CHRISTOPHER B. JOHNSTONE: I'm Chris Johnstone. I'm the Japan Chair and Senior Advisor here at CSIS, and it's really my great privilege and honor to welcome you to our event today on the U.S. role in Indo-Pacific security.
I think it's fair to say it's an exceptionally dynamic time in the Indo-Pacific and in U.S. strategy toward the region more broadly.
On the one hand, U.S.-China relations are in a difficult place, some would say perhaps at their worst state since diplomatic normalization in 1979. North Korea continues to advance its missile and nuclear programs. And the war in Ukraine has elevated concern across the region about the possibility of a conflict over Taiwan.
But at the same time and perhaps partly in response to this, over the last year we've also seen a significant strengthening in American alliances and partnerships really across the board in the Indo-Pacific. We had the AUKUS announcement, the pathway on a submarine in March, Japan's new National Security Strategy released at the end of last year, which signaled significant new investments in defense, South Korean President Yoon's visit to Washington, and the release of the Washington Declaration addressing issues related to extended deterrence, and most recently the visit of President Marcos of the Philippines, part of the reinvigoration that we've seen in recent months on the alliance with the Philippines.
All of these developments, in my view, signal for the -- really, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, all of our alliances -- our major alliances in the region are getting stronger at the same time.
And in the coming days, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will travel to the region again for what we think, if we've done the math right, will be his sixth trip to the -- seventh trip to the region, okay, to take stock of developments and to advance our partnerships in the region.
So we're delighted to have here today with us two terrific leaders in the Department of Defense to share with us today what the United States is doing to advance our partnerships in the region, and it's really my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, and Dr. Siddarth Mohandas, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia. A great pleasure for me in particular because I had the pleasure to work with both of them.
Dr. Ratner was previously Vice President Joe Biden, at the time, National Security Advisor -- yeah, sorry, Deputy National Security Advisor -- and had a number of positions in various think tanks -- to your misfortune, none of which includes CSIS, but that's --
(CROSSTALK)
MR. JOHNSTONE: -- there's still time, right.
And again, Dr. Mohandas also had other roles in OSD, at the Department of Defense -- at the Department of State, sorry, and at the Asia Group. So again, really a great pleasure to welcome you here today.
We'll do some questions from up here, Ellen and I. Ellen is our Deputy Director and Senior Fellow of the Korea Chair, and she and I will take turns with some questions and then we'll open it up to our audience for some additional discussion before we close here.
So Ellen, why don't you get us started?
ELLEN KIM: Sure. Thank you, Chris. It's my great pleasure to be on this panel and have a conversation with Dr. Ely Ratner and Dr. Siddarth Mohandas about the U.S. role in Indo-Pacific security. Thank you, both of you, for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today.
So as Chris noted in his introduction, it's been an eventful year in the -- DOD's engagement in Asia. We have seen enormous improvements in the U.S. alliance relationship but the regional security environment appears to be quite challenging.
So my first question to both of you is how do you evaluate what's been achieved to date and what's to come, including Secretary Austin's upcoming trip? Are there -- are we staying ahead of the threats?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ELY RATNER: Okay, great. Well, let me just say thank you for the opportunity to be here today. We're thrilled to be here.
I think Chris has already done our job for us, articulating some of the achievements that we've had over the last several months, but look, we're excited about where we are. I don't think there's any question about the challenging security environment.
We see North Korea's program advancing, and we can talk about what we're doing in response to that. We see PRC military modernization and increasing assertiveness and coercion, and we can talk about what we're doing in response to that.
But I think the big picture is precisely what Chris described, which is that we are now in a historic moment of strategic alignment between our major allies and partners that -- anyway, in my experience, is unprecedented, when you look down the line from the conversations with -- that we're having with the South Koreans, the Japanese alliances, Philippines, Australia, over to India, other allies and partners in the region.
And Secretary Austin went out to Shangri-La a couple of years ago, gave a speech about what he described as the power of partnership, in terms of what it really meant in terms of our ability to leverage our strengths with our allies and partners.
He returned last year to talk about the shared vision that we have with our allies and partners for the region. It's not America's vision, it's the shared vision that they have articulated and we share with them, and I think that describes why we've had that level of alignment. So that's what I see as the context.
And what we have been doing -- I mean, we can go through some of the particulars in the relationships, and we ought to get into those in the discussion, but just to set the frame of -- because it's not just a series of individual, siloed decisions, it's part of a broader regional picture.
And as we look at that regional picture, I can tell you what we're trying to do, because there are some fundamental lines of effort that cut across what we're trying to do to build this free and open Indo-Pacific region, as we have articulated with our partners.
So what we have been up to -- and it's an answer to the question of where we're going too, is along a few predominant lines of effort. One is on force posture, in terms of modernizing, updating our force posture to be more resilient, more mobile, more distributed.
This is something that think tankers and strategists have been talking about the United States needing to do for over a decade, and I think we're proud to say that the achievements that we've made over the last six months, from Australia, to the Philippines, to Japan, including recent announcements with PNG, have represented the most transformative updates in our posture in a generation, and that was something we foreshadowed and frankly, we've made good on it over the last six weeks, and we think that has profound effect as it relates to deterrence, as well as managing other contingencies and challenges in the regional security environment.
