he Indo-Pacific Unity Allies and Partners Engineer Summit was held for its fourth year at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, July 23-26, 2024. Hosted by the Pacific Air Forces Command Civil Engineer, the summit served as a forum for over 120 engineers from around the world to learn, share their views, and collaborate to advance and maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The summit consisted of two main events: a Key Leader Engagement (KLE) and a Silver Flag exercise. As part of the KLE, senior engineers from 11 nations were able to engage in an in-depth review of current events, best practices to challenges encountered, identify gaps, explore opportunities for mutual assistance, and highlight ways to become further involved and engaged in the future.
The week’s events revolved around leadership, infrastructure, and readiness — with engineers from each respective nation briefing on current projects and methods to enhance efforts in the Indo-Pacific theater.
Readiness briefings focused on ensuring that integrated base response recovery efforts were built upon joint interoperability with allies and partners, while infrastructure briefings centered on setting the theater efforts to build and maintain combat projection platforms in the region.
Allies and partners in attendance included Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom.
Included in this year’s summit was a speed networking engagement, which allowed each nation to provide highlights of their civil engineer capabilities to attendees.
“It’s important to share our knowledge, skills, and capabilities with our allies and partners because we are stronger together,” said Col. Kevin Osborne, PACAF Command Civil Engineer. “When we work together and focus on joint interoperability, we can achieve so much more.”
Although the nations in attendance may have different priorities, there are valuable similarities that can be learned from and built upon.
“Attending key leader engagements is incredibly important for Australia because of the potential of the unknown,” said Royal Australian Air Force Warrant Officer Wayne Wilson. “When it comes to population, we are a small nation, so we rely heavily on our allies and partners to produce necessary responses in the event of threats, conflicts, or natural disasters.”
Throughout the KLE, briefers and organizers emphasized and encouraged the importance of building relationships.
“These key leader engagements are so vital because meeting face-to-face is the best way to get to know one another and understand each other, professionally and personally,” said Japan Air Self-Defense Force Col. Tomomi Hasegawa.
While the meetings, briefings, and equipment demonstrations were crucial to the summit, it was through breakouts, dinners, and general camaraderie opportunities that engineers were able to develop invaluable relationships.
The summit also consisted of a Silver Flag exercise that allowed attendees an opportunity to discuss and participate in expeditionary base resiliency maneuvers and share best practices to ensure airfields can support, launch, and recover aircraft. As part of the multilateral exercise hosted by the 554th Rapid Engineering Deployable Heavy Operations Repair Squadron, more than 70 engineers from seven different countries participated in joint airfield recovery operations at Northwest Field at Andersen Air Force Base.
Discussions and hands-on activities included airfield damage repair operations, small crater repair, fiber-reinforced polymer, a recovery of airbase denied by ordnance demonstration, and a tour of the Northwest Field project.
U.S. Air Force engineers were also able to host their allies and partners on a historic trip to Tinian, part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Located approximately 100 miles north of Guam, the visit to Tinian included a tour of World War II historical sites, a presentation on the clearing of historic airfields, and an equipment demonstration facilitated by the 513th Expeditionary RED HORSE Squadron.
“We were able to see the amazing work the 513 EHRS is doing to clear the runways and restore the airfield,” said Chief Master Sgt. Rob Shuman, 7th Air Force senior enlisted civil engineer. “We’re witnessing history in the making during the Tinian visit, and we’re doing this alongside our allies and partners in the theater.”
The summit not only served as a crucial platform for building partnerships but also highlighted that no country can achieve a free and open Indo-Pacific on its own. “Every country has a different perspective to add,” said Osborne. “We must consider these perspectives as we think, act, and operate differently.”
By promoting regional stability, increasing engineer interoperability, and enhancing partner capacity, the summit played a vital role in strengthening the Indo-Pacific’s defense and security.
