Retiring Gen. Charles Flynn says Hawaii is highly significant amid Pacific tensions

U.S. Army Pacific commander Gen. Charles Flynn retired Friday from the military in a ceremony at Fort Shafter’s historic Palm Circle.

Dignitaries and military leaders from around Hawaii and across the region turned out, watching from under tents as rain poured down and Flynn officially handed command of USARPAC to Gen. Ronald Clark.

In a sit-down with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday, Flynn, 61, reflected on his service in Hawaii, how the military presence in the islands has changed, and warned that the geopolitical situation in the Pacific has gotten more dangerous. He also said Hawaii’s geopolitical significance is greater than it’s ever been.

“Leaders within Asia view Hawaii as a bridge to the United States, a connector if you will,” Flynn told the Star-Advertiser. “And sometimes, although I’d like to think it’s getting better, in our capital and all that goes on with our own nation’s process, sometimes (leaders in D.C.) don’t recognize that Hawaii is a bridge into Asia.”

Flynn commissioned as an Army officer in 1985 as a graduate of the University of Rhode Island’s ROTC program and served in the 82nd Airborne division and the elite 75th Ranger Regiment. After attending the Naval War College in 1997, he arrived in Hawaii to serve in the 25th Infantry Division, where he worked as an operations officer under Gen. James Hill, a time he looks back on as formative.

“He did two tours out of the 25th as a company grade officer to Vietnam,” recalled Flynn. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was very much a proponent about going to neighborhood boards, participating in parades, engaging with the community, doing school fairs, reading with children, cleaning up the North Shore.”

Flynn said, “I think back on that, I remember being a young guy, and you want to train, train, train, train. But at the same time he was really impressing upon us the connection with the local community and gaining a sense of ohana. I think that had a bigger impression on me than I realized.”

Building relationships

Flynn went back to the 82nd Airborne and, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, went on to lead paratroopers in combat in multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He returned to Hawaii in 2014 as commanding general of the 25th infantry division.

After 9/11 the military tightened security at military bases. Flynn recalled that between shutting the public out and years of near-constant deployments, a disconnect had grown between the Army and surrounding communities.

“For those 14 years there was like this separation, and you could feel it,” Flynn said. But he added that “(the unit was no longer) going to the Middle East, so we had an opportunity to get back out into the neighborhood boards, to get back out into the community.”

The unit stayed busy, with troops regularly flying around the region through the Army’s then-new Pacific Pathways program — now called simply Operation Pathways — which focused on sending troops to countries in Asia to train, and hosting their troops as well building up alliances.

It was part of an effort by then-President Barack Obama to make a “Pivot to the Pacific” — a shift of diplomatic and military resources from the Middle East to East Asia as trade boomed and a rivalry with China intensified — though the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and subsequent war to crush the organization significantly slowed the pivot.

After finishing his stint as commander of the 25th, Flynn moved from Schofield Barracks to Fort Shafter to serve as USARPAC’s deputy commander, where he continued traveling extensively in Asia meeting with Asian military leaders — as well as hosting them in Hawaii. Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the Pentagon continued to try to shift resources to the Pacific.

Under President Joe Biden, Flynn continued building on his relationships and experience in the region. Since taking on USARPAC, a major focus for Flynn has been the establishment of the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center, a series of training ranges in Hawaii and Alaska that is used to train U.S. troops for Pacific operations as well as host troops from other countries.

JPMRC has grown rapidly since it kicked off in 2021. In October, 900 foreign service members from 10 countries came to Hawaii to train alongside 9,000 U.S. troops. Flynn said, “I’m exceedingly proud of the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center because there is nowhere between the Rocky Mountains and Asia like Hawaii to protect and defend and ready our forces to do what we have to do with our regional partners.”

But much of the land the Army uses for the range is state land leased to the military. The Army acquired it for a mere $1 in 1964. The leases expire in 2029. The Army is gearing up for negotiations to keep the land in the face of intense scrutiny by state officials, lawmakers and activists. They have questioned the Army’s environmental record and impact on ancient Hawaiian historic sites.