Second is in the area of capabilities, where we are working with our allies and partners to provide them with the capabilities they need to defend their interests, and many instances, working with them together -- co-development, co-production and building more integrated Defense Industrial Bases to ensure that we can work together, that we're more interoperable. And again, we can talk about some of those examples in particular, but we are seeing that with Japan in unprecedented ways, with Australia, with our Southeast Asian partners, the Philippines, profoundly in the India relationship in ways that we think, again, are going to be quite transformative.
And then finally, we are networking, bringing all of our allies together in ways that have been unprecedented. Again, experts and strategists have been talking about doing this for a long time, and we have been making some progress over the last several years, but I think what we have seen over the last 18 to 24 months is a catalyzation of a number of different constellations of partners and allies coming together, whether it's United States and Japan and South Korea, whether it's the United States, Japan and Australia, the work we're doing in the Quad, some of the work we're doing with ASEAN, and that is really exciting and we ought to get into some of the details on that as it relates to the Secretary's trip out to the region, which we can talk about in a little bit more detail, but some of the work that will follow from that.
So I'll stop there. That's the big picture. Bottom line is we're excited. I think we are -- in some ways, the results speak for themselves, but we're not standing still and we're going to continue forward with a lot of these initiatives in the years ahead.
DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE SIDDARTH MOHANDAS: Sure. Look, I think that's a great laydown of where we are and where we're going. I'll just make a couple observations, you know, particularly on the lines of effort that Ely's laid out.
You know, fundamentally, we are seeking to modernize each of these alliances to improve and strengthen deterrence, and as Ely described, that involves investing in capabilities that we think are most relevant to deterrence. And you know, a great example of that, of course, is AUKUS itself, and we can talk more about it. But our most sensitive, indeed, our crown-jewel technology being shared with a partner in the Indo-Pacific, Japan's acquisition of counterstrike capabilities, I think we're very supportive of.
And I think there are a couple features of this approach that are notable. You know, the first is that in many cases, we are meeting the allies where they are. If you look at AUKUS, if you look at counterstrike, those weren't American ideas. AUKUS wasn't a British idea; it was an Australian idea based on the Australian assessment of the security environment, and, you know, based on intense consultations and deep dialogue, you know, we said, "You're right, and you need these capabilities to meet your security needs, and as allies, we want to work with you on that."
And the same goes -- again, Japan made a historic decision to acquire a counterstrike capability, and that was a decision informed by their assessment of the security environment, and we, as allies, are strongly-supportive and want to work with them to realize that capability.
You know, on the force posture, I think, you know, we really do believe the changes that we've seen are significant and indeed, in some cases, unprecedented. But I will also say that these are long-term bets on relationships, and long-term bets in both directions. You know, on some level, talk is cheap, but pouring concrete is expensive, and so look at where countries are pouring concrete and with whom. And I think we are very heartened by the willingness of allies to work with us on these intensely -- or immensely consequential force posture.
And then just lastly on this point related to networking, I think that is truly new and different in terms of the scope and scale of what we're seeing. It's not just the United States strengthening its bilateral relationships with allies; it's our allies reaching out to each other and strengthening their own relationships. And I think this is creating a truly unique and new web of interoperability capability development, and above all, sort of a strategic vision that I think has changed the security environment in very positive ways.
DR. RATNER: And I would say, maybe to build on this last point, I think that, Chris, you've been part of a lot of these discussions. Sometimes we get partners together and we have dialogue and we share perspectives, and that's really important and we'll be doing that out at Shangri-La. But at the same time, we're also getting partners together and talking about, no kidding, doing stuff together in these constellations, whether it's with the Japanese and the Australians thinking about, from a force-posture perspective, how do we think about Japanese integration into some of the posture initiatives in northern Australia? Or in the context of Japan and Korea, how do we think about, as partners and allies, doing more together on a regular basis not just in response to what North Korea is doing, but actually as a real trilateral military unit? And so that, I think, is really exciting that we're very action-oriented agenda, which is an important feature of it.
MR. JOHNSTONE: That's great. Appreciate that broad lay-down, and I want to come back to some of the themes that you raised here, including this networking concept and working with partners on capabilities.
But let me first, if I may, start with a bit about China. There's a lot of media focus on whether the Secretary will have a meeting with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu in Singapore. You can make news about that if you'd like to, but more broadly, I'm wondering if you could share your thoughts on, what are the prospects for reopening meaningful mil-to-mil engagement with China? And what is the role of mil-to-mil engagement with China in the context of this strategic competition, which is very much with us today?
DR. RATNER: Sure. So incredibly important question, and Secretary Austin has said a number of times that he believes in the importance of open lines of communication with the PRC, and we have sought to build out those open lines of communication. Unfortunately, and separate just from this question of Shangri-La -- and I will get to that in just a minute -- we've had a lot of difficulty in terms of when we have proposed phone calls, proposed meetings, dialogues, whether that's the Secretary, Chairman Milley, Admiral Aquilino, DASD Chase, other both civilian and uniformed engagements. We have had -- repeatedly have had those requests rejected or not answered.
So we have -- we, the United States and the Department of Defense, have had an outstretched hand on this question of military-to-military engagement and we we have yet to have had a consistently willing partner.
