SOFX The Crossroads of Special Operations
“The United States military hasn’t conducted a single combat operation within the sprawling area of responsibility that defines the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) in 44 years. I’m overly fond of pointing out this little-commented-on fact of Indo-Pacific security, because its significance is underappreciated.
The last US combat operation in the region was in Cambodia, in May 1975, against the newly victorious Khmer Rouge, which had recently captured an American-flagged merchant ship, the SS Mayaguez. The forceful US response was a spasmodic demonstration of resolve: a coda to Washington’s humiliating abandonment of South Vietnam and precursor to a more ‘offshore’, less interventionist Pacific posture.”
More by Euan Graham: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-paradoxically-pacific-indo-pacific-command/
