what he has You can learn how to do it better. Maybe take home some ideas about not only the equipment, but You know the technology and the systems. Am I right about that? Um, is that the way it works? So do you ever have equipment envy? at rim back I would say everybody has equipment envy when you look out here at the aircraft carrier and the sheer just size and scope of what The american navy and air force and marines for that matter have put forward to the exercise So personally do I have do I have some military hardware envy for sure? But you raise a really good point in the fact that when we we look through some of the Challenges of pulling all of these countries together And not everything's created equally and not everything's created the same and not everything talks to each other so so building this and building a cohesive Exercise a significant lift goes on all of our communicators and what we call our link picture So our common operating picture operators to push all of that information Out of months the ships in the aircraft Because they don't talk together and sometimes we need pieces of hardware And we offer up Some specific pieces of hardware for the ships so that we can all talk together from both a safety point of view And an integration point of view as well So that that I will admit is one of our biggest challenges putting through the exercise But again, and we held our closing ceremony a couple of hours ago Everybody said that the ability for us to all talk to work off a common operating picture is what makes us interoperable at the end of the day Yeah, well, I mean it's not only the equipment It's the systems and it's the what do you want to call it the Mindset the mindset the approach that the officers men and women Would have based on their training based on their experience in the service of their country And I wonder how that works. You know, you have a certain mindset. It's probably very similar to the american navy mindset And coast guard, that's my affiliation But other countries may not have that mindset they they may look at the whole thing differently Do you find that in rimpac and what do you do about it? Do you do you want them to think more like you? Or do you want them to understand how how you think? Uh Are you are you getting together on the mindset aspect of things? I guess we're all we're all pushing forward And I know I continue to use that the the buzzword of interoperability But from a mindset point of view We all want to be able to work together and get all of our systems connected and working well And the way that we set our scenario up We're all working towards that that common goal of in this case. We're defeating a ryan, which is our fictitious scenario opposing force throughout And it's interesting the various countries that we get in some are more forward-leaning Some are less forward-leaning and everybody's taken on that journey of okay. How does the exercise evolve? What are your individual triggers? For moving forward and then having those discussions at the senior leadership level Which is why it's really important for having a multinational leadership level to find out where everybody's comfortable And then ultimately a decision is made to to move forward from there But the learning outcome particularly at the headquarters level of Where do the countries fit who is more comfortable or not? What are your thresholds for? For moving forward through the exercise. It's a really good teasing of learning outcome For our headquarters staff going forward. Yeah. Yeah, I'm important to understand How the thought process differs from country to country. I mean everybody has the same education Everybody has the same view of the world Either politically or technologically so You mentioned the the brass So who's running this now? I I remember looking at all the reimpacts and you had the you know the Very senior brass the secretary of defense for example was here in Hawaii Is that happening now? Are secretaries of defense coming from various places? And how are they collaborating together as the joint leadership? If you will So the exercise is headed up by commander third fleet by several boil And he is the the overall lead for the exercise He under direction of Avril Papara pacific fleet Puts it all together and I am the person that helps putting it together with a group of 24 25 other people to to pull that through But that's not to say that we don't have some significant engagement from US military leadership So this time out we had secretary of navy come out as well. We've had cno come out And we've had cno's from other countries politicians congressman And staff come out as well. And it's these coincidental Conversations or bilats that are almost just as important as the actual exercise itself For various topics discussed amongst those senior individuals But it does provide a really interesting venue to do that So you mentioned with 24 25 individuals You're actually executing the plan And let me take a moment off and ask you what qualifies you to do that How do I get your job? Did you did you attend anapolis? What happened? So for me, I am a surface warfare officer by trade in the australian navy my backgrounds I've done a little bit of navigation I've done a principal warfare officers course, which for us from a Commonwealth perspective means I can sit down and be a tactical action officer To sit in the operations room and drive the combat system And also then an operations officer after that So my 11 years of experience at sea covers off on a lot of those aspects And then I was I've had the privilege of being selected by australia to come across and embed at third fleet So I live in san diego to be able to put this exercise together And it's been an absolutely phenomenal experience to do that. Is this a prestige billet for you? I think so We went through a selection process to get here. So I would like to think that that was the case But yeah, it's been fantastic. Okay. Wow. I'm excited I mean you said that only a few hours ago there was a ceremony and I recall it was this week It started the program started right back started in early june That's june and july 60 days, I guess and in early august at end So what was the ceremony like a few hours ago where you closed it down? Who was there? What did they say? So we take all of the leadership And all of our senior representatives from the the 26 countries that are here And the the ship's crews the aircraft crews and then the land component that are here And we sit down and we talk through what the highlights have been for the the countries that are here Whether they achieved everything that they set out to actually achieve Noting that it is a significant lift for a number of countries from assets money and people to get here and then any Further shaping that we'd like to do for the RIMPAC 2024 So overall it was a resounding positive Everybody was incredibly happy to be here Everybody achieved what they needed to do And we just have minor tweaks moving forward about how we could make the exercise better for 2024 What I will say though is I expect it to be much larger Noting that we've successfully completed it now here in 2022 And it's that that message that we spoke about earlier pushing through to saying hey, we are doing this again It is back to what it was in 2018 And we invite these countries to bring more people more units and increase that interoperability footprint that we have Yeah, let's talk about 2020 for a minute Um, that's kind of interesting was COVID and it really did change the world at least for that period of time And we all know it changed our lives our businesses. What have you and I guess it changed for impact too How did it change for impact two years ago? It did so we made it all the way through the planning process and we were doing our final confirmatory touches on it When we we got the call look we uh, it's not a good idea moving forward with this because we didn't know what was happening with the pandemic at the time So the