The Secretary did meet with General Li's predecessor, both at Shangri-La last year and in Cambodia on the margins of the ADMM-Plus, but separate from those engagements, it's been very difficult. And we think it's important, both during peacetime and of course during crisis, to prevent misperception, miscalculation, and to prevent crises from spinning out of control.
And so both as a -- to discuss how we think about, for instance, emerging domains and how we're conceiving of strategy in those, which may have high escalatory potential, to having forums to discuss operational incidents and otherwise, and again, during crises and events, we want to be able to communicate in all of those ways, and we think they're all important.
As it relates to Shangri-La in particular, as you have, I'm sure, read, several weeks ago, Secretary Austin and the Department of Defense initiated a request to meet with General Li. That request has not been answered one way or another.
We are aware of what the PRC has said about the fact that General Li is under CAATSA sanctions. What is indisputable is that those CAATSA sanctions have no legal or technical bearing on whether or not General Li is able to meet with Secretary Austin in Shangri-La. So that is not the prohibition, and frankly, the ball's in their court at this point.
So we're going out to Shangri-La to hear from a lot of allies and partners and have open lines of communication with leaders throughout the region. We think that's really important and we think it's important with the PRC as well, and we hope they feel the same way and we're still waiting to hear back.
MR. JOHNSTONE: Yeah, certainly whether a meeting happens -- happens or not will be, I think, a key data point in sort of the state of the relationship.
But let me follow up with you on this if I may. You know, we had a public event here at CSIS earlier this week with Steve Hadley, former National Security Advisor under George W. Bush, talking -- and he talked a lot about the evolution of U.S.-China relations and he talked about the EP-3 incident in 2001. It took place in the first few months of the Bush administration, which of course was also a time when -- crisis in the relationship, great difficulty establishing communication channels between us, and that set in motion a whole effort to build the mechanisms to facilitate crisis communication -- the hotlines and so forth.
What's the disconnect? Why is this still such a -- how do you explain the inability, the difficulty in leveraging these channels that so much work went into to develop?
DR. RATNER: Look, fundamentally, that is a question for the PLA and the PRC, and I think there's been a lot of expert discussion about why that is and they provide their own reasons at any given time. They're often shifting from one reason to another as to why any particular moment is inopportune or inconvenient.
But look, I agree with the premise of your question, which I hear as do we really have to wait for another crisis before we take these things seriously, and of course you wind back to the Cold War, where often -- and of course, the situation in the United States and China now is not analogous in many ways to -- between the United States and the Soviet Union but it was a time of military rivalry between major powers.
And folks often remember the quite intricate military-to-military mechanisms that were set up in the latter stages of the Cold War to manage that but of course that all came out of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those things did not exist prior to that.
And I think the question again for the PRC is do we need to have a major crisis before we take things seriously? And our argument is let's do it now and not wait for that to have to be the context.
MR. JOHNSTONE: All right, okay. Ellen?
MS. KIM: Yeah, let me turn to another important topic, North Korea. So as you know, North Korea continues to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities, and if this current situation continues, then it seems possible that the country might achieve a credible and survivable nuclear delivery system that can reach the U.S. homeland.
So what is DOD is doing to address that threat? And are there ways that we could slow down, if not stop, the country's progress in weapons development?
MR. JOHNSTONE: You want to start?
MR. MOHANDAS: Sure. Look, you know, we share widespread concerns about North Korea's nuclear and missile development. That is certainly a concern shared by our allies in the region, most notably Japan and the ROK.
And indeed, you know, what we've seen, particularly in the last year or so from the DPRK, has been troubling, I think on the order of 80 ballistic missile tests last year, including several ICBM tests, one missile that overflew Japan. All of this is dangerous, is destabilizing, and a violation of international law.
I think what we do in response is to ensure that we, alongside our allies, are maintaining combat-credible deterrence, and we're doing that in a variety of ways. You know, in the first instance, we are focused on conventional deterrence, and that starts with our 28,500 troops on the peninsula. It means that we are increasing the scale and complexity of our exercises. We've brought combined live fire exercises back to the peninsula after a hiatus of some years.
You know, we have been very clear in our extended deterrence commitments to our ROK allies and to our Japanese allies. That is, you know, a bedrock of our Nuclear Posture Review with the ROK. President Biden and President Yoon just issued the Washington Declaration, which is an affirmation of our commitment in the strongest possible terms, and we do believe there's importance -- you know, deterrent messaging there.
We have increased the number of our sort of strategic asset deployments to the peninsula. We've sent F-22s, F-35s, we've had B-1 bomber flights, and we're committed to continuing to that. The Reagan Carrier Strike Group deployed and if -- I think you will see additional significant deployments in the months to come.
And then we have deepened our dialogue on nuclear matters, notably, again, with the ROK announcing a bilateral nuclear consultative group, which I think will really take our discussion on nuclear threats and nuclear scenarios to a new level, where we can share assessments, talk about how we would respond to various contingencies, and talk about how we would work together in the face of threats.
MS. KIM: So speaking of a -- Washington Declaration, let me follow up with you a little bit about that.
You know, the declaration has received a mixed reaction from people in South Korea. Some say that it's a great outcome for a country; some others -- people say that it's not much different from the Biden administration has been doing. So how would you respond to that? Do you -- in your view, why is the Washington Declaration significant?
