Guess what PacFleet has today - 194 ships!
Even so, its commander, Adm. R.J. (Zap) Zlatoper, calls it the second largest navy in the world. The only larger one is the entire U.S. Navy of 361 ships, of which Pacific Fleet's 194 are a subset.
The fleets of Russia, Japan, China and the United Kingdom all are smaller than the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Our fleet is supposed to project power over half the world's surface - over the entire Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans and Arabian Sea. On an average day 45 percent of its ships are at sea operating out of bases on the West Coast, at Pearl Harbor, Guam, Japan and in the Indian Ocean, where they help to keep sea lines open to feed Arabian oil to nations throughout the Pacific.
Our Pacific ships include six aircraft carriers, 1,600 aircraft, 40 submarines, and an amphibious landing squadron that includes a helicopter carrier. We have accompanied downsizing with modernizing and still project tremendous fire power.
Conflict is not our No. 1 objective. Deterrence and Pacific area stability are the real goals. Zlatoper says allies throughout the Pacific appreciate this, consider us an honest broker with no territorial ambitions and don't want us to withdraw. Japan pays $5 billion a year to support our presence.
Joint exercises with allies are frequent. They build friendships and cooperation at the same time we show off capabilities that make us a good nation to be friends with. Chile joined in RIMPAC exercises off Hawaii this year with four other navies.
Potential trouble spots could be anywhere. North Korea is a number one worry, but China's ambitions and protecting the Arabian oil routes are high concerns, too.
Japan gets 75 percent of its oil from the Persian Gulf area, South Korea 75 percent, the Philippines 85 percent, Australia 25 percent. We get only 12 percent today but will need 60 percent within 10 or 15 years.
Eastern Americans tend to under-appreciate that two-thirds of the world's population borders the Pacific, that we do more than half again as much trade across the Pacific as to Europe, and that economic growth rates in Asia more than double ours. We already are in the Century of the Pacific.
Asia/Pacific nations have increased military spending while we downsize. The idea of any further downsizing of our Pacific forces seems ludicrous to me.
THE fleet has been involved in 18 support, evacuation and other missions since the Gulf War ended. It supports the present action against Iraq. When China harassed Taiwan earlier this year we sailed ships through the Taiwan Strait and still do occasionally.
Zlatoper works from a desk at Makalapa, Pearl Harbor, that was used by Adm. Chester Nimitz to command the naval victories of World War II. Zlatoper has turned the entry rooms into a museum of historic pictures, letters and memorabilia dating back to before Commodore Matthew Perry sailed to Japan in 1853 and including President Franklin Roosevelt's secret visit to Hawaii in 1944 to confer on how to conclude the Pacific war.
Zlatoper's retirement in November at age 54 highlights a problem connected with just about all our youngish military retirees. They have talents and, in this case, Asia/Pacific know-how that America badly needs and ought to re-engage through civilian connections in diplomacy, education, management or wherever.