Global Resilience
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Features
Stronger Together
FORUM Staff Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Col. Ranulfo A. Sevilla, deputy commander of the Special Operations Command AFP (SOCOM AFP), and his United States counterpart, Lt. Col. Vincent Enriquez, Commander of 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), spoke with FORUM during the Balikatan 2023 exercise in the Philippines in April. Sevilla also served as executive director for…
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Features
Unified Resolve
FORUM Staff With the practiced steps of a choreographer, Australian Army Col. Ben McLennan traversed northeast Queensland, careful not to crush the enemy at his heels. Striding across an 8-by-16-meter map dotted with red and blue plastic models of tanks, warships, aircraft and troops, McLennan outlined the unfolding maneuvers of Talisman Sabre to Warrant Officer Ken Robertson, the senior enlisted…
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Features
Ocean of Data
FORUM STAFF | PHOTOS BY INTERNATIONAL MONITORING, CONTROL AND SURVEILLANCE NETWORK Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a global scourge: 1 in 5 fish sold is illegally caught. The Indo-Pacific, with 65% of the world’s oceans and more than half of its population, is rife with fishing operations that damage national economies, push depleted fish stocks toward collapse, harm…
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Features
Framework For Success
FORUM STAFF When back-to-back cyclones barreled through Vanuatu at 230 kilometers per hour in early March 2023, upending homes and downing power lines, the Pacific family responded swiftly. Even as the Pacific Island Country (PIC) of 319,000 people began surveying the mammoth task of reassembling from the ruins of an unprecedented natural disaster — two vicious storms followed quickly by…
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Features
Japan’s Defense Technology Strategy
Dr. Shigenori Mishima Dr. Shigenori Mishima, vice commissioner and chief technology officer of Japan’s Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), delivered this keynote address at the Pacific Operational Science & Technology conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, in March 2023. Mishima discussed ATLA’s role and security and defense strategies announced by Japan in December 2022. His comments have been edited to fit…
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Conflicts - Tensions
Transnational Repression
FORUM Staff The People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to face international criticism for violating the sovereignty of nations across the globe with its “overseas police service stations,” clandestine offices established in many cases without the approval or knowledge of countries that become their unsuspecting hosts. Rights advocates say the stations are bases from which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)…
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Features
Cobra Gold 2023
Gusty Da Costa More than 500 Thai and United States paratroopers dropped into fields of tall tropical grasses near Fort Thanarat in Prachuap Khiri Khan in western Thailand in early March 2023. Soon, MV-22 Osprey and CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters loaded with Republic of Korea (ROK), Thai and U.S. Marines secured an airstrip to allow follow-on forces to maneuver freely. …
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Features
Unifying efforts Against The Military Junta
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd/Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies Two years after seizing power in a coup, the Myanmar military is on the verge of collapse. Coup plotters have failed to gain control of the country since they overthrew its democratically elected government and detained its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other high-ranking…
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Features
Critical Minerals: A Resource Race
FORUM Staff Powering a global green energy transition — one that combats the destabilizing effects of climate change on governments, militaries and citizenry — will require vast increases in the world’s critical mineral production. Meeting explosive demand while easing impacts on Earth and its inhabitants will demand international cooperation and evolving models of sustainability. Environmental devastation surrounding mineral mining and…
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Features
Protecting Civilians During Conflict
FORUM Staff Territorial disputes, political ambitions and resource competition often spark or escalate armed conflicts. The resulting wars, regardless of their cause, come with complicated consequences. Among them: short- and long-term devastation, and civilian deaths that account for nearly 90% of wartime casualties, according to a 2022 United Nations Security Council report. One of the grimmest pictures of conflict’s toll…
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