Interview:
Major General Gary North

On 30 August 2005, we interviewed U.S. Air Force Major General Gary North about the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) relief efforts in response to the Boxing Day 2004 tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. Maj. Gen. North has been the Director of Operations (known as J3 in military parlance) for USPACOM since July 2004. He is responsible for movements of forces and training exercises of all the U.S. military forces – Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines – in the region in which USPACOM operates (see map on following page). These operations include exercises that promote relationships and interoperability with other countries.

Maj. Gen. North is demonstrably proud of the U.S. military’s contributions to the international disaster relief efforts, and spoke enthusiastically. After the formal interview, Maj. Gen. North took the time to show us a slide presentation capturing more details of the U.S. effort. He talked about contributions to countries other than the three discussed in the interview; for example, the U.S. Navy’s shipboard water desalination capacity of 36,000 gallons per day, coupled with a 90,000 gallon storage capacity (for each of two ships) allowed the ships to essentially flush reservoirs in the Maldives and restore fresh water to them.

Elise Leroux: Thanks for taking the time to meet with us today. The readers would like to better understand PACOM’s involvement in the international disaster relief operations that occurred in the wake of the December 26th earthquake last year and the resulting tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, you were faced with the challenge of making some very quick decisions regarding redirection and deployment of significant military forces to the affected region. Could you please tell us about the decision-making process that resulted in those choices?

General North: To start, I would call the U.S. military’s involvement an initial response phase. In a humanitarian assistance/disaster relief effort, the U.S. military is one component of the U.S. Government’s toolkit. In this case, because we were here in the [Asia-Pacific] region as this disaster occurred the morning of the 26th of December, our initial response was to analyze the situation, determine what we could bring in an initial assessment, and then determine follow-on forces that could contribute to the overall U.S. Government’s disaster relief effort. In the phasing piece of this, our job was to take a quick look at what we could start moving downrange [i.e. to the affected areas] because the tyranny of distance in Asia is large. We were very fortunate to have different capacities in the theater [region] – from our land, air, and naval component forces – and the planning teams that would allow us to measure what type of response would be required. In short, the first several days of our work was to determine what the scope of the disaster was, how we would respond to it, and then to put those pieces into operation to start moving: aircraft, ships, people, and emergency equipment. We correlated work with the governments of the nations involved – in this case Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka – to determine if they needed the military to provide that initial support piece from our total U.S. Government response.

EL: Did you have assessment teams already somewhere in the region?

GN: No, we deployed the assessment teams. Let me just walk through a chronological timeline. When we got the call, we immediately started bringing people into our headquarters here at Camp Smith [Hawai‘i]. Those are called Operational Planning Teams (OPTs): they do an analysis and make a determination using deliberate planning tools and methodologies to determine how best we could shape our response. Part of that initial assessment was to bring small teams together and deploy them as quickly as possible into the affected areas, to make a determination of what exactly we needed. While we were doing that, we had several pre-scripted humanitarian / disaster relief capacities that we started pushing downrange, because we knew that they would need water, we knew that medical and certain electrical equipment would be required, and certain types of initial-response personnel would be required. Then, as they worked with the host nations, our assessment teams were able to help us refine what we could provide in the form of military support in the affected countries.

EL: What were the forces that were deployed and where had they been?

GN: An awful long list of forces deployed, over 20,000 people, lots of equipment capacity. I can give you a list of all of those, but to capture it: we immediately deployed C-130s [large cargo airplanes], from inside the theater, with people and equipment. Those C-130s formed the backbone of our inner theater. From the United States, we started deploying heavy-lift airplanes with equipment that formed the air bridge1 to allow the majority of the heavy lift to be able to be positioned in the theater. As well, we had a Carrier Battle Group – the Lincoln battle group – which was in Hong Kong Harbor, that we immediately gave execution orders to come out of the harbor and steam south into the affected area. And we were fortunate to have an Expeditionary Strike Group which is basically a smaller strike group then an aircraft carrier group, with large capacity for helicopters. They were northeast of Guam at the time, en route to CENTCOM to do a Middle East task and we were able to reroute them into support of the disaster relief effort. These two very capable Surface Action Groups were able to capitalize and maximize the inflow of heavy lift, medical, engineering, and other support that would be required to the disaster.

EL: You’re using the term heavy lift. What exactly does that mean?

GN: Strategic heavy lift would be considered large jumbo jet size like a C-17, C-5: our very largest aircraft in the U.S. Air Force that would allow capacity from the United States to be lifted. We did a lot of lift non-stop by aerial refueling these very large jumbo cargo jets to be able to come as quickly as possible into the theater. The whole goal from the minute we came up in this was to flow as rapidly as possible the resources required to facilitate saving people’s lives. If there was a bumper sticker to this it would be, “The faster we move, the more lives we save.” So that was from our position here, managing it from the headquarters level, is to be able to get the people downrange and the equipment downrange as quickly as possible to save lives.

