Freedom of the Seas

FORUM Staff

The United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) conducted a regional campaign supporting a Combined Joint All-Domain Operations (CJADO) effort throughout the past year to ensure economic prosperity worldwide via safe, secure and open sea passages.

USINDOPACOM coordinated the campaign with other U.S. combatant commands (COCOM) and like-minded Allies and Partners using routine operations across the globe to demonstrate defense of key chokepoints along sea lines of communication (SLOC). These synchronized multidomain operations employed joint naval, air and ground assets.

“USINDOPACOM remains committed to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, which has historically included defending sea lanes in both peacetime and war,” according to Adm. John Aquilino, Commander of USINDOPACOM.

The U.S.’s Indo-Pacific Strategy affirms the nation “will work closely with like-minded partners to ensure that the region remains open and accessible and that the region’s seas and skies are governed and used according to international law,” providing USINDOPACOM with the mandate to sustain a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. The strategy also directs the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to enhance its capabilities to deter aggression and counter coercion against the U.S., Allies and Partners. The CJADO should be viewed through the lens of integrated deterrence to thwart actors who would diminish established norms and international law. 

The transit campaign effectively assured Allies and Partners that the U.S. will safeguard the viability of international shipping lanes across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, through vital chokepoints stretching from the Malacca Strait and Strait of Hormuz to the Horn of Africa and the Panama Canal.

The U.S. has a long history of supporting the tenets of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and protecting SLOCs to ensure critical waterways remain open for trade and commerce. Freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) are a core component of the U.S. strategy for achieving integrated deterrence. Along with the U.S., many like-minded nations in 2024 continue to conduct FONOPs and reaffirm support for UNCLOS as the legal framework for activities in the oceans and seas.

Potential blockades of vulnerable chokepoints and aggressive claims over territory and resources are not the world’s only maritime security threats. Shipping mishaps, piracy and armed robbery, sanctions evasions, and increasing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing present serious transregional challenges.

USINDOPACOM’s coordinated transit activities in the Indo-Pacific bolstered overall deterrence efforts by demonstrating resolve to maintain SLOCs. In addition, they increased strategic asset rotations to the Korean Peninsula. For example, a U.S. nuclear-capable submarine made a port call to South Korea for the first time in more than 40 years and a U.S. nuclear-capable B-52 landed on the peninsula for the first time since 1988. Both assets were part of USINDOPACOM’s larger transit activities. 

Freedom of Navigation Operations

USINDOPACOM’s CJADO campaign consisted of numerous sequenced operations in specific locations in the region coinciding with initiatives by other COCOMs, including U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), U.S. European Command and U.S. Southern Command, within and near key global chokepoints. 

Various USINDOPACOM components, including Army Pacific, Pacific Air Forces, Pacific Fleet, Marine Forces Pacific, Space Force and Special Operations Forces Pacific, participated in the campaign with Allies and Partners from Australia, Canada, France, India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and the United Kingdom, among others. Participating assets included carrier strike groups, special amphibious units and nuclear-powered attack submarines. B-52H Stratofortress aircraft, B1-B Lancers and fifth-generation fighter jets provided air support throughout the transit campaign.

Starting in February 2023, the U.S., its Allies and Partners conducted these defense operations monthly near major chokepoints across the Indo-Pacific. They occurred close to Western Pacific straits such as Balabac, Korea, Luzon, Malacca, Mindoro, Miyako and Singapore and in key locations in the Philippine, Andaman and South China seas. External to the Indo-Pacific area of operations, this initiative also included chokepoint defense operations in the vicinity of the Suez Canal, Strait of Gibraltar and Strait of Hormuz. 

Keeping these waterways open is vital to regional and global commerce. More than 60% of global maritime freight is unloaded in Indo-Pacific ports, while over 40% is loaded, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 

These multidomain operations employed a multidomain combination of joint naval, air and ground assets, synchronized during a pre-coordinated time window. Subsequent SLOC operations deployed different assets and sets of forces to a sequence of flashpoints. The campaign targeted, for example, a contested area near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea in late November 2023. The USS Hopper, a guided-missile destroyer, asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the South China Sea near the Paracels, consistent with international law, by challenging attempts by nations such as the People’s Republic of China to restrict innocent passage.

“Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for South China Sea littoral nations,” the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement after completing a transit in the South China Sea in November 2023. This is why the U.S. and its Allies and Partners are vigilant in conducting CJADO in the Indo-Pacific, further ensuring freedom of navigation. “The United States challenges excessive maritime claims around the world regardless of the identity of the claimant.”

