I write this from Papua New Guinea (PNG), where a U.S. Navy humanitarian assistance and disaster preparedness mission, involving 1500 multinational service-members, is currently taking place. Tomorrow I will convene, alongside military chaplains from Canada, Australia, Korea, and PNG, an interfaith dialogue with about 35 local faith actors (LFAs) from around ten different faith communities and faith-based organizations (FBOs). In previous interfaith dialogues I have conducted around Southeast Asia and Oceania, we explored ways that LFAs and FBOs can help address gender-based violence, climate resilience, healthcare and education accessibility, food insecurity, poverty alleviation, and addiction support. Tomorrow, I anticipate the participants will want to discuss the all-too-common violence that took place yesterday, just down the road from my hotel, between two migrant ethnic groups, resulting in four people brutally hacked to death with bush knives. There is no evidence to suggest that opposing religious beliefs are a primary factor in these attacks (PNG is 96% Christian), but there are decades of evidence suggesting the provincial government will ask PNG’s religious leaders to engage as peacebuilders, leveraging their highly respected social status to prevent retaliatory violence. Perhaps tomorrow’s interfaith dialogue, where I will introduce these religious leaders to the United States Institute of Peace (USIP)’s Religion in Conflict and Peacebuilding Analysis Guide, will better equip them for their critical work ahead.
I would not be doing events like these around the Indo-Pacific—what the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps calls Religious Key Leader Engagements (RKLEs)—if I had not read Dr. Douglas Johnston’s seminal work Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft two years ago while studying at Harvard Divinity School. Each year, the Navy Chaplain Corps selects a handful of chaplains to return to school for a second master’s degree, with follow-on orders to a command where we apply our studies. My Master of Religion and Public Life from HDS exposed me to Dr. Johnston’s work, and my tour here in the Indo-Pacific allows me to put his words into action. My personal experiences in this theater routinely confirm Johnston’s findings. United States statecraft often overlooks, or outright disregards, the profound influence of religion in international affairs, a phenomenon Johnston dubbed "the missing dimension." This indifference leads to gaps in diplomatic engagements, and, on occasion, significant diplomatic failures. Yes, the past few decades saw growing governmental recognition that religion is a potent force shaping politics, social attitudes, and policy outcomes globally. Unfortunately, most of those offices/policies no longer exist or are a shell of their former selves. Thus, the religious dimension has nearly gone missing again from U.S. statecraft, and Johnston’s book remains just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.
Enter the Department of Defense
Johnston has often expressed his view that military chaplaincy can contribute to religious diplomacy. In his 2002 article, “We Neglect Religion at Our Peril,” he wrote, “Given the religious component of so many of today's hostilities, a good starting point would be to expand the role of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps chaplains, since they serve the commands that typically are at the cutting edge of U.S. involvement overseas. Their multifaith experience, interpersonal skills, temperament, and education uniquely equip them for the complex challenges of prevention.” Johnston’s words, written three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, proved prophetic because over the next 20+ years, military chaplains were increasingly tasked by their commanders to serve as mediators with local religious and community leaders in Afghanistan and Iraq. But now that combat operations in the Middle East are behind us, how can commanders best leverage our religious liaison capabilities? What does RKLE look like in a pre-conflict period of great power rivalry like the Indo-Pacific?
The Indo-Pacific region has the most significant religious diversity on earth, and is home to the world’s highest concentration of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and folk religions. Therefore, the strategic landscape of this region is a religious landscape, which military planners and warfighters must consider in order to remain relevant. Department of Defense chaplains’ ability to build trust through shared faith and mutual understanding is crucial in Oceania and Southeast Asia, where religion is deeply intertwined with culture and national identity. When I was in Samoa in January, I set up an RKLE with a Matai (chief) to discuss mangrove planting as a way to slow coastal erosion happening in his village. When the Matai arrived at our meeting, by his side was his village’s Feifeau (pastor). They explained to me that the Matai and the Feifeau were the two highest-ranking members of Samoan villages, and it was the two of them together that made all village decisions. Likewise, during a trip to Palau a few months ago, I requested an RKLE with the Palau Women’s Conference to discuss gender-based violence. A few days later, I was notified that the Bilung, the highest-ranking female in Palau’s matriarchal society and a devout Seventh-day Adventist, would be chairing our meeting. She did, and addressed me as “pastor” throughout our three-hour conversation. So RKLEs are more than just military engagements; they are diplomatic activities that can tangibly enhance the stability, sustainability, and security of Indo-Pacific nations. We communicate U.S. national interests and ideals, including America's belief in the democratic value of freedom of religion, which is an asymmetric competitive advantage over Pacific constitutionally atheist influencers like the PRC and DPRK. By increasing LFAs’ and FBOs’ capacity, chaplains help nations better resist adversaries and become stronger partners and allies of the U.S.
Certainly, challenges are commonplace in this work, as preventative RKLE is still a nascent capability. Chaplain Corps-wide RKLE training needs maturation, as does training for our unit commanders on how to best employ their chaplains as religious liaisons. Whole-of-government collaboration, especially between the State and Defense Departments, must be enhanced to maximize the effectiveness of chaplain engagements. Finally, short of increasing the tour lengths of chaplains stationed overseas, an enduring challenge will be the limited amount of time chaplains have to foster trusting relationships with LFAs and FBOs before we move to our next assignment. The reorganization of the State Department and the dissolution of USAID, USIP, and others have created a sense of urgency here in the Indo-Pacific, creating momentum within the Navy Chaplain Corps toward a more robust RKLE capability.
I conclude with one more story from the field. Last year, I was in Vanuatu, conducting an RKLE with a Ni-Vanuatu Christian Pastor on the topic of human trafficking. As we finished, he invited me to attend his church service that Sunday, which I gladly accepted. During the service, I noticed that the worship songs projected onto screens were in both English and Chinese, so I asked the pastor about it afterward. He told me that Chinese laborers attend on Sundays, so he emails them his sermons the night before for translation, and he displays songs in Chinese so they can sing along. What a beautiful example of the soft power of religion transcending national and ideological differences! Department of Defense chaplains are a force-in-readiness, uniquely positioned throughout the Indo-Pacific to partner with this faith community, as well as tens of thousands of other LFAs and FBOs like it across dozens of Southeast Asia and Oceania countries. Religion may have returned to be the missing dimension from statecraft, but Navy chaplains are aggressively working to fill that gap.
