“An Enviable Position in the Pacific”: An interview with General Xavier Brunson

Dr. Tom Spahr and General Xavier Brunson

Guest host Tom Spahr and General Xavier Brunson, commander of United Nations Command, ROK-US Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea (UNC/CFC/USFK), discuss Korea, the Indo-Pacific, and mission command.

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Dr. Tom Spahr (Host)
Welcome to CLSC Dialogues, a production of the China Landpower Studies at the US Army War College. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or the Department of War. I’m Dr. Tom Spahr, the Francis De Serio Chair of Strategic and Theater Intelligence here at the Army War College and your host for today’s conversation.
This time each year, the Army War College hosts the Army’s annual Strategic Landpower Symposium to encourage professional dialogue on the role of Landpower in modern warfare. The keynote speaker for this year’s symposium is General Xavier Brunson, the commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea, the so-called Tri-Command.
We are fortunate to have General Brunson with us today in the CLSC Dialogues studio. Before assuming command in December of 2024, General Brunson commanded at every subordinate level, including the US Army’s First Corps. Before that, the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, both focused on the Indo-Pacific theater. At the brigade level, he commanded the 525 Battlefield Surveillance Brigade at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
General Brunson is also a proud graduate of the US Army War College. General Brunson, welcome back to Carlisle Barracks, and thank you for joining us today on CLSC Dialogues.

General Xavier Brunson
Dr. Spahr, Tom, it’s it’s great to be with you again and thank you for the opportunity.

Spahr
So, sir, we had the opportunity to speak last year around this time. We did that one on A Better Peace, of the War Room podcast, and I’ll just refer listeners to that if they want more. But, I think it will be beneficial for listeners of this podcast to start with just a description of your command, the Tri-Command, as we call it in Korea. It is unique. And, can you just briefly describe why why it’s a tri-command and how that works?

Brunson
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting as you list out the commands that are the three that are that make up my job. It almost follows the way things would if something broke out. So, you have the United Nations Command, which maintains the armistice that’s truthfully at the front. And should the armistice fail, then you have the Combined Forces Command, which is the ROK-US alliance, and then you have United States Forces Korea, which is a representation of the US’s will to enforce, support, sustain a mutual defense treaty between the Republic of Korea and the United States.
It’s a Joint command. I’ve got a space component, a SOF component. I’ve got an air component, a maritime component. I’ve got a marine component and a land component represented by the only forward station field army in the United States military. So Eighth Army, so that’s what it is and how it functions is it functions as an example. For 75 years, it has stood in one shape, way, or form. And, I think that’s important.

Spahr
Now that’s great sir. It’s for the Army War College. You hit the Joint command. You are the only field army right in the in the in the US inventory. Let’s let’s jump into deterrence, though. So, when we talk about deterrence in the Pacific, that conversation, it also often gravitates towards naval and air capabilities because there’s a lot of blue on the on the map there. But you’re here for the Strategic Landpower Symposium. So, will you explain the role of persistent land-based presence specifically in Korea? And, how does Landpower on the Korean Peninsula deter in ways that the other domains just can’t?

Brunson
Yeah, I think that’s, you know, in my remarks today to the class, one of the things I talked about is Operation Epic Fury is taking advantage of things we’ve already done, particularly in Landpower, to set theaters. If you think about the bases that we’re utilizing right now, those are on ground that was seized by Landpower to establish those bases in much the same in Korea.
When you look at our US Army bases that are forward, where you have Landpower forward positioned, I think a thing that we have to start talking about is what is credible. Do we have credible capabilities forward on that land? And, the United States Army is in an enviable position, more so than other services to have enviable Landpower stationed where it might act in the theater or, if nothing else, provides opportunities for our adversaries to say, maybe not today.
And then, when you look across the region, there’s this woven network of Landpower that exists across the Pacific, that it’s the glue that holds it all together. When you look at 10 of the world’s largest armies, four to five of them sit in the Indo-Pacific, three of them are treaty allies. Those forces are led by army generals. And, those army generals tie that Landpower network together in a way that you will see nowhere else.

Spahr
Many of them graduates of the Army War College.