MR. MOHANDAS: I think in a couple ways. You know, number one and this goes back to what I said earlier -- we want to make clear again in the strongest possible terms that our extended deterrence commitment to the ROK is ironclad and is backed by the full range of our capabilities, including both our conventional capabilities and our nuclear capabilities, and the Washington Declaration says that.
It also importantly includes, you know, a statement that we will make every effort to consult with the ROK at the highest levels in the event of a nuclear employment scenario on the peninsula. And that is just the right thing to do. The ROK is our -- among our closest allies. You know, matters related to nuclear use are the highest-stake security issues a country can face. And you know, it is about treating our ally like an ally and -- and really creating, frankly, a more equal alliance where we do more together to address this.
Of course, you know, in our system, the sole authority to use nuclear weapons resides with the President, but the idea of this deepened consultation I think is entirely appropriate.
And then we have created mechanisms to do that. So the Nuclear Consultative Group is one. I think that we are having discussions that we have never had before, or will through that venue. We have a robust plan of TTXs and simulations that I think will really bolster our mutual understanding of these issues.
DR. RATNER: And I would just say that the other obviously important part of the Washington Declaration is the -- that it's a vote of confidence by the ROK government as well in the U.S. extended deterrent, and that's not just because of the document itself and some of the activities that will generate from it, but also because of, as Siddarth articulated, a lot of the work that we've been doing over the last year in terms of site visits and exercises and TTXs and deployments and dialogue and what not. So this emphasis on extended deterrence is important, and it's happening in the context of precisely as you've described: an evolving security environment and our extended deterrence efforts and discussions are evolving, as well. So I would look at it not just as a singular document, but in the context of all of those activities that we've been working on over the past year.
MR. JOHNSTONE: So let's shift gears a little bit; talk -- and return to this question of what we're doing with partners, allies and partners, and the networking theme that you raised. The U.S.-Japan-South Korea relationship in particular has made great strides in recent months, largely as a consequence of both President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida's leadership. I understand there will be a trilateral defense ministerial in Singapore; wondering if you could preview some of that for us. And in particular, there's been a lot of coverage of this real-time missile threat data-sharing commitment that was made last November. When can we expect that to be realized? And sort of, what else is on the plate in terms of deepening the military partnership among our three countries?
DR. RATNER: Yeah, maybe I'll just start, and then take it over to Siddarth. I guess I would say first off, I think clearly recognize the leadership both in Tokyo and Seoul on this issue. I think it's bold, it's brave and it's producing results in a way that I think will be meaningful for the regional security environment, and we want to be supporting that every which way that we can.
About a month or so ago, I had the opportunity to convene with -- at my level a trilateral discussion, and that's the first time that had happened in person in years. And we saw that that energy is not just at the leader level, but obviously, is throughout the systems to try to develop deeper defense ties, and we've been having a lot of discussions about different ways that we can do that.
But I'll kick it over to Siddarth again, on some of the details here.
MR. MOHANDAS: Absolutely. I mean, you know, as a -- of course, right that we have seen extraordinary political courage from President Yoon and President Kishida that I think has unlocked new opportunities and created tremendous momentum in the bilateral relationship and the trilateral relationship.
But I think the flipside of that is that it is actually in our interest, in all three countries' interest, to seek to protect military and defense cooperation from the vicissitudes of politics. And I think the way we do that is by trying to do everything we can to institutionalize trilateral cooperation going forward.
So we, you know, in the last six months or so had two successful trilateral exercises and antiballistic missile exercise and an anti-submarine warfare exercise. We want to routinize that type of military cooperation and increasingly institutionalize it so that it has a sort of rhythm of its own that will allow it to continue even if there are sort of political storms brewing elsewhere. So I think that's one area.
I mean, you -- Chris, you noted the important commitment that leaders made last year for shared early-warning data, and that, I think, is incredibly important. And so what you can expect is the three Ministries of Defense, and indeed, the ministers of defense, Secretary Austin and his two counterparts, to be very focused on how we create meaningful technical cooperation.
And I think as we move down that path, it speaks to this point of institutionalization that I mentioned, but it actually creates something even more valuable, which is useful operational benefits, and that sells itself. And so once, you know, you actually start demonstrating value and improvements to the security and operations of all three countries, I think then you are truly creating momentum to sustain this cooperation.
MR. JOHNSTONE: Could I follow up on that, Siddarth? You know, a cynic would say that we've seen this movie before, right? I remember when I was working on these relationships at the end of the Obama administration, we also had a pretty robust trilateral program of exercises, including BMD exercises, ASW maritime interdiction. I think you're absolutely right that the data threat -- the missile threat data-sharing, that's new. But could you say more about the institutionalization piece? Are we ready, for example, to think about exchanging liaison officers about -- across commands, observers at bilateral exercises, that kind of thing?
This is a -- ultimately a hard problem and of course there's no way to guarantee that we avoid backsliding but I just wonder what else you might be thinking about in terms of how to sort of walk this down in a durable way.
