Integrated deterrence—this is the concept at the core of US strategy in the Indo-Pacific. By bringing to bear, as the 2022 National Defense Strategy puts it, “the seamless combination of capabilities” to deter adversaries, this strategy offers the flexibility required of such an unpredictable and complex security environment as the Indo-Pacific region’s. However, it is geared largely toward defending the status quo. This is an important objective, but if the existing state of affairs is being constantly altered by threat actor then the strategy must also be altered—or at least augmented.
China is fully committed to changing the regional balance in its favor with its continual aggressive tactics in the South China Sea. President Xi Jinping has presided over a campaign of economic coercion, island building, and military intimidation to gain the upper hand against the United States and its allies. Therefore, preventing China’s behavior may require an enhanced deterrence: a broader focus on multiple scope of cooperation with its allies in the Indo-Pacific region. Pursuing more trilateral and multilateral relationships and weaving them into a network with the United States’ existing array of bilateral alliances and partnerships, would further strengthen Washington’s vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific and deter Beijing.
While several nations in the region have mutual defense treaties with the United States, these do not equate to deterrence and are certainly not enough to keep pace with the dynamic regional threat. These treaties promise commitment in times of crisis and conflict, but actions ahead of crisis or conflict are necessary to appropriately signal commitment while developing the theater-level interior lines that a joint and combined force will leverage in response to adversary aggression. This requires broad yet closely coordinated activities between likeminded nations that disrupt adversary aggression across the competition continuum.
The United States has several critical allies in the Indo-Pacific to include Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. The current US strategic concept seeks deeper ties with these allies to tackle the regional and shared security challenges posed by China and North Korea. These alliances are growing more substantive through increased high-level consultations, including recent summits with President Joe Biden and each of these nation’s respective leaders. This substantive growth notwithstanding, an integrated deterrence with multiple trilateral groupings between the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines can offer a comprehensive strategy for managing strategic competition, maintaining peace, and, if necessary, prevailing in a future conflict. A deepened security cooperation framework between these countries. to the level of AUKUS, could be a logical outgrowth of existing relationships and an effective deterrent against China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea.
The United States, Japan, and South Korea conducted the first iteration of a trilateral multidomain exercise called Freedom Edge in June. The inaugural exercise signaled the will of the three countries and tested trilateral interoperability. Exercises like Freedom Edge will help to protect a free and open Indo-Pacific, as well as stability in key subregions like the Korean Peninsula. Whether a crisis on that peninsula, a Taiwan contingency, or conflict elsewhere in the region, a variety of natural multilateral groupings can take shape, involving states within an interest in deterring aggression in each case.
The US-Japan alliance would provide an important unifying factor for multilateral cooperation. Expanding multilateral cooperation nests well with both the United States’ and Japan’s scheme of organizing regional cooperation around the priorities of its alliance. These priorities are all aligned with concrete purposes and could be organized around shared goals. So while even though there may be limitations with possible cooperation between, for example, South Korea and the Philippines, as they face different threats and capabilities among their forces, there remain opportunities for purpose-specific cooperation. Whatever the scope of individual examples of multilateral cooperation, the Freedom Edge exercise as well as this year’s US-Japan-Philippines trilateral summit make clear the value of expanding relationships with the United States and Japan as the core.
As an example of the advantages that would accrue to each individual state by integrating more deeply in this proposed network of partnerships, consider the Philippines. For Manila, the goal should be to assist in maintaining and strengthening a free and open Indo-Pacific and working against China’s challenges in the South China Sea with the United States and Japan. The Philippines’ presence and participation in various multilateral exercises would contribute to deterring changes to the status quo by coercion and force. Washington and Tokyo can continue to share threat awareness and broad strategies along with providing qualitative training and exercises to Manila. This would promote multilateralization and multilayered cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, building capacity and strengthening a collective deterrence and defense posture against China among all three partners.
Existing exercises and other activities provide a useful foundation on which to expand cooperation. The Philippines could improve its interoperability by participating in exercise Kamandag with the US Marine Corps, for example, while the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s participation as an observer in exercise Balikatan could take advantage of Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement, pending its ratification. Balikatan is a joint bilateral annual exercise involving US and Philippines forces, focused on positioning joint forces and command nodes in the First Island Chain, capability development in maritime long-range precision fires, and emplacement of terrestrial-based extended-range intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. What is more, the participation of the Philippines Army in exercises Orient Shield and Yama Sakura would strengthen US-Japan-Philippines trilateral cooperation. Orient Shield is the largest field training exercise between the US Army and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces, exercising high-end defense capabilities, supporting forward posture, and facilitating access and force flow. The annual bilateral command post exercise Yama Sakura continues to mature into a joint, trilateral exercise with growing participation from Australia. This year’s iteration will include a warfighter exercise—which can involve the division level and higher—for the first time, demanding more effort Japanese and US forces to coordinate planning.
Talisman Saber, a joint bilateral field training exercise that provides a venue for US and Australian military forces to focus on high-end combat operations that transition into peacekeeping or other postconflict operations, is a yet another opportunity. The Philippine Army did not participate in last year’s all-domain Talisman Saber, but it would tremendously benefit from taking part in the complex series of training activities, allowing its forces to test combined capabilities across sea, land, air, cyber, and space operations. Just as the US-Japan relationship is an important foundation on which to expand multilateral cooperation, the US-Australia alliance can serve a similar role, in this case enabling the Philippines to improve combat readiness and interoperability with other forces.
Central to the requirements facing the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific, there is a need for coordinating multilateral command-and-control and logistics networks to streamline the movement of multilateral forces between Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Through multilateral exercises, the United States and these four crucial allies can maintain and strengthen a free and open Indo-Pacific against China. Their presence and participation in various multilateral exercises will contribute to deterring changes to the status quo by coercion and force. This is a vital way that these states can share threat awareness and broad strategies, mutually provide qualitative training and exercises, and promote multilateralization and multilayered cooperation. These outcomes, along with the consequent capacity buildup, are a powerful means of establishing and strengthening their deterrence and defense posture against China based. This is how integrated deterrence can be strengthened—by seeking greater integration among alliances.
Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Lee is an Indo-Pacific foreign area officer for HQDA G-3/5/7. He holds an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy and graduate degrees from Columbia University and UCLA.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Spc. Kai Rodriguez, US Army