Summer with INDOPACOM
About the author: Jenny Forro’20 is an FSI Global Policy Intern at the United States Indo-Pacific Command in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is currently Political Science major at Stanford University.
IndoPacific Command takes pride in the fact that this COcom spans over 50% of the world and is one of the most diverse and populated regions. This also means that the work we do here at INDOPACOM is incredibly diverse, busy, and seemingly never ending. The Asia-Pacific region is emerging as the most significant strategic priority to United States’ national security, so working here feels incredibly time relevant. Every single day an internationally significant event emerges in the region that is important to INDOPACOM. So far this has included events like tracking the Hong Kong protests, India revoking the special status of Kashmir, and North Korea test launching ballistic missiles in response to a joint U.S-ROK exercise. Because my office operates in a synchronizing function, I have gotten rare insight in to how each of the directorates here approach thinking about these current and future events.
Every day I attend meetings with my team that are run by other divisions to hear updates on what each staff section is working on. These can be standing meetings that provide updates on stable operations or more rapid response working groups that respond to a current event which the Commander has deemed a priority. Every week we run an alignment discussion where we discuss current campaigns. Because my team focuses on strategic communications, we ensure that every directorate and stake-holder at the command is aligned in messaging and strategy.
My favorite part of my job is my ability to coordinate and collaborate with so many different aspects of both the Department of Defense and organizations across the inter-agency. This command isn’t just composed of service men and women in uniform but also receives representation and input from the State Department, Intelligence Agencies, USAID, NOAA, and the FBI, among many other government agencies. Because of this cross-agency coordination I was able to partner with the State Department to help facilitate an International Visitors Leadership Program. Government delegates from the Philippines visited INDOPACOM to discuss Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and share ideas for how to counter the issue. I got to sit in on briefings and help organize the event which was a pretty unique experience.