MR. MOHANDAS: So look, you're right that the relationship between Japan and ROK has seen its ups and downs, -- it's a complex relationship freighted with history, but I think what's striking is that actually if you look at, you know, kind of where we were at the nadir of the relationship just, a few years ago, a lot of this military cooperation was sustained.
And so you actually saw military officials continue to meet even as - there was a political freeze. You saw, you know, the GSOMIA was suspended but not abrogated, and I think that, in itself, speaks to the logic that I'm laying out, -- that as you create these institutions, they're sticky -- and that's a good thing.
You know, we should be trying to trilateralize everything we can. And, you know, we've got a few priority areas that we're focused on in the coming weeks and months but we want to continue building out this agenda.
DR. RATNER: I mean, I think the question you're asking, Chris, you could apply, again, to almost any one of the relationships in the region right now, which is, “geez, hear what you're saying about strategic alignment, hear what you're saying about some of these historic opportunities, but is this just the top of the sine wave and how do we ensure that this is -- it's different this time?”
And without predicting the future, I think one of the answers to that question which Siddarth articulated is that you deliver results through it, that these countries believe, start seeing are in their benefit, and I think that is the theory of the case, not only in the trilateral relationship, as it relates to our relationship with Australia, again, our relationship with the Philippines, if we're thinking about the EDCA relationship there and the force posture, as it relates to the industrial -- defense industrial cooperation with India.
In any one of these cases, you could have a skeptic or a cynic sitting there saying "look, I've seen this movie before. I remember X many years ago, we tried this, seemed pretty promising, and ultimately, it didn't work out," and I think our optimism is that we can break through this time, that we actually are in these transformative moments, but it's going to require what Secretary Austin likes to call hard government work, which is on something like, you know, these data-sharing agreements.
Chris, you know better than anyone it's not just going into the backroom and flipping a switch on. This takes a lot of work, a lot of diplomacy, a lot of technical -- careful technical work, and in each of these instances, we're doing that.
And I think the other part of this is that you have -- and this actually has been true in the case of trilateral -- but you have now clear direction from leadership -- the President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and others who are saying the Indo-Pacific is a priority, this trilateral arrangement is a priority, leaders are voting with their feet, in terms of how they're spending their time, and they're sending that signal, again, whether it relates to Australia, whether it relates to India, the Philippines and others, and that's really important and we're doing everything we can to do exactly what you're saying, which is how do we institutionalize these to be more durable through future -- as the environment changes.
MR. JOHNSTONE: Great.
MS. KIM: In Shangri-La dialogue, there will be a U.S.-Australia-Japan trilateral as well. So could you tell us a little bit about what would be on the agenda? What can we expect to see for -- in terms of their military cooperation?
The January 2+2 references trilateral training opportunities in the northern Australia. So could you tell a little bit about this, when we'll be able to see something like that?
DR. RATNER: Yeah, and I'll just say -- again, Siddarth works these issues and his team intensely, so we'll turn to him, but you mentioned the 2+2 with Japan where this statement came out. Of course, prior to that, we had our AUSMIN talks, our 2+2 annual talks with Australia in December, where we discussed similar issues. And right after the 2+2, the Japanese and the Australians were going to be having their 2+2 as well. So there's been a lot of really good bilateral discussions setting up some of this trilateral work and the same kind of messages being worked through at the same time.
But again, I think this is one -- probably the most mature of the bunch and one that we see as really promising.
MR. MOHANDAS: Now, I agree with all of that. You know, we are tremendously excited by where we are in the U.S.-Japan-Australia relationship. These are our two most like-minded, most capable partners in the Indo-Pacific, and when we are able to work together and we are able to pool our resources together, when we are able to operate focused on a shared strategic goal, I think the results are truly astounding and the potential is incredibly high.
So what does that look like? You know, I think you're going to see greater operational coordination among the three militaries. For the first time ever, we conducted a mutual asset protection exercise late last year. I think that provides a template for combined operations on greater and greater scale.
And we can test some of that out quite soon. We've got Talisman Sabre coming up in Australia. It's going to be the biggest version of the exercise ever. Japan's going to be there, Australia, I think again, 13-14 other countries. And this will be an opportunity to showcase what we can do trilaterally and beyond.
You asked about force posture. You know, this, I think, is truly game-changing stuff. The idea of bringing Japan into our U.S.-Australia force posture cooperation in northern Australia, I think, is very significant and builds on the bilateral breakthrough that they've had by agreeing a reciprocal access agreement.
And, you know, I think truly the sky's the limit. I mean, you can imagine Japanese F-35s operating alongside U.S. airframes and Australian airframes. I think this will be rolled out over time -- but quite soon, because there is a tremendous and palpable sense of momentum here.
You know, you're going to -- we want to explore greater science and technology cooperation, explore trilateral capability development. I think that, again, is -- holds enormous promise, when you think about the technical and industrial bases of the three countries.
And then we want to do more together in the region. These are -- you know, the United States, Australia and Japan are major donor countries, we do a lot of security assistance in the region. So the idea of working together in the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia, I think, is very compelling.
So it's a big agenda, it's an ambitious agenda, but I think the ambition is justified by the level of commitment we've seen.
And all of this, I think, was unimaginable even a few years ago, and that reflects, as Ely said, the level of strategic alignment we have but also how similarly we see the strategic environment.
