THE RISING EAST
Training exercise in Asia shows how U.S. can work unilaterally
By Richard Halloran
Korat, Thailand — Behind a striped blue tarpaulin hung to create a makeshift workspace, 26 military officers from 10 countries planned the next phase of Cobra Gold 2004, a multinational exercise.
The officers plotted the withdrawal of combat troops in a five-nation coalition to be replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping force that would maintain a buffer zone between two warring nations in the mythical region of Pacifica.
The planners, huddled around a table to refine briefing slides projected onto an improvised screen, murmured assent after a Singaporean officer suggested moving a time line farther to the right on a graph. An American proposed shifting two graphics showing troop strength to a point earlier in the briefing. Another murmur of assent.
"We work by consensus," said Cmdr. Scott A. Weidie of the U.S. Navy, of a team that draws on the experience of officers who have served in peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Lebanon, the Sinai desert and Congo.
Not everything was settled easily. A quiet debate broke out over whether the handover could be achieved on time.
Said a doubtful Malaysian: "We may need to press for more time at the diplomatic level."
Cobra Gold, and especially the planning team, show that the United States is far more engaged in multilateral operations than asserted by critics who contend that the United States has become unilateral. The exercise began almost 25 years ago with Thais and Americans. Several years ago, Singapore began sending forces, and this year the Philippines and Mongolia joined to bring the troop total to 18,500.
The operation had soldiers and Marines training alongside one another in firing mortars and machine guns, maneuvering in the thick brush of this sweltering plateau in northeastern Thailand, and clearing houses in villages. The Thais taught their visitors how to handle deadly cobras.
At the same time, leaders and staffs toiled together on a complicated operation that simulated separating two hostile nations and working with nongovernmental organizations to care for 400,000 refugees created by the conflict.
In addition to officers from nations in the coalition, others from Australia, Fiji, Germany, Malaysia and Nepal comprised the planning team, labeled the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team, or MPAT.
In addition, Cobra Gold attracted observers from China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
Headquarters for the just-concluded exercise was the sprawling Thai base next to the city of Korat; the base was a staging area for U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.
The planning team was established in 2000 in the aftermath of the peacekeeping operation in East Timor led by Australia. The leader of the U.S. Pacific Command then, Adm. Dennis Blair, and other chiefs of defense in Asia and the Pacific felt the need for a team that could swiftly develop standard operating procedures for a multinational task force.
"When we sat down to start planning, we looked at each other with blank stares," said a Fijian who was there in the early days. "Now we know what we are doing."
A Singaporean agreed: "We are speaking a common language — planning."
Cmdr. Weidie, who heads a small core staff for MPAT at the Pacific Command headquarters on O'ahu, said the program has been successful so far because it is informal, without bureaucratic inhibitions.
Pointing to a thick volume of common operating procedures, he said, "That is not a Pacific Command document but was developed by all the MPAT participants. It is signed by no one and belongs to everyone."
This comes closest in Asia and the Pacific to a security association like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that can pull together a cadre of military planners.
Beyond exercises like Cobra Gold, the planners gather at least twice a year in workshops to hone their skills. The first, in May 2000, included representatives from five countries. The latest, early this month, enticed 25 nations to send officers. Altogether, 31 nations, including several in Europe, have taken part in MPAT events.
Although the United States and other powers such as China, India and South Korea have participated in MPAT events, smaller nations such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Brunei have chipped in.
As the leader of the Pacific Command, Adm. Thomas Fargo, likes to say: "No nation is so big that it can afford to go it alone, and no nation is so small that it cannot make a contribution."
Richard Halloran is a former New York Times correspondent in Asia.
