US commander warns of China, Russia, North Korea ‘troublemakers’
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Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, has referred to China, Russia and North Korea as “an emerging axis of autocracy”.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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HONOLULU, Hawaii – China, Russia and North Korea have formed a “triangle of troublemakers” that threatens to transform the Pacific region, a senior US commander has warned, even as US President Donald Trump seeks warmer ties with two of those adversaries.
Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said the three countries have carried out joint naval exercises of increasing sophistication, alongside technology transfers and greater diplomatic cooperation.
This threatens to transform the Pacific from free and open to controlled and contested, he said.
“We witness an emerging axis of autocracy,” Adm Paparo told the Honolulu Defence Forum on Feb 13.
He said the US sees coordination between the three countries in everything from joint bomber patrols to shared anti-satellite capabilities and advanced submarine technologies.
The US maintains what Adm Paparo called “a generational advantage” in submarine technology, but he said Russia has continued to transfer submarine technology to the Pacific for the past two years.
“They’re becoming more capable in the Pacific,” he said, adding that while Russia has yet to share its submarine quietening technology with China, it is building sensors on the seabed in the South China Sea and beyond to execute more robust anti-submarine warfare.
Adm Paparo’s warnings offered a counterpoint to Mr Trump, who is seeking closer ties with China and Russia and floated the idea on Feb 13 of a three-way meeting
Adm Paparo has previously said he would like to respond to any Chinese military attempt to take Taiwan by turning the battlefield into a “hellscape” with unmanned aircraft, ships and other technology working in tandem.
He said China is working hard on developing its ability to force the unification of Taiwan.
“It’s no longer training – it’s now a rehearsal,” he said, referring to the growing number of Chinese brigades involved in military exercises, up from six brigades in 2022 to 42 brigades in 2024.
The Chinese military’s increasingly complex multi-domain operations demonstrate clear intent and improving capability, he added.
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
By contrast, Adm Paparo painted a stark picture of what he framed as deficient US military supplies, arguing that US opponents see such gaps and are “moving aggressively to exploit them”.
“Our magazines run low, our maintenance backlogs grow longer each month,” he said, adding that precision-guided munition stockpiles sit well below required levels.
China has also upped the pace of exercises around Taiwan to such an extent that it could also prove hard for the US to determine when it had launched an attack.
Adm Paparo, who earlier in February hosted an artificial intelligence (AI) summit attended by defence-tech companies and researchers, said adopting AI could help the US “suss out that kind of warning”.
“I intend for us to lead the way in AI adoption with the best AI tools,” he said, adding that he wanted to “profoundly add” to the number of unmanned systems – such as seabed mines, underwater drones, flying drones and loitering munitions – fielded in the Taiwan Strait but also beyond. BLOOMBERG