DR. RATNER: And you know, the other data point on this -- which struck me when I was looking at the Secretary's schedule for Shangri-La -- he's actually doing more multilateral and mini-lateral meetings than he's doing bilateral meetings. I don't think that's happened before necessarily. I'd have to go back and look, but I was really struck, and the reason for that is no other reason than because we think it's so valuable to do that and we're seeing real results out of them.
MR. JOHNSTONE: I wanted to give you the opportunity to say more about what we can expect in terms of the Secretary's engagements --
DR. RATNER: Yes.
MR. JOHNSTONE: -- in Singapore. But let me maybe first ask you both about this question of cooperation on capability development. I -- you know, as we think about the AUKUS partnership now that pillar one, the Austral -- the submarine program is sort of up and running in terms of pathway decided, a direction of travel; more focused lately on pillar two, which was the advanced capabilities pillar and the original concept for, which was about bringing capabilities online relevant to the security environment on a faster timeframe than what the submarines were on, so addressing some of that gap challenge. What can you tell us about where we are in that effort? And maybe I'd also invite you to talk about a similar partnership with Japan. I know there's some nascent efforts related to unmanned systems, for example. But anything you can say about where those partnerships are headed and what we might be able to see in concrete terms.
DR. RATNER: Why don’t you go ahead. Maybe I'll talk a little about India afterward --
MR. MOHANDAS: Okay. So look, on -- you know, on AUKUS, obviously, this is a signature effort for the administration and ambitious in its scale, and we believe very impactful in what it can contribute to Indo-Pacific security in bringing our European and Pacific Isle -- alliances together.
You know, just a word on pillar one and the optimal pathway, which President Biden announced alongside his counterparts in March.
You know, Chris, you know this. You were -- you were involved in the negotiations with us, you know, two years ago. I think it's fair to say what we have rolled out in the optimal pathway was even more ambitious than what we thought was possible when we actually initially announced AUKUS. And to your point, it actually involves bringing capability related to conventionally-powered nuclear submarines on station much, much quicker than anybody thought would be possible. This year, you're going to see increased rotations of U.S. boats to Australia. We're going to, you know, later this decade, establish Submarine Rotational Force West, which is the rotational presence of U.S. submarines in Australia.
Again, you know, connecting back to our earlier -- some of our earlier discussion, I think it's notable that one of the most major aspects of AUKUS is actually our Force Posture Initiative, which is what Submarine Rotational Force West is. And again, that speaks to how deep our cooperation is. And then, you know, eventually in the next decade, we will deliver the trilateral SSN-AUKUS boats and -- after transferring Virginia-class submarines. So there's a -- there's a huge continuum of activity, and some of it's happening, you know, almost right now.
Now, on pillar two, you know, we announced cooperation in a number of areas: A.I., quantum, hypersonics, undersea warfare, electronic warfare. And you know, I think there's been a concerted effort both at the policy level and the expert level to sort of identify capabilities that will meaningfully contribute to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. But again, as you well know, this stuff is complicated, and I think part of what we've seen is where we have to do more, I think, related to strengthening our industrial bases, removing barriers to technology and information-sharing, and we're committed to doing that.
So you know, I would say just watch this space. There is tremendous focus on breaking through and making progress in this area.
MS. KIM: So our last question is about the Taiwan Strait. We have talked over the last hour about the increased range of DOD initiative in the region and the strengthening of the alliances. All of these are very significant, but the metric that matters is the -- whether all of these activities are influencing the actions and decisions in Beijing and Pyongyang. So what evidence do you see for this -- and other ways that -- do we know enough what -- you know, for what deter China as we get closer to the elections in Taiwan? What additional steps are we planning to strengthen the deterrence in the Taiwan Strait?
DR. RATNER: That's a very complicated question, we could spend a lot of time on that. Let me try to give you an abridged answer, and we can build on it if you're interested.
I would say first, harking back on the earlier part of our conversation, I think building and maintaining open lines of communication with the PRC are an important part of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. So this is not all about just U.S. defense and allies and partners; it pertains to the types of interactions we have with the PRC, as well. So we see that as an important ingredient to maintaining peace.
Look, there are a couple different parts of this. The -- when you look at what the department is doing as it relates to the Taiwan Strait, obviously, our policy has not changed. We have maintained our consistent behavior under the Taiwan Relations Act and One China Policy. We have a clear objective to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. We do not support Taiwan independence. I repeat: We do not support Taiwan independence, which is often a talking point for critics of ours, but it's not true. We want to maintain the status quo. We think that's in the best interests of the entire region.
Under the Taiwan Relations Act, of course, the United States has a commitment to provide Taiwan with the defensive arms it needs to defend itself. There is also part of the Taiwan Relations Act for the United States to maintain its own capacity to resist efforts of coercion, and we continue to do that through revisions to our force posture, to the development of new concepts, to the introduction of capabilities through our work with our allies and partners. And together, where we think we are today -- where we're confident that we are today -- is that deterrence is real and deterrence is strong. And that's why you hear department leaders, the Secretary, the chairman, Admiral Aquilino, myself, others saying regularly that we do not believe that conflict across the strait is either inevitable or imminent, and the reason for that is, because we have done all the activities, because we believe that deterrence is real, because of the changes that we're making in terms of our own investments, in terms our own force posture, in terms of our own concepts, we believe that deterrence is still strong and that the costs of conflict for Beijing remain not something that they would be willing to bear, that the costs would remain too high.
