Road Map for Success

Col. Dave Butler/U.S. Army Pacific

The United States Army Pacific’s (USARPAC) Operation Pathways encompasses multinational exercises, rotational deployments and training engagements to maintain U.S. forces in a forward posture, ready to respond to an array of contingencies. Operation Pathways is a cornerstone in reinforcing alliances and enhancing interoperability with key regional partners. By training for humanitarian assistance and crisis scenarios, U.S. and partner forces build mutual trust and ensure seamless coordination during real-world missions.

Given the Indo-Pacific’s unique geographic and geopolitical dynamics, partnerships are critical. Gen. Ronald Clark, commanding general of USARPAC, emphasizes that “partnerships matter, and you can’t wait until crisis to make friends. It’s too late.” Operation Pathways is crucial to ensuring a free, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific, helping partner nations build their capacity and capabilities. That includes developing joint interior lines, access, basing and overflight “so we have positional advantage in crisis or conflict [that] will allow us to deter our adversary, and should deterrence fail, be able to fight and win at a time and tempo of our choosing,” Clark told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a U.S.-based think tank, in March 2025.

Pathways incorporates deliberate sequenced operations, activities and investments to rehearse rapid deployment of command and control, all-domain awareness, force protection, sustainment, and multidomain capabilities to key terrain. This strategic approach allows USARPAC to campaign and set the theater in ways that achieve positional advantage. Operation Pathways creates a consistent presence that demonstrates the U.S. Army’s ability to overcome logistical challenges in one of the world’s most complex operating environments.

As part of the operation’s annual cycle, USARPAC Soldiers conduct more than 50 exercises with about two dozen countries, including the five U.S. treaty allies in the U.S. Pacific Command (US PACOM) area of responsibility: Australia, Japan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Thailand. Multinational drills include Balikatan in the Philippines, Tamiok Strike in Papua New Guinea, Cobra Gold in Thailand, Super Garuda Shield in Indonesia, Yudh Abhyas in India, Keris Strike in Malaysia and Talisman Sabre in Australia. 

The program also enables engagement with nations across Oceania and Southeast Asia. These partnerships are vital to address shared security concerns, build collective capacity and reinforce regional institutions that support long-term stability. By working with a broad range of Allies and Partners, the U.S. Army extends its influence beyond traditional defense relationships, creating a land power network built on trust and interoperability. The increasing scope, duration and multinational participation in Operation Pathways exercises is a prominent trend emerging from changes in the strategic environment. Regionally and globally, countries are expanding their security contributions and focusing on cooperation, including territorial defense.

“Credible, prompt and sustained combat power, visible across the Indo-Pacific region, will deter acts of military aggression that destabilize the region, undermine security, and stability, and threaten the security, freedom, and prosperity of the United States,” Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, Commander of US PACOM, told U.S. lawmakers in April 2025.

Enduring Presence

Operation Pathways began in 2014, when a U.S. Army unit exercised with counterparts from Indonesia, Japan and Malaysia. Formerly known as Pacific Pathways, the initiative united independent exercises into a single, cohesive operation to increase USARPAC’s regional presence and cut transportation costs. The program has expanded to include thousands of personnel from a growing roster of partner forces.

Now known as Operation Pathways 3.0, the program has significantly grown since 2014. U.S. Army I Corps increasingly integrates National Guard and Reserve units to leverage their skills and experience in training with partner nations. Forces rehearse strategic movement, operational maneuver and tactical employment of land forces at size and scale throughout the region’s diverse terrain and over extended distances.

Critically, the program’s enduring regional presence — a key refinement over the years — has nurtured increasing commitment among partners, including investments of time and resources.

Operation Pathways task forces typically are deployed to host nations and regions for 90 days. The extended training is essential to facilitate learning at an elevated level, according to Dr. Michael Krivdo, USARPAC historian. Participants learn about cultural relationships among countries while fostering rapport at the individual and organizational levels. Units maintain those relationships after returning home, Krivdo said.

The sustained presence also enhances the collection of information critical to understanding the operational environment.

“Multilateral trainings paint a picture of shared vision and unity of purpose among participating states to produce an integrated deterrent effect,” Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., then chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said during the Land Forces Pacific Symposium in Hawaii in 2023. “By training together, we are building each of our own capabilities and really building on that interoperability so that, if the need arises, we would be able to work together. The objective is to deter war. Making sure that the world knows that we are working together, we could keep that lethal punch unnecessary.”

Operation Pathways fundamentally is about building trust and long-term relationships. “These partnerships are not built overnight; they are forged through years of collaboration, mutual respect, and a shared vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” U.S. Army Maj. Gen. James Bartholomees, commander of the 25th Infantry Division, said during the Yama Sakura exercise with Australian and Japanese forces in Japan in August 2025. Extended deployments in the region demonstrate that the U.S.’s commitment is not merely a fly-in, fly-out approach. Moreover, they allow the U.S. to support partners in building their capabilities and capacity.

“It is about building trust, fostering mutual understanding, and enhancing interoperability across human, procedural, and technical domains,” Bartholomees said.