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U.S. forces in the Pacific are increasing multinational military exercises amid mounting fears among regional states over Chinese aggression, according to the admiral in charge of the Navy’s largest fleet.
The Navy’s 7th Fleet, headquartered in Japan, conducts most of the exercises, which are growing in scale and number and adding more foreign participants in response to China’s increasing military power. Beijing is using that power to assert greater control over the region, Vice Adm. Karl O. Thomas, commander of the 7th Fleet, said in an interview.
The three-star admiral said he believes “being forward and having many nations working together … is a grand deterrent effect that we really try to amplify.”
“Everything we do, whether it’s being present and forward or whether it’s doing exercises with our like-minded allies and partners, it’s all about deterring aggression,” Adm. Thomas told The Washington Times.
The Navy’s 7th Fleet includes 50 to 70 ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and more than 27,000 sailors and Marines. A review of drills since January reveals that the fleet conducted more than 37 military exercises in a region that spans some 75 million square miles and stretches from Japan’s northern Kuril Islands west to the Indian Ocean and south to Antarctica.
Operations with other foreign navies are increasing, as are joint patrols with French and Canadian warships in disputed waterways such as the South China Sea and East China Sea.
This year, Australian military forces joined the military exercise known as Yama Sakura with U.S. and Japanese troops. The annual two-week war games ended on Wednesday.
The 6,000 troops from the three nations, including about 200 Australian military personnel, practiced warfighting that involved space, cyber and electronic warfare attacks. The goal was to hone command and control of large-scale combat operations and boost interoperability among the three militaries, according to a Navy press release.
Reassuring allies
The increase in exercises reflects a U.S. reassurance of allies worried about China. In the past, many regional states refused to get in the middle of the growing standoff between Washington and Beijing. Now, many are rejecting neutrality and working more closely with the U.S. Navy, in particular.
That means the armed forces of nations such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Pacific islands rely more on U.S. security and support.
Miles Yu, a former State Department China policymaker, said the increasing exercises and operations with allies are important to push back against Chinese maritime misdeeds and aggression that are not aimed solely at the United States but also are undermining the entire maritime system of rules that all nations follow.
“It is essential we continue and strengthen our exercises and operations in international commons such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait and do it multilaterally, more frequently, with bigger vessels and joint flotillas of navies of like-minded countries, including NATO allies, but especially the primary victims of China’s relentless maritime bullying and harassment in the region,” said Mr. Yu, now director of the Hudson Institute China Center.
Adm. Thomas said his forces are ready to respond to any hot spot in the region.
One of the most contentious locales is around a disputed reef in the South China Sea called Second Thomas Shoal. The Chinese coast guard has clashed in recent weeks with Philippine ships seeking to resupply a grounded ship being used as a base at the shoal, which Beijing considers to be in its maritime zone.
To try to halt the resupply shipments, Chinese craft have fired water cannons, military-grade lasers and a sonic weapon at Philippine crews. The State Department and the Pentagon have denounced the activities.
In one incident, a Chinese coast guard ship collided with a Philippine resupply vessel.
Adm. Thomas said the Chinese activities are “gray zone” operations illegally seeking control over the shoal in the Spratly Islands, a small group of reefs and islands claimed by China, the Philippines and several other nations.
China’s military has built a trio of bases armed with missiles on three reefs in the Spratlys. The harassment of the Philippines is part of an effort to control the entire South China Sea.
“I think that the aggressive gray zone operations are increasing the chance of miscalculation,” Adm. Thomas said. “We all — not just the U.S. — but all nations in this region are watching that.”
Manila contends that Second Thomas Shoal is inside the Philippine economic exclusion zone. An international tribunal has ruled in favor of the Philippines that the shoal is a low-tide elevation not subject to territorial claims by any nation.
“So for [China] to be claiming or trying to exert gray zone activities in that area, I think it causes all of us concern, and we’re watching very closely,” Adm. Thomas said.
Sending a message
China state media have sharply criticized the expanded U.S. and allied military exercises. U.S. officials say the criticism shows that Beijing is getting the strategic message of the increased exercises.