And our job is to keep it that way. Of course, the -- this will remain a challenge as the PRC continues to modernize. We're -- certainly feel a sense of urgency around it, but we also, again, believe that deterrence is strong and real today and our job is to keep it that way tomorrow, next week, next year, and into the future.
MR. JOHNSTONE: Terrific, clear articulation.
Okay, we have time for one or two questions from the audience. So why don't I go right here in the middle? There should be a microphone making its way.
QUESTION: Thank you. I'm a visiting fellow at CSIS with Korea Chair. My question is about the Washington Declaration. I think that one of the most notable thing in the Washington Declaration is that the establishment of NCG, Nuclear Consultation Group. I believe that Washington Declaration could be materialized into actual policy through the NCG. Within this context, what is the -- how do you operate at the NCG? What I'm trying to say is that what will U.S. DOD inform South Korea Ministry of National Defense while -- who will be the charge of the U.S. NCG head? Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
MR. MOHANDAS: So -- I should tell them the agenda first before I tell you but --
(Laughter.)
-- but, you know, in broad strokes -- I appreciate the question. I think -- we agree. I think the establishment of the NCG is very significant in a few ways. I think, you know, it is a dedicated dialogue focused on questions related to nuclear and strategic planning. I think it allows us to share assessments, particularly related to DPRK's nuclear and missile program. That's something we obviously already do but I think at a deeper level.
We can talk in granular detail, I think, about nuclear employment scenarios and what they mean for us. I, along with my colleague, DASD Richard Johnson, earlier this year, hosted a TTX, where, for the first time, we looked at a nuclear employment scenario. There's more of that that we can do under the framework of the NCG.
And then ultimately, we -- to your point, we have to think about what this means for our exercises and training and making sure that these considerations are built in to what we do as an alliance when we're thinking about how we operate together and how we train together.
MR. JOHNSTONE: There's a question back here on the right -- my right.
QUESTION: I'm Prashant Jha from the Hindustan Times, which is a New Delhi paper. I'm a senior editor with the Hindustan Times, which is a paper from New Delhi. Dr. Ratner, my questions are for you, two questions.
One, there has been some skeptical commentary in recent weeks about U.S. expectations from India and whether India would step up if there is indeed some kind of crisis that occurs with China. I wanted to understand from you what U.S. expectations from India are as the strategic relationship deepens?
A subsequent -- a follow-up, which is -- under defense relationship, which has grown $20 billion trade, joint exercises, but from India's point of view, pricing, technology transfer, co-production, co-development have been concerns. With ICET, do you see the relationship poised at a juncture where we are breaking out of these concerns? And will the clearance for the GE jet engines be an example of that?
DR. RATNER: Okay, that's a great set of questions. And I have not gotten the chance to preview the trip, so maybe I'll do that very quickly because -- at least the Indo-Pacific part ends in India and I can jump off from there, which is Secretary will be departing on Tuesday, wheels up to Tokyo, where he'll have the chance to meet with all of the leadership and national defense leadership, national security leadership in Tokyo, also visit with U.S. troops in a couple different places in Japan, and then onward to Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue.
The highlight there will be the speech he will give to the plenary session. I think you'll hear a lot of the themes that you've heard today about the major achievements that we have made alongside our allies and partners over the last year toward that shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.
He will also be doing a number, as we have discussed, minilateral and trilateral engagements. We discussed ROK-Japan-U.S., ROK -- or U.S.-Japan-Australia. He'll be meeting with ASEAN Defense Ministers and as well as some bilateral meetings with some Southeast Asian counterparts.
And then onward from there to Delhi for his second trip as Secretary of Defense, which comes amidst really a historic period in building out, deepening, modernizing, advancing the U.S.-India major defense partnership.
We had the ICET Dialogue, which our National Security Advisors led here in Washington in January. The Indian Defense Secretary was here last week for our most senior level defense engagement with Under Secretary Kahl, Secretary Austin heads out next week, and then of course the highlight of the show with Prime Minister Modi here at the end of the month for what should be just a very rich visit. So very exciting time.
I -- in terms of the defense industrial cooperation part of the question, we'll answer that, which is agree this is an area, as I mentioned before, where there have been fits and starts.
And what we are seeing now, I think, again, is closer than ever strategic alignment, including on this question of what we have as a shared priority, of both deepening our co-development and co-production and strengthening India's indigenous military capabilities as it is looking to strengthen and modernize its own military, as it's looking to be a net security provider in the region, and as it's looking to diversify away from Russian systems.
So for all of these reasons, these are things we all support, and of course all of this allows us not only to deepen our engagement from a technology and systems perspective but also to then operate together and employ those systems more than we have previously. So we are really excited about that.
In the same context as some of the issues Siddarth was mentioning, success in this area will require not operating as business as usual. I think, again, our leaders, from the President to the National Security Advisor to the Secretary of Defense on down, has said, in the case of India, this is not business as usual, this is a major priority, and in this particular area of co-production and co-development, with the ICET as the foundational institution for that.