Brunson
Absolutely. They’re all there in the Hall of Fame.
But, I think that that we oftentimes and as I mentioned to the class as well, we don’t have to give ourselves credit for doing this, but we ought to at least acknowledge that Landpower is the difference for other forces.

Spahr
Yes, sir. I couldn’t agree more. Here at the Army War College. You know, we talk a lot about strategic empathy or the task of understanding the enemy’s perspective. You challenged the audience today in your keynote address to view the competition in the Pacific East up by turning that map 90 degrees to the right, placing Korea right in the middle. And, then envisioning the theater from China’s perspective, can you describe what that perspective reveals to you?

Brunson
Yeah, Tom, you know, it’s it’s amazing when you look at it the other way. Like, I was always one of these people that was like, what are they so concerned about? There’s all kinds of gaps in those islands that they could just drive through, and they don’t have any problem with access to the greater Pacific. Well, they do in their mind, because of capabilities that might be resident on those landmasses and how it might impact their ability to transit smoothly.
And so, when they when they look out from from the east coast of China, what they see is there’s Korea, the dagger in the heart of Asia, there’s Japan again, sort of that shield that’s sort of a backstop, if you will, for them trying and their ambitions beyond that into the South China Sea and then down to their southeast is the Philippines.
And, when you start thinking about things that have been done, like Typhon missiles being in the Philippines, that shuts that area down, you know, there are risks that that they have to take on. But by the same token, we have to kind of look at ourselves and say, well, we’re in a pretty good position right now. You know, you’ve got that triangle that’s together. And, if we can sew that up into a kill web, if we can communicate, if we can see, sense, and understand the right way, what that’s going to provide for us is maybe to never have to go to war, because there’s there’s this palpable thing that exists there in alliance that they just can’t defeat. Now we are able to move into diplomacy. Now we’re able to have economic freedom. Maybe the Indo-Pacific does remain free and open because of just how real that threat could be to an adversary. And, and I think, though, that it starts with looking out and seeing what they see and understanding what they might take exception to and why. It wasn’t the fact that a capability was in the Philippines. It’s what that capability could do that placed them at, you know, considering that to be a threat.

Spahr
So, I want to come back a little bit to the allies and partners, but you trigger me on something there. When you mentioned kill web, you hear that term more and more. Now, what do you mean by a kill web?

Brunson
A web has different anchor points, a kill chain. I just imagine this chain link, this, you know, something that you would lock your bike up with. It’s got a beginning. It’s got an end. You bring it around, you throw a lock on it. The kill web requires others to be a part of it so that you can achieve enviable effects.
Right? You might not be the best sensor. You might not be able to see best. You might not be able to sense best. You might not even be able to act decisively. But, that net brings together a lot of things, right? It changes magazine depth because you can use a variety of different shooters. It changes the way that we understand our operating environment.
It changes the shape of the operating environment. It could morph because we’re not just anchored to a single point. We’re developing this web. There’s efficiencies in that as well. And, I don’t know that we ever think about efficiency and combat, but there are efficiencies there and that you don’t have to do it all by yourself. And, it’s also very phalanx-like, because now we’re standing with someone else to achieve the effect we’re after for those allies and partners.

Spahr
Come into that you talk about. And it’s funny, no matter, you know, no matter what political party’s in power in our country, they all consistently emphasize that importance of the allies and the partners. And, you talk about the strategic triangle there of Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Is there anything else you want to elaborate on on the importance of those countries?

Brunson
Well, I think that what we find is, is that you’ve got three treaties there. So, I think almost kind of like NATO article V-ish. It’s not going to happen in a vacuum. You look at the the volume of global trade that comes through that triangle every day. It’s huge. It’s between 42 and 48 percent of global trade moves through that triangle in one way, shape, or form.
You look at the technological advances that exist in those countries, in particular in Japan and in Korea, the potential for technology to weigh in heavily and change things. You look at the the location of the Philippines where they sit in proximity to, to Taiwan, even. I mean, there’s just so much that’s in there that’s rich. And oh, by the way, you have people who recognize the fact that the problem isn’t an ascendant China. It’s a more militant or military China that’s the threat.

