RIMPAC exercise wraps up in Hawai‘i

HONOLULU — The biennial Rim of the Pacific — the world’s largest naval training exercise — wrapped up in Hawai‘i last week after bringing together forces from 29 nations with warships, planes, helicopters and troops practicing fighting skills both on land and at sea, as well as humanitarian disaster response.

The U.S. Navy’s 3rd Fleet commander Vice Adm. John Wade oversaw the exercise. In Hawai‘i, Wade is best known for leading the task force that drained most of the fuel from the underground Red Hill storage facility after it tainted the Navy’s water system in November 2021 that 93,000 people depend on.

The facility, which the Navy is currently working to shut down for good, sits just 100 feet above a key aquifer most of O‘ahu relies on for drinking water.

Wade practically went straight from his Red Hill mission, which wrapped up in March, to leading RIMPAC. He said that his experiences at Red Hill were at the front of his mind when he and fellow commanders planned and carried out the exercise.

“We have not been good stewards of the environment, I readily admit that,” Wade told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“We understand that we’ve made mistakes, and so that’s why I’ve made this a key priority. … I specifically went to every partner nation and asked them to ensure that we followed the U.S. federal and state laws, and every partner nation did. And we paid particular attention to everything that we did with hazardous materials, especially the fuel operations and just because I know the sensitivities there.”

The removal of fuel from Red Hill included 104 million gallons transferred onto chartered commercial tankers that ferried fuel to West O‘ahu facilities run by Island Energy Services at Campbell Industrial Park, fuel storage points in San Diego, the Philippines at Subic Bay and Singapore.

It’s part of a “distributed” fueling plan that the Pentagon says, after years of insisting it needed Red Hill, will make military fueling in the Pacific more resilient.

“What would have been done in the past is, you know, a very limited amount of tankers … , (so) you would have seen more ships pulling into Pearl Harbor for fueling from the fuel from Red Hill,” Wade said. “It has forced us to be more mobile in the maritime domain so that we can sustain ourselves for longer periods of time.”

According to the U.S. Navy, tankers at RIMPAC 2024 conducted 118 refueling operations at sea, moving 24 million gallons in total. Wade said a huge part of the emphasis in this year’s training was on protecting the tankers from attacks by enemy ships, submarines, aircraft, missiles and other threats.

“If you read the history of World War II, just as an example, whether it’s (Adm. Chester) Nimitz with the island-hopping campaign, or (Gen. Dwight) Eisenhower following D-Day and to the fall of Berlin, the movement and everything was totally dependent on the supply chain,” Wade said. “You cannot move faster than the logistics supply allows.”

Throughout the exercise, several ships and aircraft from different countries suffered a variety of mechanical problems that sometimes required the help of experts from countries the machines came from — some of whom needed visas to come to Hawai‘i.

“We didn’t have memorandums of agreement between the United States and some of our allies and partners,” Wade said. “So it wasn’t just as easy as, ‘I’ll give you a credit card to pay for the support services.’ And so there was 24/7 dialogue back with the home stations and lawyers involved. And you know, this was in the middle of an exercise.”

But, he said, they found workarounds. This year a team operating 3D printers was able to generate replacement parts for the USS Somerset when it experienced problems.

“That to me is really the importance of resiliency, to be able to sustain ourselves and then conduct repairs while we’re in the thick of it,” Wade said. “Because when someone has to fall out or they can’t do a particular mission, you now need to build an alternate plan. And that was all part of the exercise that we did not simulate.”

A major part of the exercise was the various participants learning one another’s technology and communications systems, and ensuring they can work together in a crisis or emergency.

“Think about a Malaysian ship conducting our harpoon shot synchronized with an Australian ship firing a Naval Strike missile, and then a B-2 bomber that left 18 hours before then conducts their quick strike in quick succession,” Wade said. “The amount of planning, timing synchronization of that is really important. So we were practicing these skill sets that are really, really important in today’s complex operating environment.”

Wade said a major factor in that was also learning the policy limitations of the various participating countries — knowing what sorts of operations their home governments are willing authorize and under what circumstances.

“That is not uncommon in a real-world emergency,” Wade explained. “That’s really important, when you build a coalition, to ensure that everyone is on the same page, or if there’s restrictions that they’re well-known, and then we don’t put those nations in an uncomfortable position.

“We drilled that and flexed that in the exercise.”

While combat has historically been the emphasis of RIMPAC, in recent years, as natural disasters became more powerful and frequent across the region — and as climate change seems likely to spur the continuation of that trend — humanitarian response has gradually become a larger focus.

Commanders from Japan and Chile with experience responding to disasters in their home countries oversaw that portion of the training. State and local emergency agencies also took part in the training, which included lessons and lectures from experts from the University of Hawai‘i, the United Nations and other organizations.

“I’m really pleased with the emphasis that we placed on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. This was the most robust part of our exercise,” Wade said. “I can’t predict the future — nor would I try — with respect to the global security environment. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? But I can 100 percent guarantee that at some point in the near future there will be another natural disaster in the Pacific that may require nations to come together to work together to collaborate to help others and save lives.”

As RIMPAC came to a close Thursday, Wade and fellow members of his command team attended the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Exchange, an annual event hosted by the Navy League of Honolulu.

During a panel with Wade, his deputy for the exercise, Chi­lean navy Commodore Alberto Guerrero, said, “I think RIMPAC is a reflection of how the world has evolved,” noting the growing participation of countries around the globe.

“The Indo-Pacific matters for the entire world,” Guerrero said. “There’s not a single nation that is able on its own to ensure safety for everyone. It has to be a common effort.”

The exercise took place amid a backdrop of regional tensions that seemed to be boiling over. The Philippines, which had planned to send a ship to participate, scaled back its contributions as a territorial dispute with China heated up at home.

Just before the exercise began, members of the Chinese coast guard rammed and boarded Philippine navy boats that were resupplying an outpost on a disputed shoal. The Chinese coast guard members were armed with machetes, axes and clubs, and a Philippine navy sailor was badly wounded in the incident.

Near the end of the exercise, Manila and Beijing reached a preliminary agreement to reduce tensions but already disagree on what they pledged.

Wade told attendees that “everything is inextricably linked to trade and the movement of goods and people, it’s the economic engine that drives our global economy. But it’s increasingly at risk and it’s playing out right before our very eyes, just watching the news in the last couple of weeks in the South China Sea.”

The exercise has continued to draw harsh criticism. This year, activists held a series of coordinated protests in Hawai‘i, San Diego and Washington, D.C., to protest RIMPAC and the NATO summit, accusing the U.S. and its Western allies of antagonizing China, stoking tensions and further damaging the environment with military exercises.

During Wade’s panel at the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Exchange, a group of activists held a sign up in a window behind him that read “cancel RIMPAC.” At that moment, Wade was talking about fuel, and he added, “You can see behind me, there are some critics here, who I respect.”

Wade acknowledged the exercise generates considerable carbon emissions, and added, “There’s research and development ongoing right now for green technologies, but it’s not here yet.”

Wade said that, ultimately, he believes preparing for a conflict is the best way to prevent one.

“I’ve seen some terrible things in my career, in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “I never want to have to deal with that again. Every ounce of energy that I put forth in leading this team is aimed to prevent conflict. … My hope is to allow diplomacy and political leadership to resolve some of the important challenges that face our country and all of our nations here, not only today, for the future.”