Common Ground

Forum Staff

The United States and its Allies and Partners are doubling down on efforts to reinforce peace and stability throughout the Indo-Pacific. Collective measures for ensuring a Free and Open Indo-Pacific include investing in secure and resilient technology ecosystems that enhance shared values. The U.S. also continues supporting its Allies and Partners’ defense and security capabilities to bolster regional deterrence and the capacity to resist coercion.

A values-based tech ecosystem

The India-United States Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) recognizes the intersection of geostrategic challenges and scientific advancement as it builds capabilities for both nations.

“We need to work together very urgently to ensure that as the world of technology, particularly, changes and evolves so rapidly that free and independent and democratic nations like India and the United States are the leaders in these technologies, lest … those technologies be used to diminish our freedoms,” Atul Keshap, president of the U.S.-India Business Council, told the Mumbai, India-based think tank Gateway House.

With iCET, launched in 2022, the two nations affirmed that democratic values and respect for universal human rights should shape technology design, development and governance. To that end, India and the U.S. committed to strengthening innovation partnerships in academia, industry, government and defense. Among iCET’s earliest developments in promoting cooperation and bolstering India’s defense capabilities is an agreement between the U.S.-based General Electric’s aerospace unit and India’s state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics to jointly produce F414 jet engines. 

The deal includes a U.S.-approved technology transfer enabling India to produce the advanced engines and contributing to the nation’s domestic capabilities. The move represents “a generational investment in the relationship,” Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow and director of the India Project at the U.S.-based Brookings Institution, said in the public policy organization’s Dollar and Sense podcast.

While strategic trade and technology cooperation have long existed between India and the U.S., iCET creates a framework to collaborate in the defense industrial arena, in research and development, on semiconductor supply chain reliability, and in space advancements — “innovation across the board,” Madan said.

Other iCET provisions call for offering NASA training for Indian astronauts, bolstering India’s commercial space engagement, lowering barriers for U.S. exports of high-performance computing technology and strengthening India’s position in semiconductor production.

In the months after the initiative took shape:

The nations signed a memorandum of understanding in March 2023 on vetting and reviewing recommendations from a semiconductor task force.

The India-U.S. Strategic Trade Dialogue, designed to streamline export control mechanisms, met for the first time in June 2023.

The India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem summit launched in June 2023 in Washington, D.C., to speed co-production and co-development in defense.

SHARED OUTLOOK

Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. launched the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) in 2022. The Quad partners are equipping nations across the region with emerging technology and training to provide real-time information about coastal waters.

“It is focused on bringing practical, public goods to the region — how we begin to build a common operating picture in the maritime space,” Lindsey Ford, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia, said at a 2023 Washington, D.C., forum on Building a More Resilient Indo-Pacific Security Architecture.

Satellite technology offers partner nations a shared bird’s-eye view that can enhance responses to climate change, quicken assistance in humanitarian or natural disasters, and strengthen efforts to combat illegal fishing. Data from commercial satellites, for example, allows users to track ships that have turned off, tampered with or don’t have identification and monitoring systems. “Technology has evolved to the degree that you can’t essentially do these things in the dark anymore,” Ford said. “So this … is just a way of saying, ‘Let’s all see the same thing. Let’s all understand what’s going on so that we can’t have countries who essentially are denying what’s actually occurring.’”

Australia and Japan have led efforts to bolster maritime domain awareness (MDA) in the Pacific Islands through the Forum Fisheries Agency, according to the U.S. State Department. Data analytics company HawkEye 360 said in July 2023 that Australia had awarded it a contract to provide the agency with tools and training for detecting and preventing illegal fishing.

India is building MDA capabilities through its Information Fusion Centre in the Indian Ocean region. Founded in 2018, it aims to strengthen maritime security by creating an information hub to promote collaboration.

Since IPMDA’s introduction, the U.S. has worked with Southeast Asian partners to access satellite data for faster and more accurate insight into the maritime domain, the DefenseScoop website reported.

“We will continue to work with innovators from across the region to refine our approach and develop innovative solutions to the maritime domain awareness issue set, including through holding technology challenges,” a State Department spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

Promoting security upgrades

With its defense modernization plans, the Philippines aims to reinforce deterrence and build on its capacity to resist coercion, particularly in the South China Sea where a belligerent People’s Republic of China (PRC) has targeted Philippine Coast Guard ships, harassed fishermen, disrupted research missions and hampered energy exploration within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The nation is partnering with the U.S., its treaty ally for more than seven decades, to identify priority defense platforms for the next five to 10 years, shared defense investments and institutional capacity-building.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has listed radar systems, drones, military transport aircraft, and coastal and air defense systems as priorities for the Philippines, Reuters news agency reported in 2023. The allies are planning for the acquisition of multirole fighter aircraft for the Philippine Air Force and U.S. assistance in providing Manila with military helicopters. The U.S. Defense Department also allocated more than $100 million in 2023 toward infrastructure at new and existing Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites hosting U.S. troop rotations in the Philippines. 

EDCA locations support combined training, exercises and interoperability between the allied forces as well as the Philippines’ civilian-led disaster preparedness and response capabilities. The U.S. has also committed to complementing EDCA-related and other projects with activities that enhance humanitarian assistance and disaster relief capacity-building, access to safe water supplies, education, health care, sustainable fisheries management, biodiversity conservation and energy security. The pledges came on the heels of a $7.5 million U.S. grant to the Philippines in 2022 to supplement maritime law enforcement and upgrade the Philippine Coast Guard’s vessel traffic management system.