EL: These were coming from the U.S. mainland?

GN: They came a little bit from everywhere. A large number of the forces came from Japan. They had just returned – some of them – from a disaster relief effort in the Philippines and then some of them – in only 2 to 3 days – turned right back around and deployed south into the disaster relief effort. We brought U.S. forces from Japan, some forces from here in Hawai‘i, forces from the two battle groups – the Carrier Battle Group and the Expeditionary Strike Group – and the right capacity deployed from the United States to fill in as required to bring the right tools that we needed to do our job.

EL: It appears that most of the forces deployed were Naval forces including Marines of the Expeditionary Strike Group. Was this largely due to the proximity or availability or for other reasons?

GN: I guess the answer is yes to all questions. The naval forces certainly played a key role in the effort, but it was a team effort of all of our services: Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Army personnel. The beauty of “jointness” is everyone in each service plays the role handed to them to succeed in the overall effort. We determined that what the U.S. military could provide best to the overall effort was transportation lift. Our goal was to set up effectively what would be the equivalent of a wholesale distribution system. We were able to take trans-shipment of large amounts of equipment, supplies, and resources, and bring them into a central location. We had central locations in Singapore; Utapao, Thailand; Medan and Banda Aceh, Indonesia; and Columbo in Sri Lanka. It does take a large amount of people to run a battle group or an Expeditionary Strike Group. We don’t focus on the numbers of the people involved, but on the capacity that the total U.S. military system provided to the overall effort; the right people to bring in heavy lift airplanes (C-5s, C-17s, and jumbo commercial freighter jets) to bring the supplies to that central point; and then the re-supply effort that was trans-shipped by (fixed-winged) C-130s and (rotary wing) helicopters from both aboard ships and on the ground. In the Expeditionary Strike Group, we brought people that could drive LCACS [high-speed Landing Craft Air Cushions, i.e. amphibious hovercraft]: We were able to take large amounts of shipboard supplies and deposit them directly to the beach. Especially in Indonesia; there were no piers, so we were doing over-the-shore logistics straight from ships directly on to beaches. Helicopters and trucks would take the supplies and redistribute them among the affected people.

EL: Do you feel that current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan significantly impacted the ability of U.S. forces to respond?

GN: No, I don’t think so. This Operational Planning Team initially aligned what we needed to support our overall government effort, and our U.S. effort was led by the State Department, AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and OFDA (Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance). We right-sized what we brought to them initially; I think we hit the mark.

EL: What do you mean by “right-sized”?

GN: We looked at the need and as the need was determined, we looked to make sure that what we brought from the U.S. military fit in with the host nation, who was the lead in the disaster recovery, with the international community, all of the NGOs [non-governmental organizations] in all of the other nations, providing equipment support, people, financial support, and effort. The Combined Support Force was headquartered in Thailand, at Utapao. We had a three-star general in charge (General Blackman); he was a very strong coordinating effort to ensure the U.S. military could bring support that correlated and corresponded with what the other nations were bringing. We all had the right equipment; we didn’t have excess equipment sitting around.

EL: Could you please talk about some of the coordination that was involved working with NGOs and foreign militaries.

GN: When we initially established our command and control structure from the U.S. perspective, we realized that this was going to be a very elaborate response. There was no nation in charge, but we were a coalition of the willing. We had General Rusty Blackman, a Marine Corps 3-star [General] who we designated from USPACOM as the lead. He was stationed at Utapao, Thailand and he had one-star general officers as his subordinates in each of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand. That coordination effort (from our U.S. perspective) allowed our U.S. military to coordinate and collaborate with the host nations and with the U.S. leads in each country, which of course are our ambassadors. That coordination effort facilitated the requirements day to day between all of the relief agencies: the NGOs, the UN, and the host nations. That collaborative effort – where they would meet, design what was required for the day, schedule the flow of supplies and people – worked very well. We all had a common goal and that was to rush relief as rapidly as possible, and allow the nations to set their priorities that we could support for the reconstruction in a longer term.

EL: You think the coordination worked well. Are there suggestions you would have to make it better for a future response?

GN: I think there has been a large amount of lessons learned and after action reports and conferences. This is the largest disaster relief effort in recent history. The U.S. effort to support it, besides the obvious amounts of large dollars, was larger than the Berlin Airlift. It was a huge effort and you always learn lessons from that; how you can do it more efficiently, how the coordination effort could be refined. We learned a tremendous amount, between correlation of the relationships among military efforts of all the nations involved, in correlation with the United Nations’ efforts with the non-governmental agencies that were involved in the support effort. One thing that we really learned is a mutual respect for each others’ capabilities and capacities that we all bring to the challenge. In this case the challenge was a huge disaster relief effort. There will be many lessons learned written about this. We are still reviewing our “lessons learned” today.

EL: Would you talk a little bit please about the process of deciding how long the carrier and expeditionary groups and other military teams like the hospital ship Mercy would stay in the region.

