The US Navy plans to revive a tactical formation that will focus on the Indian and Pacific Oceans and work with partners such as India and Singapore to deal with potential contingencies, a senior US naval defense official said.
Kenneth Braithwaite, the U.S. secretary of the Navy or the top civilian official in the department of the navy, made the announcement about the establishment of the First Fleet while addressing the League of Naval Submarines annual symposium Tuesday.
The First Fleet, which will be one of the US Navy’s “numbered fleets” or major tactical units, could be based in Singapore in the long run, Braithwaite said, according to a report by USNI News, the magazine. from the US Naval Institute.
“We want to build a new numbered fleet. And we want to put that numbered fleet at the crossroads between the Indian and Pacific oceans, and we’re really going to have an Indo-PACOM footprint, ”said Braithwaite.
“We cannot just trust the Seventh Fleet in Japan. We have to look to our other allies and partners like Singapore, like India, and actually put a numbered fleet where it would be extremely relevant if, God forbid, we were to get into some kind of dispute, “he said. said.
“More importantly, it can provide a much more formidable deterrent. So we are going to create the First Fleet, and we are going to put it, if not Singapore, we are going to seek to make it more expedition oriented and move it across the Pacific until that is where our allies and partners see that it is the best way to help them and help us. U.S “.
The move becomes important due to the current focus on China’s assertive actions in the Indo-Pacific, especially in the South China Sea. The United States and the other members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (India, Australia and Japan) have said that they are committed to ensuring freedom of navigation and a rules-based order in this region.
The First Fleet existed from January 1947 until February 1973, when it was redesignated as the Third Fleet. The United States Navy currently has seven active numbered fleets. Each numbered fleet has task forces and other units for specific operations.
Braithwaite, who is expected to visit India soon, said he had not spoken to acting defense secretary Christopher Miller about the plan for the First Fleet, but had “crossed all the other t and dotted all the other i” . An unidentified US defense official told USNI News that Braithwaite had discussed the proposal with former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who agreed with her.
During his speech at the symposium, Braithwaite also referred to the Chinese showing “their aggressiveness around the world.”
“Each and every one of our allies and partners is concerned about how aggressive the Chinese have been. I would say with anyone that since the war of 1812 the United States and our sovereignty have not been under the kind of pressure we see today, ”he added.
The United States alone cannot stand up to China and the Pacific nations, and the world must help “roll back militarily and economically if there is a chance that deterrence will work,” he said.
Braithwaite said he would travel to India in the coming weeks to discuss security challenges and how the two sides can help each other.
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