Adm. Gary Roughead, the new commander of the Pacific Fleet, has some large shoes to fill.

His predecessor, Adm. Walter Doran, leaves the post after a fruitful three years of nurturing what he described to Advertiser columnist Richard Halloran as "habitual relationships" with navies throughout the Asia and Pacific basin.

Now Roughead, who served for five months as the command's deputy commander, faces the challenge of leadership during the continuing transition of the fleet to a war-fighting mission. With mounting tensions in North Korea and other regional hotspots, the nearest American military commander assumes a role of increasing importance and influence in the security of the United States and other nations.

For years, the fleet had operated more as a support engine for other commands and its leader as a diplomat, meeting with heads of state both overseas and in Honolulu.

Those duties remain. But the current mission also demands mobilization to counter terrorism, piracy and other security threats, as well as readiness for combat where more conventional threats emerge.

But as Doran pointed out at an international gathering in Singapore last year, the mission also requires cooperation with "like-minded nations" to counter attacks on regional stability.

In other words, it requires diplomacy. The commander must bring other national military and political leaders into the U.S. fold in order to give international security and peace a chance.

Adm. Roughead's familiarity with the Pacific Command goes back more than a decade, when he was an executive assistant to Adm. Charles Larson, then its chief. In many ways, Larson set the model for this very important and delicate assignment.

Roughead's experience, both during his fleet assignments and his previous tenure as commander of the 2nd Fleet in the Atlantic, surely has prepared him for this challenge. Hawai'i residents should welcome him to the Pacific forces and wish him smooth sailing at the helm.