U.S. forces operate in the South China Sea daily, as they have for more than a century, in coordination with Allies and Partners committed to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific that promotes security and prosperity.

The regular and routine execution of FONOPs supports the long-standing U.S. national interest in freedom of the seas. Through its FON Program, U.S. DOD activities are deliberately planned, reviewed for legal correctness and professionally conducted. In fiscal year 2022, U.S. forces operationally challenged 22 excessive maritime claims by 15 claimants worldwide, according to DOD’s annual FON Report.

International Efforts

Other U.S. COCOMs also conducted coordinated FONOPs in their areas of responsibility throughout 2023. USCENTCOM, which covers the Middle East region, conducted transit operations in conjunction with USINDOPACOM’s efforts and those of Allies and Partners. For example, the U.S. Navy’s USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group transited the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf in late November 2023. “Our passage through this important strait and continued presence in the area plays a critical role in maintaining the freedom of navigation that is key to regional security and stability,” said U.S. Rear Adm. Marc Miguez, the strike group commander. 

The importance of such SLOC operations became readily apparent in the Middle East, especially in the Red Sea in the last quarter of 2023. Through mid-December, Houthi rebels in Yemen had targeted, with ballistic missiles and drones, at least 10 merchant vessels carrying cargo from more than 35 nations, according to news reports. 

To combat the threat, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in mid-December announced the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational security initiative to protect merchant ships in the Red Sea area. Each year about 20,000 commercial vessels transit the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Defense News reported.

“Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity,” Austin said.

“This is an international problem that requires an international solution,” U.K. Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said.

“It’s necessary to increase the presence in the area in order to create the conditions for stabilization, to avoid environmental disasters and also to avoid a resurgence of the inflationary push” that acts of terrorism could have on commodity prices, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in a statement.

A multinational partnership known as the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), which is based in Bahrain, oversees the effort. CMF, which was founded in 2001 with 11 member nations, now includes 39 nations and assorted task forces formed to safeguard the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. 

France, as part of the CMF, began patrolling the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in December 2023. The French Navy frigate Languedoc shot down two drones apparently from Yemen and destroyed a drone that threatened a Norwegian oil tanker. The French Navy said the Languedoc helped protect the tanker from a hijacking.

The CMF established Combined Task Force (CTF) 153 in 2022 to conduct maritime security and capacity building in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Gulf of Aden, according to the U.S. Navy. 

“The Middle East region is dynamic and vast. There’s not one Navy that can patrol the surrounding waters by themselves,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and CMF, said on commissioning CTF 153. “We are always at our best when we are teaming with partners.”

Other CMF task forces include CTF 150, which focuses on maritime security in the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean; CTF 151, which leads regional counterpiracy efforts; and CTF 152, dedicated to maritime security in the Arabian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said.

Overall Campaign Success

The overall CJADO endeavor showcased the ability of the U.S. and its Allies and Partners to ensure free and open economic corridors worldwide and their capabilities to respond expediently when necessary to protect SLOCs anywhere.

The U.S. and its Allies and Partners are operating together as never before to implement their shared security vision globally and for the Indo-Pacific, in particular. USINDOPACOM’s coordinated SLOCs campaign has helped catapult cooperation and interoperability forward in the region.

In December 2023, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. announced a multiyear, trilateral exercise plan and activation of a real-time, missile warning data-sharing mechanism to counter North Korea. Australia and Japan strengthened cooperation with bilateral and trilateral exercises and by integrating Japan into existing Australia-U.S. force posture initiatives.

Meanwhile, India incorporated advanced fighter aircraft and strategic bombers into its exercises with the U.S. to strengthen interoperability and shared efforts to promote stability and security in the Indo-Pacific. The Philippines introduced guidelines to sharpen defense cooperation with the U.S. across all domains. Other bilateral and multilateral exercises continued to expand in size and scope. For example, Pacific Vanguard in 2023 brought together more than 2,000 naval personnel from Australia, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.

The U.S. collaborated with its Allies and Partners throughout 2023 to deliver groundbreaking achievements for peace, stability and deterrence in support of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. USINDOPACOM’s coordinated transit operations will continue to be a vital part of securing freedom and safety of the seas. Its SLOCs campaign represents a decisive milestone for U.S. defense strategy in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.