Chinese state media Global Times reported on Dec. 4 that Yama Sakura is aimed at China and the addition of Australian forces is a “dangerous obsession in hyping the China threat theory.”
Army Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of Army Forces Pacific, disclosed this month that China is gathering intelligence on U.S. and allied exercises to find “soft targets” for a conflict. Chinese military spies have focused on drills with the Philippines and Indonesia, in particular, that have grown in size and scope, Gen. Flynn said during an Army conference on irregular warfare on Dec. 6.
“They go relatively dormant during a key period of the exercise, and then after it’s over, they’ll go find soft targets,” he said.
The spying operations are designed to learn how the U.S. military might carry out combat operations and to sow discord between the United States and allies, he said.
“The Chinese are trying to disassemble, fragment and fracture a network of allies and partners that the United States enjoys globally, but definitely in the Indo-Pacific. And they’re working every day,” Gen. Flynn said.
The Marine Corps, Army and Air Force are also stepping up exercises in the Indo-Pacific to deter China from exerting hegemony over the entire region. Pacific Air Force troops and forces conducted dozens of exercises or operations this year.
For its international exercises and exchanges, the U.S. Air Force joined exercises with the air forces of Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Thailand, Canada, the Philippines, New Zealand, Mongolia, Indonesia, Britain, Brunei and Malaysia. Most of the Air Force exercises involved treaty allies Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia, according to a review of the Pacific Air Forces website.
An Air Force spokesman said the drills bolster alliances, modernize joint capabilities and align strategies to confront “evolving security challenges in an integrated manner, promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Army Indo-Pacific exercises are part of Operation Pathways, which seeks to boost the service’s presence in the region.
Army troops participate in about 40 regional exercises annually with more than a dozen nations, including five treaty allies: Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. Other drills and military exchanges took place with Mongolia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Fiji, New Caledonia, Timor-Leste, Brunei, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, France and Britain.
Army Col. Rob Phillips, a spokesman for Army Pacific, said the exercises serve as rehearsals and training venues for regional campaigns.
“These exercises continue to increase in scale and complexity due to increased interest and requests from our allies and partners across the region,” Col. Phillips said.
The Marines carried out most of their exercises with the Navy.
Col. Timothy Brady, operations officer for Marine Corps Forces Pacific, said regional partnerships are indispensable to the region’s stability. Training and engaging with regional militaries is essential to the Marines’ success, he added.
“Our exercises continue to increase in scope, scale and complexity,” Col. Brady said.
Working together
The Indo-Pacific Command, the overall center for all the services’ exercises, says frequent multinational exercises bolster U.S. forces’ collective ability to respond to a crisis or conflict.
Adm. John C. Aquilino, the U.S. Indo-Pacific commander, said in May that American military forces under his command hold 120 exercises each year. The goal is to build trust and communications with regional allies and partners.
“They’re becoming more multilateral. They’re becoming more complex, and they’re increasing in scale and scope every year,” Adm. Aquilino said. He noted that “more nations are participating in each and every one of those exercises.”
This year’s Navy exercises ranged from large, multi-aircraft-carrier and warship maneuvers held over weeks together with defense treaty allies to small tabletop exercises held by groups of officers in conference rooms.
The exercises increase communications and information-sharing and help the Navy improve operations with allies, Adm. Thomas said. More exercises are being conducted with increased foreign participation, including warships from European allies and Canada, he noted.
The Australian and Japanese militaries, in particular, have stepped up participation in Navy exercises designed to produce greater lethality and increase the ability to operate together, Adm. Thomas said.
“It’s only going to be harder if we were ever to get into a conflict,” he said of readiness.
“The fog and friction of war makes what you might do in peacetime that much more complicated. The more repetitions and sets that you conduct and understand how the other guy thinks and acts and operates — talking about an ally or a partner — that makes us much more capable of adapting when things don’t go the way we expect them to go,” he said.
Defense chiefs from the United States, Japan and Australia issued a joint statement in June saying the three militaries agreed to increase complex and high-end exercises in northern Australia to boost military readiness.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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