Stronger Together
Partnerships are building economies, enhancing security in the Indo-Pacific

FORUM Staff
Sri Lanka’s emergence from its economic crisis demonstrates the growing ability of Indo-Pacific partners to collectively accomplish herculean tasks in short order. The Indian Ocean nation was reeling in 2022 with soaring food, medicine and fuel prices, widespread financial uncertainty, and political disarray when France, India, Japan and the United States rallied to its aid.
With restructured debt, a leadership change, private investments and International Monetary Fund support, Sri Lanka is settling massive foreign loans it incurred after a civil war ended in 2009. “There’s no greater comeback story than the story of Sri Lanka,” Donald Lu, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, said in a February 2024 panel discussion. “They did it with a little help from friends.”
Indo-Pacific partnerships — whether formal, loosely aligned or ad hoc — have flourished in the past half-century. As the Cold War ebbed and globalization took hold, nations realized that collaborating with like-minded countries empowered their individual economies and security. Modern geopolitics is “not a one-on-one game like tennis. Instead, it resembles a complex team sport, where everyone plays a unique role and contributes to the overall team strategy,” Kim Kyou-hyun, South Korea’s former director of national intelligence, said during a June 2024 dialogue on strengthening the Republic of Korea-U.S. alliance.
Partnerships pool resources, encourage a division of labor and play off each nation’s strengths.
The European Union (EU), which has established economic relationships with Indo-Pacific nations that were “unimaginable 40 years ago,” aims to keep the region from returning to a “might makes right” posture, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, wrote in March 2024. Nations coalescing on economic, humanitarian, security and geopolitical fronts are fending off that scenario.

STAFF SGT. KEITH THORNBURGH/U.S. ARMY
“We need each other to help stabilize this world,” Borrell wrote. “The challenges we are facing do not allow us any other way than to cooperate closely to help avoid conflicts and ensure respect for international law.”
Military exercises among Allies and Partners fortify efforts to preserve a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. The U.S. engaged in 1,113 bilateral, minilateral and multilateral training missions with regional countries from 2003 to 2022, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank, reported in May 2024. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) participated in about 130 such exercises in the same period.
Released in 2023, New Zealand’s first National Security Strategy calls for a “robust network of partnerships” to uphold the integrity of individual states and improve international relations. Supporting such coalitions is more important than ever, the strategy said.
“Countries in the Indo-Pacific are building more partnerships to maximize opportunities and manage challenges in a more geopolitically contested and geoeconomically complex world,” Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran, a Wilson Center think tank fellow, told FORUM.
Bilaterals, Trilaterals, Minilaterals, Multilaterals
Fifty years ago, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) were fledgling organizations. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation formed in the mid-1980s. Now they are deans of regional cooperation, having gained members and international clout.
The Indo-Pacific has many cooperative bodies. There are bilateral coalitions such as Australia and the Philippines; trilaterals including India, Japan and Indonesia; minilaterals such as the Quad partnership, comprised of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.; and larger multilateral groups. ASEAN has 10 member nations. PIF, which gives voice to Blue Pacific states scattered across thousands of Pacific Ocean kilometers, has 18 members. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, a Kathmandu, Nepal-based union of South Asian states, has eight.
Allies and Partners rally in times of crisis, whether an earthquake in Japan, a landslide in Papua New Guinea or the economic crisis in Sri Lanka.

The regional groups vary in scope, with smaller coalitions often more targeted. Bilateral, trilateral and minilateral partnerships are prompting traditional multilateral groups to reconsider their missions. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim dubbed it the “age of flux.”
Today’s partnerships increasingly strive to institute policies and elicit results. “It’s important to remember that every time that we come out here, we’re not just coming out to conduct meetings,” then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore in June 2024. “We’re actually getting things done.”
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, in a speech at London’s Kings College in January 2023, noted Australia became ASEAN’s first dialogue partner in 1974, seven years after the group formed. Much has changed. “As security and economic dynamics that have held for decades are shifting, the strategic environment is changing,” Wong said. “We all have a role to play in this reshaping.”
Common interests are wide-ranging, she said: climate, infrastructure, food security, economic development, opportunity and resilience. Challenges can be collectively addressed while respecting each nation’s sovereignty. “We all seek partnerships that are transparent, that create economic and social value,” she said.
There are many reasons why partnerships have flourished in the past five decades,
Dr. Al Oehlers, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, told FORUM. Globalization, which expanded in the 1980s, promoted increasing connectedness and interdependence of world cultures and economies. Improved communication and transportation systems, along with the prohibitive cost of confrontations, helped fuel a transition. “We all share the same sorts of problems, and it’s more effective to address them together,” he said.
The Partnerships
Among the Indo-Pacific coalitions and partnerships notable for their longevity, effectiveness and signature attributes:
ASEAN: Supporters say a laissez-faire approach is well suited to this diverse grouping of Southeast Asian nations, which features wide-ranging forms of government and external allegiances, and serves as a hub for diplomacy. Comprised of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the coalition formed in 1967 to address economic and security issues.
PIF: Its members — 16 island nations and two French territories — amplify their voices by communicating internationally through this collective vehicle, founded in 1971. “It provides a position of strength from which smaller Pacific nations can interact with larger partners,” the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies stated. Rising seas and increasingly intense storms are the PIF’s top existential concerns.
The Quad: Initially formed in response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the informal partnership regrouped in the 2020s to confront Indo-Pacific economic, humanitarian and security issues. The PRC’s repeated disregard for international law has helped unite the Quad’s four robust democracies and economic powerhouses. Recently the Quad has focused on critical and emerging technologies.
AUKUS: Launched in 2021, this security partnership of Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. promotes a Free and Open Indo-Pacific that is secure and stable. The partnership will design, build and launch conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. Meanwhile, it will advance other capabilities such as quantum technology; artificial intelligence and autonomy; hypersonic and counter-hypersonic weapons; electronic warfare; and cyber defense.