Spahr
Alright, sir, I want to ask you to put your Army hat on for for just just a minute here. The Army is changing rapidly. In fact, the whole world is changing rapidly. But our senior leaders, specifically in the Army, are driving us to move faster through Army continuous transformation. We used to be called Army transformation initiative. Now it’s this continuous transformation. So, how are you executing that continuous transformation in Korea?

Brunson
Just opening our arms. Whether it’s something as simple as an ISV, an infantry squad vehicle, we want those. We’re taking advantage of the fact that there’s continued development of of drones and drone technology that the Army’s working on, whether that be through JTF 401 [Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) 401] or the experiments that are happening across across the Army at some really tactical levels, great things are being done.
We want not only sort of that entrepreneurial spirit to attack those in our units, but we also want to take advantage of the best-in-breed technologies that the Army’s beginning to spiral out right now. And, I think what that affords us is the opportunity to tie in more closely with things the Army is doing, whether that be within our regional sustainment hub, which is a concept that we’re putting forward, whether it’s other ways to to utilize Army watercraft to move things in and around the Pacific as that’s continuing to be developed.
I think that what we have to be able to do is to make sure that we’ve prepared the way for these things to land. And, I think one of the things that we have to do in Korea, you know is, as I talk with the class in challenging assumptions, are we organized the right way right now to accept these new technologies and use them to their maximum benefit for the things that we want to do?
But I think really, it’s taking a look at the leader that the Army has become in this space, in making sure that we are taking best advantage of all that the Army is doing.
About six months ago, we had the Secretary of the Army in Korea, and one of the things that he was really trying to do is find a way to partner with the ROK, the Republic of Korea, on drones. Like, let’s let’s get this foundry in here, let’s build this foundry and let’s start producing drones right now working together. And, so we want to try to make sure that, that we give him, you know, an assailable flank, arable land. Get in there and let’s just start farming. And, so one of the things I would mention to is it’s driven us to try to look at how do we communicate on the peninsula. And so we’re working with Samsung right now to develop a great cloud infrastructure, which will allow us and our allies in the region to communicate in the event of denied, negrated [negated], you know, I guess you’d call it analog communications that we work off of now.

Spahr
Yes, sir. You mentioned a lot of the things I wanted to go after that was that was terrific answer. You mentioned the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 in the Pentagon, and we just did a podcast with them on War Room a couple of months ago. But I’d like to hear your thoughts on how that unmanned aircraft systems are affecting Korea. Do you see a significant unmanned threat from North Korea, and are you confident in our abilities to protect against that threat?

Brunson
I think that there are zones of concentration that we have in Korea. One is our camps, posts, and stations. How do we ensure that they are protected? The next is the demilitarized zone and the Joint Security Area, where I think we would see the first flashes of some of the things that are being learned in the in North Korea’s fight in the Ukraine.
They’re learning how to use drones to target more effectively with their artillery. They’ve got improved guidance systems that they’ve sort of learned (and I would say learned with quotes around it) from the Russians. That makes them more lethal with their systems than they’ve been in the past. How do we counter that? What is our counter, you know, defensive counter air for that?
And, I think that we’ve got to begin to start thinking differently about drones, too, and as we apply them to these zones.
And, so each of those things are going to require different solutions. We’ve got DTRA [Defense Threat Reduction Agency] coming out to Korea to help us to understand the threats. It’s not just nuclear, it’s not just chemical. It’s systems that can threaten us by virtue of what’s being learned in by North Korea right now. Again, you know, in this most recent training cycle, we saw them training alongside drones and artillery.
Well, if you think about what exists now, in the Kaesong Heights, that’s conventional artillery, which could be far more damaging if spotters don’t have to cross the the military demarcation line to get down and spot artillery. You could use drones to do that. How do we counter that in that zone? And then most particularly, you know, I talk a lot about the three kings of posture, protection, and sustainment. Protection. How do we protect our camps, posts, and stations. So, there are a lot of things that are all connected that I don’t want to take the time to develop on our own. I want to take the things that the Army is doing right now and infuse those into our organizations, infuse those into our camps, posts, stations to defend better that we might be able to project power from the peninsula if called on to do so.