decision was made that it needed to be conducted wholly at sea We still conducted it though And of those 29 countries that we had invited 10 cent chips and and units out here To complete bring back because we wanted to send that message that we can still conduct a large-scale exercise Even during a pandemic what that practically looked like We had ships come alongside Basically for fuel and food and stores and then head back to say So no shore liberty or anything like that for for the cruise that we're here, but we still completed a three-week exercise Highly successfully based on all accounts as well. Um, so that's great. Yeah, yeah, and everybody wore masks That's it. That's right So, yeah, I'm touching on that though um So that means that for example ships of the australian navy would have steamed from australia to offshore Hawaii offshore, maybe offshore pearl harbor and stayed there for the exercise did the exercise without without Coming in into the the harbor. I guess they were Resupplied at sea and then they left again. So you never actually touched the wahoo in 2020 Am I right? It wasn't quite that bad We we managed to so the ships would pull in And connect up alongside so that they could get there or their fresh food and and fuel and the like but for 95 98 percent of the crew Unfortunately for them Their their view of of hawaii was standing on the the focus of the ship and taking a photo And and I'll quickly I guess elaborate on that and the difference here When you look here. We are two years later It's been incredibly heartening to see all of these countries come back in to be able to to get ashore to be able to experience what Hawaii has to offer And fully cognizant that we're guests here and we have this enormous footprint that we we impose on Oahu and Honolulu in particular For that sort of six to seven week period It's been really heartening to see a lot of these crews get ashore and enjoy what what this fantastic place that you have to offer Yeah, what a difference between 2020 every two years so the difference between 2020 and 2024 2022 I I can imagine how happy the crew members are to come from Whatever they're coming from and enjoy a you know a tourist destination I'm gonna ask you this and you know when they come ashore. Is there any drinking involved? Um, I'm sure that they're enjoying the sights and sounds of Waikiki And I hope I will admit that Waikiki is enjoying them as well. So as I said, we're guests here And we are on our best behavior But we certainly try to take advantage of the hospitality that you guys have that's great That's really that's part of impact, isn't it? It's the hospitality notion It's the idea of you know the crew having a good time and connecting up with another place another culture And Hawaii which is a very welcoming place as you know So let's talk about the future, you know This is every two years. It will happen again in 2024 As you said, you'd like to have it bigger will it also be led by the Australians? What what's the arrangement going forward? Is there a some kind of rotation going on? And how will it change in in terms of you know the number of ships and the interoperability? So moving forward we we have one final conference at the end of this year And it's to really pick those leadership positions for 2024 Now I can't say with any degree of confidence whether Australia will be in one of those leadership positions or not That's up to Australia to come up with But what we do and why we saw such a growth from 2012 through until now Is that we offer these leadership positions up to countries to any country? We have a graduated process to get through But I would not be surprised if we see some some other countries in those leadership positions Not only because it helps develop our interoperability But they're also skills and takeaways that they get to take home to their own country Is that it's to be able to better themselves as well One thing I will say is so Chile in 2018 held the maritime component commander And and the the skills and the activities that they Under took while here at Rimpack in 2018. They took home and Revitalized and revamped a lot of their their headquarters back in Chile So there's there's a huge return on investment for these countries moving forward So what to see what the what the commander control looks like? I won't be able to tell you until the end of the year in that decisions right But what we will see as I was saying before is that increase Hopefully in the ships in the aircraft and the people that are here Just because we can say that we've done it. We're we're moving forward again And the more ships that we have here and the more aircraft the more complicated it is But the better we become from an interoperability perspective Yeah, you know, they say the military and particularly the navy They're also diplomats. You guys are all diplomats And and just because you you spend 11 years at sea doesn't mean you're any less than a diplomat Look at you here today. You're a total diplomat James. I must say So one one other thing is you know as you as you move ahead With with the with with Rimpack and the number of ships and countries involved That you know the basic direction of the military is better technology Much of which is classified So 26 ships and maybe 30 next time More more technology more classified technology better technology and more people Who you know can observe it and you don't want everybody to know everything So, how do you protect the technology of one country against observation by another in in the context of Rimpack? That's a really good question So what I will highlight here is so for Rimpack 2022 was the first time we had our MQ 9s, which are unmanned vehicles We also had our unmanned surface vehicles as well. And a lot of that technology is in fact classified And and caveated to either us or to a limited distribution out So we get around that or we get through that By what we call white carding a lot of the information. So for a country a country may request an effect or hey Can I get an asset to be able to look at this particular piece of the ocean? Or or try and find this particular unit? And from an MQ 9 perspective We can say yes We can task the MQ 9 to get out there and do that the intricacies of the information that comes through and the Various pipelines that that it takes to get there a transparent to the partner nations that are requesting that Because that stuff holds a security classification. So what we don't want to do is say no, you can't have it We just work really hard Through whole of defence. So all of our departments within defence to get to yes Even if it is just in limited capacity The other side I'll say to that is for our unmanned surface units that we've had out here Even more so So it's asking them and getting information from them A lot of that white card or that that transparency happens in the background But we're still able to protect the sovereignty of the unit that's here or the country that operates it While still providing that information through it too Yeah, one thing that strikes me is This is there's a lesson here and that is not all of high tech comes from the united states Some high tech is developed elsewhere And I know it is developed in australia because the very program that we are broadcasting on Which is called v mix Is a program that's developed and very successful globally developed in australia So we know you guys have information technology and we like it a lot After a global search, we found an australian product that does our heavy lifting. So that's great James stops and lieutenant lieutenant commander in the australian navy joining us today to talk about rimpac Thank you so much. That was very educational and Encouraging. Thank you so much for appearing on think tank Thanks so much for having me to stop and enjoy it so much appreciate it. Aloha Thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo You can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at thinktech hawaii.com Mahalo