Military Exercises
A leap in the number and complexity of armed forces training engagements reflects the growth of Indo-Pacific partnerships. A goal is to fashion allied and partner militaries into interoperable forces through classroom instruction, exchanges of expertise, field training, command and control simulations, and live-fire drills. Participants and observers note an increasing demand for multinational exercises.
Practicing moving troops and equipment throughout a given theater provides immense value, said Australian Army Lt. Col. Michael Henderson, commanding officer of the 1st Armoured Regiment and Australia’s contingent commander for the Super Garuda Shield exercise in Indonesia in 2023. “That’s one of the major objectives for us as the Australian Defence Force, just to demonstrate our ability and willingness to project credible combat force up in this region and to be able to do so with Partners and Allies,” Henderson said in a U.S. Department of Defense statement.
The 2024 Super Garuda Shield featured 10 participating and 12 observer nations. Indonesian and U.S. troops were joined by personnel from Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United Kingdom, totaling about 5,500 service members. Maj. Carl Schroeder, commander of the British Army’s B Company, stationed in Brunei, told FORUM that the multinational exercise enhances each unit’s understanding of other militaries. “It’s about forming those relationships now,” he said, “so that in the future, we can just pick up the phone, call people in different countries, and say, ‘How can we help you?’”
Expanding military exercises reveal logistical challenges that help forces fine-tune their preparations for warfare or to render humanitarian aid. Great stretches of ocean between Indo-Pacific nations add complexity when moving personnel and equipment, for example. “If you can just think about the expansive nature of movement and maneuver, and the logistics required to tie all that together, it is extraordinary what we do out here,” Flynn told National Defense magazine in May 2024.
Multinational exercises have expanded to include advanced technologies. For instance, military personnel from dozens of nations trained in space domain capabilities, as well as those for land and air, at exercise Cobra Gold 2024 in Thailand. Exercise Keen Edge 2024 in Japan also expanded all-domain collaboration by practicing synchronization with U.S. Space Command and U.S. Cyber Command. Such exercises prepare forces to operate in largely untapped domains, the U.S. Space Force reported.
Priorities have changed for the U.S. and its Allies and Partners since the Cold War ended in 1991, and military exercises have followed suit, the IISS reported in May 2024. Engagements over the past 30 years range from contingencies countering North Korea’s weapons buildup and a potential invasion of self-governed Taiwan to conducting humanitarian missions, bolstering counterterrorism efforts, and preserving freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the think tank said.

PRC Aggression
While Allies and Partners have built results-oriented partnerships, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) assertiveness has heightened anxiety among many of its neighbors, Foreign Policy magazine reported in December 2023. Beijing’s external ambitions and initiatives, along with its relationships with Russia and North Korea, have damaged its reputation.
The CCP is advancing sovereignty and territorial assertions in the region, such as its illegal claim to much of the South China Sea despite overlapping assertions by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. North Korea is similarly pushing U.S. allies in Northeast Asia closer together with its missile and nuclear threats.
Allies and Partners more than ever rely on defense partnerships to contest CCP military expansion and North Korean provocations that violate United Nations resolutions.
Throughout the region, others have rejected or been led astray by CCP initiatives:
Many of the CCP’s loan packages, offered through its One Belt, One Road infrastructure scheme, have saddled nations, including Sri Lanka, with insurmountable debts.
The CCP’s 2022 security proposal for Blue Pacific nations foundered when many of the countries and territories rejected Beijing’s overtures. The Solomon Islands unilaterally signed a secretive security deal with the CCP that “severely tarnished China’s image” because it flouted the PIF’s desire for regional consensus, the Rand Corp. reported.
The CCP’s illegal claim to most of the South China Sea has angered littoral nations with overlapping territorial claims. Harassment of Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine and Vietnamese vessels by the Chinese coast guard and maritime militia exacerbate the ill feelings, analysts said.
The CCP’s abuse and repression of minority populations such as Uyghurs and Tibetans as well as its crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong has brought widespread condemnation.

The Future
The U.S., a leading proponent of partnerships, has noted unprecedented progress in recent years, the U.S. State Department reported in February 2024. “Developing our partnerships into flexible groupings and dialogues that are fit for purpose has become an important tool for us to drive concrete results,” the report stated. “We have strengthened our bilateral relationships, reinforced the regional architecture, and pooled our collective strength with Partners and Allies.”
The U.S. opened embassies in the Maldives, Solomon Islands and Tonga in 2023, and Vanuatu in July 2024, and upgraded bilateral relationships with Indonesia and Vietnam to comprehensive strategic partnerships.
Despite challenges and occasional setbacks, “it is remarkable to observe that U.S. alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific are just about the deepest and most robust they have been in all their history,” Foreign Policy noted in December 2023.
PRC actions are one reason for the increase in partnerships, the Wilson Center’s Parameswaran said, but Indo-Pacific states also are responding to challenges to international rules, pressures on multilateral institutions such as ASEAN, and the intensification of trends such as climate change, supply chain shifts and digitalization.
“The proliferation of Indo-Pacific partnerships means we are going to see a more diverse institutional landscape, with a messy mix of bilateral, minilateral and multilateral arrangements where form sometimes follows function and function sometimes follows form,” Parameswaran said.