As the Army makes its pitch, it appears likely it will cost it much more than $1.

Flynn said, “Ultimately, what we owe is respect and care; respect for (local people’s) view; and respect for their culture and respect for their sense of value that comes from the aina and caring for it.” Flynn told the Star-Advertiser he believes “there is a way to have a win for the state and a win for the Army and win for the military. There’s a way to do that.”

Flynn has at times been controversial in U.S. military circles for pushing greater involvement of the Army in the Pacific — a region that many see as the domain of the Navy and Air Force owing to the vast expanse of ocean. Critics argue that the Army is taking up valuable funds and resources that could be better used by other branches. Flynn’s counter has that “people live on the land,” which has become nearly a catchphrase.

“The bias runs deep, and that’s largely because we’ve looked at a map and we’ve watched all the movies and it’s all about air and maritime,” Flynn said. “But the reality is, if you want to find out the security situation in one of these countries, get on the ground, drive the roads, go out into the villages, see the people, talk to the soldiers and the people and the local governments, and you will find out what’s going on in that country. Flying over it and sailing by it doesn’t give you the same fingertip feel of what the security situation is in these countries.”

Dangerous days

The Army is ramping up training in Hawaii and across the Pacific at a time of boiling global tensions, as wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East. Flynn said, “I didn’t see this 3-1/2 years ago, but it’s happened and it’s happening. You have a limited regional war in Europe. You have a limited regional war going on in the Middle East, and the pressures associated with those security situations are putting pressure on us in Asia.”

China has been clashing with neighboring countries, particularly the Philippines, over maritime navigation and territorial rights in the South China Sea — a critical waterway that more than a third of all international trade travels through. The Chinese military has built bases on disputed land formations and has attacked maritime workers from neighboring countries to assert its claims. Analysts warn that the outbreak of a conflict in the region could upend the global economy.

Flynn called China’s moves an “incremental, deliberate plan that is insidious in its nature. In other words, it’s corrupt. It attempts to fragment and fracture relationships, and then they have increased the irresponsible behavior of its military instrument to threaten those in the region.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has instructed his military to be capable of taking Taiwan — a self-ruled island democracy that China regards as a rogue province — by force by 2027. Meanwhile, China also has begun joint military patrols in the Pacific with Russia. North Korea and Russia also have tightened military ties, with North Korea providing weapons and even now troops to Russia to aid in its invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. military leaders hope to bolster alliances to deter China from seizing territory from neighboring countries or invading Taiwan. Flynn said, “We have to do everything that we possibly can out here to prevent another regional war from occurring, because that would be a global problem. That would be a global crisis, a crisis, and the scale and magnitude of the damage would really, really create a problem for our freedoms and prosperity as a nation and, of course, as a region (in the Pacific).”

Flynn noted that many countries across the region watching Chinese moves in the area have proactively sought closer ties with the United States. This year dozens of countries teamed up for large exercises in the Philippines and Indonesia.

In the past the U.S. and China also have held joint exercises, both bilateral and multinational. The longest-­standing engagement between the U.S. and Chinese militaries was once the Dis­aster Management Exchange hosted by USARPAC, focused on humanitarian emergencies. It was last held in 2020.

“Those things went away during COVID, and we never rebooted them after that,” Flynn said. “So there’s an example of the loss that came as a result of separation from people, separation even from, I’ll say, competitors or adversaries.”

Flynn added that while reopening those sorts of engagements with China wouldn’t resolve differences between Washington and Beijing, “what I’m saying is that if you’re talking, chances are you’re not fighting. So talking helps.”

“The consequences of this century, the outcomes, are going to be defined by the relationship between the United States and China, and that’s going to be defined out here in this region,” Flynn told the Star-Advertiser. “The importance of Hawaii being a bridge for the United States into Asia and Asia having a bridge through Hawaii into the United States is really important.”