Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

Jeremiah Manele has emerged as the next prime minister. What does his victory mean for the country’s pro-China “Look North” policy?

The US president met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. this week in Washington.

The US and Japan must modernize their command and control structures to ensure deterrence and defeat threats in the Indo-Pacific.

US policymakers and military leaders must rigorously study and plan for a broad range of implications from a years-long war against China.

Such a coalition would help disrupt cyber threats, signal US resolve, and ideally help deter future cyberattacks from China.

The US intelligence community has just released its National Intelligence Estimate on North Korea, a watershed analysis. But more is worth adding to the discussion.

As the Pacific Islands’ relevance grows, there’s an influx of diplomatic attention and development assistance as external powers seek to curry favor with the sixteen countries. Australia, India, Japan, and the United States (the Quad) seeks to bolster regional engagement to address key regional issues including climate, connectivity, economic development, and maritime security.

Washington and Seoul have drawn closer together in recent years, but concerns remain about what role the alliance would play in a US-China military conflict. The US and South Korea should take these steps to address this sensitive question.

Economic interdependence of South Korea, United States, and other Indo-Pacific countries with China is enabling Beijing to pose threats to national security through economic coercion. To reduce these risks, Seoul and Washington should align strategies in advanced technologies, secure supply chains through trilateral cooperation with Japan, and reinforce the rules-based system in the Indo-Pacific.

Conventional wisdom in the United States holds that deterrence in Korea is strong, but this widespread confidence is based on a backward look at long-standing assumptions that are no longer tenable, along with rapidly shifting politico-military conditions. This report explains the urgent actions required to get ahead of these changes and maintain effective deterrence.

This report highlights two emerging and interrelated deterrence challenges in East Asia with grave risks to US national security: 1) Horizontal escalation of a conflict with China or North Korea into simultaneous conflict; 2) Vertical escalation to a limited nuclear attack by either or both adversaries to avoid conceding.

Trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan, and South Korea has proved challenging over the years, owing largely to historical tensions. As a result, this project has sought perspectives from next-generation leaders of the three countries to define areas where targeted, flexible, and informal cooperative arrangements can provide clear mutual benefit to all.