Spahr
DTRA being the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, that protection arm of it. I want to latch on to the last of those three kings, the sustainment. We mentioned that twice now. And, in your recent congressional testimony, you spoke a lot about sustainment and the, you know, the increasing capabilities of the Republic of Korea army, the partnership with South Korean companies. And, we talk about sustainment, the defense industrial base, setting the theater all the time here at the Army War College. Can you describe just how that sustainment footprint is evolving in Korea?

Brunson
Yeah. And, so so the concept itself is called a regional sustainment hub. And, I would also highlight the importance of task. You know you have specified tasks. Everybody knows what those are. But sometimes I think you have to go hunt for the work. And that’s what we’ve done here. It’s an implied task that there is going to need to be more than one aperture for sustainment.
If you consider sustainment to be an operation, Tom, well, then an operation can happen from anywhere. And, if we say, well, all our support is going to be in Hawaii or all our support is going to be in Japan, or all our support is going to be, you know, the support area is going to be in Australia. That doesn’t account for the fact that all those could be taken out. And, if you have one more area from which you can divide support, whether it be Class III bulk or munitions or the fixing, which is what we’re really trying to hone in on right now, is to get maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) across domains. Right now, we’re doing it in the maritime domain, and we’ve we’ve seen ships like the Cesar Chavez and others come through Korea, get refit, and look like brand new ships when they come out on the other side. What would happen if we took our land systems and our air systems and were able to do the same thing? You know, the technological advances in Korean industry, the ability to leverage those as well, keeps kit in theater, keeps capability resonant where it needs to be used. That’s what we’ve got to get at.
So, a part of it is sustaining the force with classes of supply that we ought to build stores in the Republic of Korea. Another piece of it is the repair. You know, people think depots, all our depots are in the United States. We’ve got to be able to repair kit in theater so that that capability remains resident. The transit right now to get a brigade onto the peninsula is about 90 days. I would assume that there’s not fast ships to take stuff back. It’s going to be 90 days for it to get back in 90 days. So you’re looking at half a year to get a piece of equipment back into theater again, up to. I’m not a maritime chief or anything like that. I’m not a merchant marine, so I don’t know. But I would tell you, I would rather have something fixed and back in the fight, so to speak, than to be in transit somewhere and us not to have that capability. So that’s what we’re going to continue to push. And it’s even in Class VIII, there’s always going to be a need for Class VIII in a crisis or conflict.
So to that end, what we did was we said we’ve got discretionary funds, let’s get people training with freeze-dried plasma now, and let’s begin to build our stores. That supplies. Absolutely. And we’ve got to do these things. Nobody told us to do. [I] just was sitting with my my J4 one day and we were noodling about, you know what makes Korea unique? Okay. We’re on the Asian continent, the only base that’s such. And, we’ve got access to the entirety of the Indo-Pacific, and we’ve got a capable force. And, if you just leave it to Japan or you just leave it to the Philippines, or if you just leave it to Korea, that’s one thing. That’s a single, singleton, out there alone and unafraid. But, if you bring those things together and even a web, as we were talking about the kill web, a sustainment web that gives commanders options, and you generate this optionality that says, you might have stopped that, but you can’t stop this. And that’s what I want to provide for the INDOPACOM commander.

Spahr
That makes sense. Sir, I want to shift from the Pacific to the Middle East a little bit, where you’ve spent so much of your career. We all have, right? Specifically on Iran. We know things. The focus has moved there. Some some logistics have moved there. Are you concerned about this in your role in the Pacific, and how does the US mitigate some of that surge of energy and logistics in, in that, in that direction?

Brunson
Yeah, I think that what we find here is what people might see as some binary thing going on, US v. Iran, really involves the globe, and I hate to keep going back to things said. It’s almost like I’m quoting myself. Right? But, what I told the class is I never thought I would be thinking about economics, and I do, because I wonder, how does this impact my fuel stores?
How does this impact equipment that’s in transit our way now? How does this impact future joint training that we’ve got planned? And, those might seem like particularly pedestrian concerns to most. But, Korea is about to lead in RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) right now. Does RIMPAC still happen the way that it’s planned to happen due to the conflict that’s going on? Do we have the energy stores resident for competition, crisis, and conflict right now?
And, how do I articulate risk in the aggregation of risk over time to both the INDOPACOM commander to civilian leadership within the department, and if asked, to Congress? How do I articulate that? And, as it aggregates over time, my job is to pass that up to the INDOPACOM commander. But I’ve got to make him aware of this is the risk to mission right now by virtue of what’s being provided to the current effort. It’s never to question what’s being asked. It’s to make sure that my boss is fully witting to its impact on my forces on the peninsula. I think it’s a great exercise, too, in us coming away from what might be seen on the peninsula as a narrow focus, to look more globally at the impacts not only on our on our ally in Korea, but others in the region and where we might be able to help.

