Increased military exercises with Pacific allies seek to deter China, top U.S. admiral says

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 Seventh Fleet, headquartered in Japan, conducts most of exercises that are growing in both scale and number and adding more foreign participants — all in response to China’s growing military power that Beijing is using in a bid to assert greater control over the region, Seventh Fleet commander Vice Adm. Karl O. Thomas 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 Seventh Fleet is the Navy’s largest and includes between 50 and 70 ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and more than 27,000 sailors and Marines. A review of Seventh Fleet drills since January reveals 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 foreign navies are increasing, as are joint patrols in disputed waterways like the South China Sea and East China Sea with French and Canadian warships.

For the first time this year, Australian military forces joined the annual military exercise known as Yama Sakura held in the past with U.S. and Japanese troops. The two-week wargames ended Dec. 13.

The 6,000 troops from the three nations included around 200 Australian military personnel that practiced warfighting that involved space, cyber and electronic warfare attacks. The goal of the exercise was to hone command and control of large-scale combat operations and boost interoperability between the three militaries, according to a Navy press release.

Reassuring allies

The increase in exercises reflects a new U.S. reassurance of allies worried about China. In the past, many of the regional states shunned openly choosing sides in the growing standoff between Washington and Beijing, not wanting to get caught in the middle, but now many are rejecting neutrality and choosing to work more closely with the U.S. Navy, in particular.

That means the armed forces of nations such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and in Pacific island nations are relying 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 for pushing back against Chinese maritime misdeeds and aggression that are not solely aimed at the United States but 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 currently is around a disputed reef in the South China Sea called Second Thomas Shoal. In recent weeks, Chinese coast guard have clashed with Philippines ships seeking to resupply a grounded ship being used a base at the shoal that Beijing considers in its maritime zone.

To try and halt the resupply shipments, Chinese crafts have fired water cannon, military-grade lasers, and recently a sonic weapon at Philippines’ crews, prompting denunciation of the Chinese activities by both the State Department and Pentagon.

In one recent incident, a Chinese coast guard ship collided with a Philippines 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, 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 of the activity near Second Thomas Shoal. “We all – not just the U.S. – but all nations in this region are watching that.”

Manila contends that the Second Thomas Shoal is inside the Philippines economic exclusion zone, and an international tribunal has ruled in favor of Manila that the shoal is a low-tide elevation not subject to territorial claims by any nation, he said.

“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, criticism that U.S. officials say appears to show that Beijing is getting the strategic message from the increased exercises.

Chinese state media Global Times reported 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.”

Earlier this month, Army Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of Army Forces Pacific, disclosed that China is gathering intelligence on U.S. and allied exercises in a bid to find “soft targets” for a future conflict. Chinese military spies have focused on drills held with the Philippines and Indonesia, in particular, that have grown in size and scope, Gen. Flynn said during an Army conference on irregular warfare 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. The activity is also targeted as sowing 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 also are stepping up exercises in the Indo-Pacific as part of a strategy of deterring China from exerting hegemony over the entire region. Pacific Air Force troops and forces conducted dozens of exercises or operations in 2023.

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, Philippines, New Zealand, Mongolia, Indonesia, Britain, Brunei and Malaysia. Most of the Air Force exercises involved treaty allies Japan, South Korea, 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 a program called “Operation Pathways” that seeks to boost the service’s presence in the region.

Army troops take part in around 40 regional exercises each year with over a dozen nations, including five treaty allies – Japan, South Korea, 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 future campaigns in the region.

“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.

Most of the Marines’ exercises were carried out with the Navy.

Working together   

The Indo-Pacific Command, which is the overall center for all the services’ exercises, says frequent multi-nation 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, noting 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 like Japan, South Korea, Australia and Philippines, to small tabletop exercises held by groups of officers in conference rooms.

The exercises increase communications, information-sharing and help the Navy to better operate together with allies, Adm. Thomas, the Seventh Fleet chief, said. More exercises are being done 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 that are 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 that said the three militaries agreed to increase complex and high-end exercises in northern Australia to boost military readiness.