MEDIA RELEASE

At a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) questioned Admiral Samuel J. Locklear, President Obama’s nominee to be the next Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, about strengthening military alliances with Japan and Korea and safeguarding against pirates that have attacked commercial ships bound for Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China.

A transcript of Akaka’s opening statement and questions for Locklear:

Akaka: Admiral Locklear, it was nice meeting with you earlier this week, and I appreciated hearing your thoughts on the tremendous responsibilities you will assume should you be confirmed as the next PACOM. You’ve shown outstanding leadership throughout your career, including significant time in the Pacific theater.

And I would like to congratulate you and your wife and your family, because your family does support you, and welcome also Pam and Jenny and Jillian to our hearing today.

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Akaka: Admiral Locklear, piracy is one of the problems out there. With the president’s new strategy, the Navy will be forward deploying four ships to Singapore, I understand. The Strait of Malacca is one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, accounting for a third of the world’s trade and half of the petroleum imports of Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and China. The strait is also one of the world’s most dangerous maritime choke points and a hot spot for transnational crime.

My question to you, Admiral, is how do you see our forces working to secure this critical region?

Locklear: Well, thank you, Senator. I have transited the Strait of Malacca on Navy ships many times in my career, and your assessment is exactly right. It can be an exciting transit. It’s a critical choke point, and it can be highly vulnerable to such things as piracy.

We’ve seen obviously over the past number of years the impact that piracy can have in many areas of the world, and that it’s not just located off the Horn of Africa. It’s actually spreading north and have seen it spread north into the Indian Ocean. We’ve seen some instances of it in the South China Sea.

So if you take a look at the rebalancing strategy, I believe that it starts to help us address this in a better way. First of all, it starts to recognize that we do have security interests that aren’t just in the north of Asia and that we have to be aware of. It allows us to partner with our allies and our partners in that region – to be able to better coordinate together – to give us better maritime domain awareness.

You alluded to the possibility of putting some U.S. ships in and out of Changi in Singapore. Singapore is a tremendous partner with the United States and has worked very closely with, as has other of our countries and allies in that region, to be able to provide us collective the ability to have a better maritime domain awareness and a better response capability for anti-piracy activities. And I hope to see that continue and to grow as we move forward with a rebalancing strategy.

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Akaka: Admiral Locklear, the U.S. relationships with Japan and South Korea help to form the basis for regional stability in the Asia- Pacific region. I know that you touched on it in response to Senator Lieberman, but should you be confirmed, what would you like to accomplish with respect to these key allies?

Locklear: Well, first of all, if I’m confirmed, I would like for them to first of all understand that I realize the importance of our alliance and the criticality of our partnerships in that alliance, and the importance of it to the security of the Asia-Pacific region.

Second of all, I’d like to make sure that as we look at this rebalancing strategy that I can properly articulate what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and the benefits of it as it relates to our alliances with those two critical allies.