USPACOM will establish and maintain an unclassifed World Wide Web-based information sharing and collaboration network as a means of enhancing interoperability and multilateral cooperation in the Asia-Pacific 

Communicate and share information electronically to facilitate regional understanding, to build confidence among Asia-Pacific neighbors, and to enchance security cooperation.

What Does APAN Do?

• Integrates information to increase multilateral planning effectiveness and interoperability
• Links disaster centers and data sources to speed the flow of crisis information
• Strengthens best practices for cooperative efforts
• Provides technically simple means for the user to access and share information
• Finds paths to existing information sources

Because of it’s unique setup, APAN applies across a broad spectrum of regional objectives in addition to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief:

• Global War on Terrorism – Providing an information exchange portal for the 322 Civil Affairs Brigade for their pre-deployment and training information as they get ready for their tour in Iraq.
  
  
• Peace Keeping Operations – Providing the information portal for the multi-national PKO 05 exercise including interactive exercise development tools for designing the exercise.
  
  
• Homeland Security – Development of a portal for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High Yield explosives information and training for first responders.
  
  
• Interoperability – Providing Joint Interoperability test center applications for regional military communicators to plan for communication assets in multinational operations.

From it’s humble beginnings APAN has become an integral part of PACOM’s objective of enhancing regional security cooperation and looks forward to the challenges of an ever-expanding mission.

APAN's history can be traced back to 1997 when the Virtual Information Center (VIC) was established with the mission of conducting research among public domain materials for the Commander, U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) and his staff.  The assessments generated by the VIC's researchers are disseminated to the headquarter's staff and many other recipients as part of the VIC's situational-awareness mission.

Admiral Blair, the Commander of USPACOM, wanted to exploit the same type of web-based technology used in the VIC to help meet his regional security cooperation initiatives.

APAN was stood up in March of 2000 for the Team Challenge Planning Conference and was featured along with Multinational Planning Augmentation Team (MPAT) during the 2000 Chiefs of Defense Conference in Honolulu as one of Admiral Blairs' most important initiatives.