Spahr
And, I think that’s so important that we’re looking globally because because if war were to start with one of our peer adversaries, it’s likely to start in multiple theaters at the same time. This is forcing us to think about the risk. And you really described that well. I also love that you went you’ve mentioned all of the instruments of national power. And as a four star, that’s where your mind is. You can’t just think about the military. You have to think about the diplomatic, the information and the economic as well even though you are an expert on the on the military, you have to have some knowledge of the others.
Sir, I want to talk about mission command a little bit, you know, with contested communications, increasingly kind of a baseline assumption. In everything we do now, we see all the electromagnetic warfare in Ukraine and all of the wars that that are being fought across the world. Mission command, it has to be more than just a catch phrase or doctrine. It has to be something that’s instinctual and embedded in our organizations. How do you approach that? How do you instill that within your organization?

Brunson
Yeah. Well, you know, it’s your background being in intelligence. People would tell you, give us a threat picture and they’d leave you to it because you knew more about it than they did. I think that what we have to do is if we can. And I mentioned that threat picture because I think that what I owe to the component commanders within US Forces Korea, what I owe to my ally, what I owe to others in the region as we come together, just had five chiefs from the Five Eyes community. Their chiefs of army were just in Korea to celebrate, you know the battle of I believe it was Kapyong, but they were all there, and they visited the the UN Memorial Cemetery and one of the the only things I wanted them to come away from that with is an evaluation of the threat, an authoritative threat briefing. Here’s what the threat looks like, and here’s what we’re thinking about here every day.
And, I think if I arm my people with that and I can tell them what’s at stake, then they are better able to say, I can inhabit my boss’s intent, and I can fight free, if you will, because I understand the threat. I understand what my boss tells me my role is, and I can go out and accomplish that.
Should I not be able to accomplish that thing? I know I can go back to my boss and he’s going to help me solve my problem. A lot of times we don’t have mission command, true mission command, is because we don’t set the theater of the mind for people. We don’t tell them what’s really important. Here’s the threat picture. Here’s what I expect you to be able to do. And here’s the plan. Mission command requires leaders to have a bias for action. If you have a bias for action, that means that you are contextually sound. You understand the threat. You understand the plan, you understand the boss’s intent, and you’re going to go out and execute that violently. You’re going to execute it violently because there are no more questions. All those things come together to give you the why, the threat picture, the boss’s intent, the plan, your own bias for action. There’s nothing for you to do other than to act at that point in time, and probably a lesser included bit of that is trust. And trust is.
What is that saying? Tom? I know you’ve heard it. It’s it’s built in drips and lost in buckets. Is that the way that thing goes?

Spahr
Something like that. And we talk about how when trust goes up, speed goes up right with it. Yeah. Because. Because of mission command. Yeah. Yes, sir.

Brunson
And I’ve watched people over the course of my career, whether it be General Votel with command and feedback or General McChrystal with establishing commands within commands and ensuring that communications were always flat so that everybody, and he would always General McChrystal would always talk about, if you’re looking for something in the portal, it shouldn’t be more than two clicks away. And, I think all those things engender trust in people. And, I think that oftentimes we leave to others to build the trust that we ought to, when we’re day to day with our friends, partners, and allies. That’s our job. Policymakers are going to do what they need to do to meet United States’ interest. I trust them to do that.
I absolutely trust our civilian leadership to do those things. Our job is to work at that lower strategic, if you will, the strategic military level and focus on those things, focus on human procedural and technological interoperability. Build trust that way, always defaulting to the human in the procedural. Technological people are going to buy what they’re going to buy, but we can do human and procedural to continue to build that trust, to make sure that we’re exercising the right way.
Trust is built on those exercises to ensure that as we continue to develop ourselves, every development that we make in Korea, as it leans into, heavily leans into, and, you know, I’m saying heavily again. So, if there’s anybody from the AR Staff that’s listening heavily, listen into, you know, lean into what the Army’s doing. We want to make sure that we take our friends, partners, and allies along with us to explain and trust. Tom, I can I’m living this every day when I talk to our ally about things that we’re doing and how we might modernize our alliance, things get to be much easier. The example I gave in the talk was I moved the THAAD. I didn’t tell anybody. Their first thought, it’s it’s leaving the country now. I moved it to.

