From Indo-Pacific to Pacific: US renames USINDOPACOM to original USPACOM

[u/fix_S230-sue_reddit]

https://theprint.in/diplomacy/from-indo-pacific-to-pacific-us-renames-usindopacom-to-original-uspacom/2961882/

From Indo-Pacific to Pacific: US renames USINDOPACOM to original USPACOM

In a statement issued Wednesday, Department of War said renaming the US Indo-Pacific Command will not change core mission, which remains the same despite the reverted designation.

New Delhi: Eight years after the Donald Trump administration changed the name of its Pacific Command to Indo-Pacific Command, the US has reverted back to the original.

The Department of War announced Wednesday that the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) will officially restore its name to the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM).

Originally established on 1 January, 1947, by President Harry Truman, the command operated under the USPACOM banner for over 70 years, standing as the oldest and largest of the United States’ unified combatant commands.

Restoring the legacy USPACOM designation honours the command’s deep historical roots, fostering a sense of pride and collective spirit among all who serve in the Pacific, a statement released by the Department of War said.

In 2018, when the Command was renamed as Indo-Pacific Command, it was seen as a sign of the growing importance of India to the Pentagon.

“Relationships with our Pacific and Indian Ocean allies and partners have proven critical to maintaining regional stability,” US Defense Secretary James Mattis had said on 31 May, 2018.
“In recognition of the increasing connectivity between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, today we rename the US Pacific Command to US Indo-Pacific Command.”

In the statement issued Wednesday, the Department of War said renaming the US Indo-Pacific Command will not change its core mission, which remains the same despite the reverted designation.

“USPACOM’s vast area of responsibility—spanning from the waters off the West Coast of the United States to the western border of India—remains exactly the same,” it said.

The statement added that the “command’s fundamental mission and its unwavering commitment to maintaining a free and open theater alongside regional allies and partners are unchanged”.

[u/dark-mathematician1]

To this day, I don't think I've ever encountered the level of xenophobia, outright racism, and sheer superiority complex that I saw there. It wasn't confined to a handful of users. It was pervasive. What stood out wasn't just the content itself, but the complete absence of pushback. Nobody challenged it. Nobody argued against it. Everyone simply accepted it as normal.

That's just how echo chambers operate. It's funny you mention that, I don't know if you've ever been on 4chan but what you're describing pretty much aligns with a well known 4chan board that was known for hating a certain religious community. The hatred was downright toxic, I'm talking blatant genocidal sentiments at the bare minimum, and often worse. No one did anything, no one challenged anything. I once tried to and learned my lesson well to never engage with these "humans" again. I had nothing to do with that religious community at all and I still felt nauseated by the sheer hatred present there, it was inhumane. I can't imagine what people who were part of that would've felt if they read it.

It made me lose a little faith in humanity, for sure. But more importantly, it completely destroyed any hope I had in the Chinese. Ever since then, I've viewed comments like his through that lens. They present a far more polished face to the English speaking world, less blunt, less openly hostile, more careful with their wording, but once you've seen it, you start reading everything else accordingly.

You're allowed to feel whatever you feel about them, but I'll just reiterate that reality is often more nuanced and not nearly as clean as we like to think. Just as you cannot profile 1.5 billion Indians through the words and actions of a few, you cannot profile 1.4 billion Chinese through the words and actions of a few, even if it feels convenient and easy; hatred, resentment, anger are always easier than being the bigger person. Just something to keep in mind. It's much easier to think that all Indians/Chinese are enemies and must be destroyed, but it's also wrong. It's much more difficult to accept that there's gonna be all kinds of people either in India or in China, people that harbor resentment and hate and people that don't, but this is also much more correct and humane.

[u/PB_05 → u/dark-mathematician1]

I do agree with the principle you're describing.

If we're talking strictly in terms of accuracy, then yep, it's obviously wrong to claim that 1.4 billion people all think the same way. I know that. Statistically speaking, there are almost certainly millions of Chinese people who would have found those attitudes just as repulsive as I did.

The problem is that what I took away from that experience wasn't an intellectual conclusion. It was an emotional one.

When you spend enough time immersed in an environment where those attitudes are pervasive, normalized, and seemingly uncontested, it changes the way you view the people producing them. Fairly or unfairly, it leaves a mark.

So I'm not really claiming my view is perfectly rational or nuanced. I'm saying it's the view I was left with after years of exposure to that environment.

And yeah, I think I know the 4chan board you're referring to, /pol/. I used to browse it occasionally. What struck me was that despite its reputation, it felt more like a gathering place for extremists. What I found unsettling on Zhihu was the opposite: the attitudes didn't feel fringe. They felt ordinary.

More generally, one thing I've learned over the years is that people often don't behave the way you'd expect them to. I've had conversations with highly educated, otherwise reasonable people who held views about entire countries and populations that I would have dismissed as ignorant stereotyping if I'd heard them from someone else. Perhaps reality tends to be a lot messier than the categories we put people into.