GN: The immediate response phase is what the U.S. military was brought in to do. That short term, the first thirty days, is what the experts will tell you, you really need to be able to do to get life-sustaining emergency relief. We used that as a benchmark. You do that immediate effort, and then the international community comes in as you start working those first thirty days, and determine when the crossover point is when they have built international capacity and you can replace military capacity with long-term international capacity. Thirty to forty-five days was the benchmark we were working from. We worked the inflow and the outflow of our forces so our forces could be replaced by other forces.

EL: How did you manage coordination with DC [i.e. the U.S. Government leadership in Washington, DC] and what was its impact on PACOM?

GN: I would say it was a seamless coordination effort. We all understood what we needed to do in the Washington arena across our interagency; and the question that USPACOM got asked mostly was “What can we do to help?” With a disaster at this level it’s: “tell us what you need and we will provide the support both in the political and military domains to be able to provide the right level of support.” The U.S. military is in a supporting role of our Department of State and USAID and the overall larger U.S. Government effort. From our military perspective at PACOM, we got absolutely flawless support from senior leadership in all areas of government to help us do our job.

EL: What has been the financial impact of future military operations as a result of the cost of Operation Unified Assistance?

GN: I don’t think there is a financial impact to the Department of Defense because when our government responds to this effort, the monies that are executed to the effort are flowed outside of our existing military budgets. I’ll turn your question a little bit and tell you that our ability militarily to support this effort has strengthened the understanding of the military of large-scale disaster relief. We’ve now got a large portion of USPACOM assets who have seen a disaster of this magnitude starting both at the senior staff level all the way down to the execution level. Now we have people that understand disaster relief efforts better and will be able to respond better when there is another disaster somewhere in the world, and clearly there will be. Hopefully we’ll be able to capitalize on the lessons learned.

EL: How, if any, did you see COE play a role in supporting PACOM in the response?

GN: A very definitive role, leadership down into the effort… COE has established itself over a period of time in this region, including contacts. The contacts certainly were very helpful; men and women of COE actually went downrange to support the effort. They were embedded with the CSF [Combined Support Force] staff, with the AID staff, so they were involved in the day to day effort from here at the headquarters all the way down to the field level. Mr. Pete Bradford [COE Director] was involved in our full-spectrum Joint Inter Agency Coordination Group (JIACG) here as the director of that full-spectrum JIACG; very integral to the effort from the day it started until the day that we reduced operations.

EL: You talked quite a bit about “lessons learned”. Do you have any specific examples or specific recommendations for improved performance in another disaster response?

GN: The specifics would cover the spectrum: The capacity for what types of training we can do militarily with our people to a robust opportunity in our routine training exercises. We do have several training venues where we practice disaster response, such as Cobra Gold. The specifics to lessons learned are to be able to analyze the disaster in phases and then determine how we can be better prepared to flow equipment, how we can realign parts of our training to flow the right type of people, from the headquarters leadership into the actual soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines that are doing the relief effort. There is a huge volume of lessons learned, and we hope to capitalize on them in the following months and years.

EL: Is there a mechanism in place right now to ensure lessons that you personally learned during this response will be institutionalized or at least passed along to whomever succeeds you in this role?

GN: Collectively we all learned. As the effort was ongoing we had people whose job was to watch us and to capture the events as they occurred and document that and then review for lessons learned. Our U.S. military has a very dramatic lessons learned program. We have a webpage, Asia Pacific Area Network: http://www.apan-info.net/ which the nations throughout the region are very familiar with. We’ve got several existing programs, one of which is the Multi National Planning Augmentation Team [MPAT]2. It brings together military planners from all over the region to come together to plan for contingencies just like this, so we have a common sheet of music and interoperable processes to deal with events, whether they are natural disasters or contingency requirement planning. MPAT was a huge success because we were able to put together planners who had worked together in peace time in a non-stressful organization and environment; they were able to start talking to each other irrespective of what country you came from or what uniform you were wearing or what language you spoke. They all understood the common goals and efforts to make things work. That’s one of the big lessons learned: you have to prepare for disasters before they occur. When and if they do occur you need to be able to fall into support immediately. That’s the biggest lesson learned.

EL: Do you have anything else you would like to add for our readers?

GN: I would just add that I think we all learned a tremendous amount from the effort that everyone put in, from around the world. A disaster of this scale reminds us of how important it is for our nations to be able to work together and understand our individual and collective capabilities, so that we can all work together to bring support to those that need the assistance and support in times of difficulty.

Endnotes
1 An air bridge is the system of land-based sites at which equipment, materials, and other resources are stationed at intervals along a route.
2 See related article, “Multinational Crisis Response in the Asia-Pacific Region: The Multinational Planning Augmentation Team (MPAT) Model” by Commander Scott A. Weidie, U.S. Navy, on pg. 71.