Dustin Walker, a spokesman to Mr. McCain, described the plan in an email as a way to make the American posture in the region more “forward-leaning, flexible, resilient and formidable.”

This is essentially a garbled word salad of Pentagon jargon that emphasizes tactical justifications while omitting any strategic rationale. The reporter gets a bit closer to a clear strategic justification here: “The effort is seen by backers as one way to signal more strongly the U.S. commitment to the region as Washington confronts an increasingly tenuous situation on the Korean peninsula, its chief security concern in the area.”