Spahr
Theater Air Defense. They are terrified of losing, of course.

Brunson
But, I damaged our trust. That was the bucket that was just poured out because I didn’t communicate this. And, I’m learning every day. I mean, I’ve been doing this for 35 years, almost 36 years, and Mother’s Day will make 36 years. Right? But, I’m still learning that that the importance of trust. But your question was about mission command.
It’s the trust. I’ve got to trust you to do it. And, then I need you to trust me to come back in if you don’t get it quite right.

Spahr
Yeah. And creating that culture you talk about. And, I heard a lot of that in there. They understand your intent, they can go with it, and they know that you’re you’re going to come in and help when you need them. That’s terrific, sir.

Brunson
That’s that’s, you know, and if you think back to your own experience in the military, your happiest times were when you heard somebody saying, what you know, thus saith Spahr, you know, you go, that’s my dude right there. He’s getting it.

Spahr
Well, sir, we are we are about out of time here. But, I do want to solicit your advice to our students. You know, our students at the Army War College have just over a month left here. And besides, you know, playing as much cornhole in the backyard with their new friends, right? And, spending as much time with their family before they go back out into the grinder of the of the force. What should they be thinking about right now? And, what is your advice to them as they prepare to reengage in this changing Army?

Brunson
Yeah. Stay curious. Stay curious. That’s what’s built here. You become curious. You start reading and listening to things and and forming thoughts. Don’t lose that when you get back out to the field because it’s absolutely necessary. Technology is changing so fast right now that if you don’t keep the habits that you learned here of reading, of studying, being able to express clear thought, you’re going to fall behind and recognize as well build that same cohort.
You know, the seminar, I didn’t think, you know, this is not like some great revelation, but the seminar room is a great metaphor for what you ought to be trying to build once you get back out in the field—get your little tribe together, sound your ideas off on them. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Separate yourself at times so you can think.
But, always come back to that seminar room kind of mindset where, let me pull the folks in here. Now, a lot of folks I just talked to, a few on the outside there, are going out into command, build that seminar room of leadership that’s going to carry you through. Recognize that those seminar archetypes are going to exist out there.
You’re going to run into the jock. You’re going to run into the joint warrior. You’re going to run into the, you know, the the one admin guy that knows everything. You know, those people are always in every seminar. The guy that knows everything, that everybody goes, that dude knows the answer.

Spahr
And, they can make you computer work and make the screens work on the walls. Yes, sir, exactly.

Brunson
He was always in my little, you know, rented flat when I was out here. Like, dude, I need you to get over here and fix this computer now. But but remember the lessons from this place, and I’ve seen it. You know, when I left school, I went straight to Afghanistan. There were 14 or 15 of my classmates from the War College. Not all in the same seminar, obviously, but there were 15 of my classmates that I leaned on and depended on in that year. And, it just made things happen like that. And, we we would always come together, and we would talk about the lessons of the class and what those meant to us.

Spahr
No, I agree, sir. That’s why I joke, a half joke, about saying cornhole with your friends in the backyard. But it’s about building those bonds, not [only] your seminar, [but] your neighbors, the people around you. Because I had a similar experience, went to Afghanistan, and I was picking up the phone and calling my buddy who lived down the street for me, or who was in my seminar or did an activity with you.
Well, well, sir, thank you so much for coming again to Carlisle and to this year’s Strategic Landpower Symposium. Unfortunately, we are out of time. So, I want to say thanks again to General Xavier Brunson for joining us on CLSC Dialogues, a production of the China Landpower Studies Center. And, thanks to all of you for listening.
From the Army War College, I am Tom Spahr.