Japan, South Korea and U.S. unveil new initiatives to cement defense ties
The defense chiefs of Japan, the United States and South Korea used a meeting at Asia’s top regional security conference to announce a series of new initiatives that will help formalize their burgeoning trilateral defense cooperation.
At a gathering on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean defense chief Shin Won-sik agreed to develop a framework to institutionalize trilateral cooperation within the year.
The push comes as fears grow over possible lapses in U.S. commitment to the region should former U.S. President Donald Trump be reelected in November. There are also concerns that political changes in Seoul and Tokyo could scuttle the hard-fought cooperative agreements already reached.
“Domestic politics seem to be the main driver of the timeline,” said Sebastian Maslow, an international relations expert and associate professor at the University of Tokyo, arguing that all three parties are trying to lock in the progress made to keep the alliance network as resilient as possible in the face of potential changes in the White House.
At the same time, officials in all three countries have likely realized that a window of opportunity has opened “that does not come along often,” thus compelling them to act quickly, a former U.S.-Japan alliance manager said on condition of anonymity.
The new framework will include senior-level policy consultations, information sharing, trilateral exercises and defense exchange cooperation, the top defense officials said in a joint statement, adding that they will also rotate hosting a number of trilateral high-level meetings starting this year.
Several of the other initiatives relate to joint military drills, including the launch of the first iteration of the multidomain Freedom Edge exercise slated for this summer.
Asked about the different domains the exercise would be conducted in, a senior Japanese defense official told reporters that a number of fields are possible, including land, sea, air and cyber, but that no final decision had been made.
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