We want to see results. This is what we have been working on, our battle buddy, DASD Lindsey Ford, has been working on intensely back in the Pentagon, DASD for South and Southeast Asia who covers India.
And on these questions of, whether it's GE engines or other types of capabilities -- under defense capabilities, under the ICET rubric -- we've been spending an enormous amount of time on this. We'll be discussing all of this next week when the Secretary is in Delhi, and again, hoping to make major announcements, aiming to make major announcements when the Prime Minister comes.
And as Siddarth said, watch this space and you'll know in about a month's time whether we've succeeded or not.
MR. JOHNSTONE: We'll do one more question and we'll go over here in the front row.
QUESTION: Mike Mosettig, PBS Online NewsHour. We've talked a lot about Australia but not about its largest and sometimes most preoccupying neighbor, Indonesia. Where does Indonesia these days fit into the ASEAN puzzle and the whole Southeast Asian puzzle?
DR. RATNER: So great question. Indonesia's fundamentally important, in terms of our approach to the region. The Secretary had the opportunity to travel to Jakarta last year and we'll be meeting again with Minister Prabowo next week in Singapore, and we're really looking forward to that.
Indonesia obviously this year is the Chair of ASEAN and has been doing a really terrific role there, and we'll be talking about what ASEAN is doing as an institution under Indonesia's leadership and how -- some exciting initiatives that we'll be advancing there as part of that.
And then of course, we're looking at the bilateral relationship with Indonesia as well. We had, over the past year, evolved our major annual exercise Garuda Shield into something that we referred to as Super Garuda Shield this past year, which included, for the first time, a number of other participating countries. So expanding into a major multilateral exercise, and we're going to be looking to build on that in terms of what we are doing multilaterally and also what we are doing bilaterally with Indonesia on a training basis and also consistent with the conversation here in terms of the capabilities they need to defend their interests. So we'll be having those conversations as well.
MR. JOHNSTONE: That's great. So we're right up against the time here and I want to give each of you a chance for any final thoughts you have before we close. So defer to either -- both of you --
MR. MOHANDAS: -- kick it off and then give you the last word.
Look, I mean, you know, I'll just kind of return to the theme I mentioned at the outset, which is, you know, why are we investing in allies and partners in the way we're doing? In the first instance, it's because we want to strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, and we believe we can do that by modernizing these alliances, by creating more capable allies, and we believe that, with sort of greater capability will come greater urgency.
And what I mean by that is that we will be able to do more together as allies, and you see that bilaterally, you know, in the U.S.-Japan alliance, in the U.S.-Australia alliance, U.S.-ROK, but as we talked about it, you're increasingly seeing it trilaterally and multilaterally, and we believe that is a very significant development and one that, again, sort of going back to our earlier discussion, can stand the test of time because it's going to demonstrate deterrent value and security value to the United States, to our partners and to the region for years to come.
DR. RATNER: So maybe just as a -- closing comment, coming back to the questions of deterrence and the China relationship and sort of how does this all fit together as we're cataloguing all of these achievements with allies and partners, I guess I would say a couple of things.
In many ways, this is a -- test of our ability to maintain balance in our policy, and I'll say that in in a couple ways. One is, as it relates to our relationships with our allies and partners, I think how do we make those sustainable in a context where the PRC remains a geographic and economic and political and historical and cultural reality for every single country in the region?
And we have consistently had a policy -- again, Chris, you've written these talking points I'm sure many times yourself, of we do not ask partners to choose between the United States and China, we meet them where they are in terms of their own security concerns, whether it's related to sovereignty or energy or otherwise.
We're focused in many ways on supporting their priorities of modernization, and we believe that benefits us through stability in the region and also makes them stronger allies and partners. So getting that balance right is really, really important because we're not trying to build a major anti-China coalition, as sometimes we are accused of. We're trying to do something that's truly unique in the Indo-Pacific through a different set of institutions and constellations. So getting that balance right is important and I think we're hitting the mark there in terms of moving at a very rapid pace but alongside our allies and partners, all of the relationships that we've talked about today.
These are not instances, from the ROK or Japan or Australia or India or the Philippines or any of these partners, where the United States is somehow dragging these partners along. We are racing right alongside them. So that is fundamentally important.
The other balance of course is, as we think about deterrence, not engaging in deterrence activities in a way that they actually bring about the type of escalation or crises that -- precisely which we're trying to avoid. So getting the gears on that correct in a way that we are doing things that fundamentally provide deterrent value, but at the same time are in a way that we believe is stabilizing, is a huge focus of ours.
So we are very much cognizant of that dynamic and ensuring that as we're racing ahead and engaging in all of these unprecedented activities, that it is in fact contributing to peace and stability.
MR. JOHNSTONE: Right. Well, this has been terrific. You know, as I think back, we've been using the term "our goal of building a network regional security architecture" for quite a while, but now, I think it's fair to say we're actually seeing it start to happen organically among our partners, right, when you think about Japan's own relationship with Australia, the Philippines. So it -- it's great to see some of this come to fruition.
So my sincere thanks to both of you, Assistant Secretary Ratner, Deputy Assistant Secretary Mohandas. I know what you're about to go through with the Shangri-La, having done a couple of these myself. So best wishes to you.
And please join me in a warm round of applause for our panel.
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