The Philippine-U.S. alliance “is cast in a shared commitment to the post-1945 rules-based global order … that has generally enabled the flourishing of nations and their citizens in peace,” Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said during a 2023 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Shifting geopolitical realities, he said, demand that the allies consider new strategies for the future of a partnership that is “critical to advancing the interests of the Filipino and American people, our shared values and our common purpose to preserve a global order that must remain stable and must allow nations to flourish in peace amidst transformative shifts.”

Support for self-defense

Japan’s defense commitments continue expanding as the nation faces a security environment its leaders have called the most complex since World War II. Tokyo’s security policy cites North Korea’s continued ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development, in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban the programs. In adopting record defense budgets in recent years, Japan also pointed to the PRC’s advancing military capacity and Beijing’s lack of transparency, in addition to its continuing aggression at sea and in the air. Threats of terrorism and cyberattacks compound the need for Tokyo’s expanded self-defense capabilities.

Chief among those efforts, the nation is developing standoff defense capabilities including longer-range missiles, and comprehensive air and missile defense assets. Japan and the U.S. have pledged to cooperate toward that end. Washington has called the step a significant evolution that bolsters alliance deterrence and addresses evolving regional and global security challenges.

U.S. leaders lauded Japan’s plan to double defense spending in the coming years. “I think having a powerful Japan, a militarily capable Japan that has a close alliance with the United States and other countries, will go a long way to deterring war,” Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a visit to Tokyo in 2023.

The U.S. Air Force has deployed MQ-9 Reaper drones to the East China Sea. The newly formed 319th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron was stationed for a year at Kanoya Air Base in southern Japan, deploying to surveil the PRC’s increasing maritime activities in the area. In 2023, the squadron and its uncrewed aerial vehicles relocated to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, where the MQ-9s will have better regional access and more time for intelligence, search and reconnaissance missions, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said in mid-October 2023.

“As the security environment becomes increasingly severe, we will further strengthen the deterrence and response capabilities of the Japan-U.S. Alliance, including intelligence-gathering capabilities,” he said.

Meanwhile, Japan and the U.S. announced that they will collaborate on a landmark missile capability to intercept hypersonic weapons, missiles that can change course during flight, making them more difficult to counter. Japan’s Defense Ministry said development should be completed by the mid-2030s.

Building credible deterrence

The U.S. has maintained steadfast support for Taiwan’s defense capabilities over more than four decades. The PRC claims the democratically governed island as its territory and has threatened to annex Taiwan by force. An abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, an international waterway that is key to global commerce, and opposition to unilateral changes in the status quo guide the U.S.’s “One China” policy. That policy recognizes Beijing as the PRC’s “sole legal government” but takes no position on Taiwan’s status. The U.S.’s Taiwan Relations Act recognizes that any nonpeaceful move to determine Taiwan’s future — whether through force or coercion — threatens the peace and security of the region. Accordingly, the 1979 act requires the U.S. to “make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capacity.”

U.S. military aid to Taiwan has focused on helping the island shape its self-defense capacity, The New York Times newspaper reported. Taking cues from Ukraine’s response to Russia’s unprovoked 2022 invasion, officials have emphasized building a force that could repel attack, even from one of the world’s largest militaries. This “porcupine” strategy aims to make Taiwan too painful a target for invasion. U.S.-made mobile rocket platforms, F-16 fighter jets and anti-ship projectiles like those Taiwan has bought in recent years are best suited for repelling an invading force, The New York Times reported. 

Building on efforts to speed defense procurement for Taiwan, the U.S. in 2023 agreed to transfer $345 million in equipment to the island. In addition to intelligence and surveillance capabilities, the approved transfer includes portable air defense systems, according to The Associated Press, the type of mobile weapons that can support a military tasked with fending off a better-equipped invader. The 2023 defense asset transfer was part of a $1 billion U.S. authorization. The U.S. committed $135 million in grants during the same year for defense purchases by Taiwan. Since 2019, the U.S. has announced more than $21 billion in arms sales to Taipei.

“One of the keys to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is credible deterrence,” Mira Resnick, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for regional security, told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee in September 2023. “Consistent with our long-standing policy, we are laser-focused on strengthening our cooperation to bolster Taiwan’s defense and deterrence capabilities in the months and years ahead. America’s policy has not changed, but Taiwan’s defense capabilities must.”

Diverse needs, diverse solutions

Other collaborations with Allies and Partners in the Indo-Pacific include: 

U.S. pledges to fund projects in Nations of the Blue Pacific that mitigate the effects of climate change, support economic growth and fight illegal fishing, part of a planned $7.2 billion U.S. investment announced in May 2023.

Advancing engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including a fellowship program to provide emerging leaders with education and professional development opportunities.

Working with Australia and the United Kingdom on advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence, autonomous undersea warfare, cyber defense, electromagnetic warfare, hypersonic weapons and quantum computing.

Engagements and exercises to strengthen the trilateral alliance with Japan and South Korea, a partnership that U.S. officials say supports regional stability as it furthers a commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Diverse forms of cooperation in the region are tailored to meet the equally diverse needs of Allies and Partners, Ely Ratner, the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security, said during a 2023 Brookings Institution event.

“This is not America’s vision for the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “It is a shared vision that is articulated by the Japanese, by the Pacific Islands, by the Australians, by the Koreans … of a region that is free and open, that is free of coercion and in which disputes are managed peacefully. It is true that with different Allies and Partners, we have different mixes in terms of the types of engagements we have and the tools we bring to bear. But I think there is very close alignment, and we meet our partners where they are.”