Hawaii, United States At a time of increasing tension and competition between China and the United States and its allies, the U.S. Pacific Fleet is hosting the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), the world’s largest international maritime exercise, in Hawaii.
RIMPAC, which is held every two years, will bring together militaries from 29 countries this year for a five-week exercise aimed at strengthening multilateral relations and enhancing preparations to promote a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.”
Founded in 1971 by Australia, Canada and the United States, this year’s exercise, which began on June 27, includes troops from South Korea, Japan and India as well as seven other countries from Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Israel is also set to take part in the third RIMPAC, but the war in Gaza that has killed more than 37,000 people since October has drawn protests from pro-Palestinian groups in the region. A RIMPAC spokesman confirmed Israel’s participation but said no aircraft or ships would be taking part in the exercise. The Israeli military declined to respond to questions about its participation in the exercise.
Military leaders say RIMPAC will enable participating navies to enhance “interoperability and readiness for a wide range of potential operations around the world.” The exercise focuses on land, air and sea warfare and contingency training, with 150 aircraft, 40 surface ships, three submarines and more than 25,000 personnel conducting amphibious landings, urban combat training, anti-submarine warfare, ship sinking training, cyber and space operations.
A RIMPAC spokesperson said RIMPAC 2024 will focus on “intense and complex tactical phase, comprehensive humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, and integrated, multi-domain warfare.”
This year’s RIMPAC is being held against a backdrop of rising regional tensions.
While the United States has strengthened multilateral regional partnerships, forged new defense agreements and built up its military capabilities across the Asia-Pacific, China has stepped up military drills around Taiwan and repeatedly clashed with the Philippines over disputed islands and shoals in the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, Russia has also become more assertive in the region. In the past two months, President Vladimir Putin has made major visits to China, North Korea and Vietnam, sought support for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and signed a defense agreement with North Korea that heralds a new era of greater economic, political and military cooperation.
Meanwhile, just days before RIMPAC, the United States conducted strategic bombing exercises, sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the Korean Peninsula, and conducted combat drills with its allies around Taiwan and the South China Sea.
“They’re both competing for military superiority. Who will be the strongest in the most strategic region in the world, the Indo-Pacific?” U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” in February.
David Santoro, president and CEO of Pacific Forum, an Asia-Pacific policy research institute in Hawaii, said after 25 years focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, “the raw issue of war has re-emerged. We’ve seen it in Europe, we’ve seen it in the Middle East, and there are strong indications it could happen in the Indo-Pacific… Unfortunately, this is something people need to understand and get used to.”
Santoro told Al Jazeera that national security officials could do a better job of explaining to the public that “the new world we live in is not peaceful, it’s increasingly dangerous and we need to adapt to it.”
Santoro added that the world appears to be moving away from comprehensive collective security to a world of “very stringent security priorities” and bloc politics reminiscent of the Cold War. “We’re back to a very worrying and stringent situation,” he said.
Preparing for future wars
China attended RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but was disinvited in 2018 amid rising regional tensions. It was also not invited to this year’s event.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore earlier this month, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stressed that the Asia-Pacific region is central to US security strategy, adding that “if Asia is not secure, America is not secure.”
When asked by the Chinese representative if the US was looking to build a NATO-like alliance in the region, Austin said, “Like-minded countries that share similar values and a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific are working together to realise that vision. We have strengthened our relationships with our allies and partners, and other countries are strengthening their relationships with each other in the region.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also stressed the importance of security in the Asia-Pacific region. Speaking ahead of Putin’s visit to Pyongyang, where Kim Jong Un has conducted numerous weapons tests this year, Stoltenberg said, “What happens in Europe matters to Asia, and what happens in Asia matters to us.”
This year’s RIMPAC will also feature the largest humanitarian assistance and disaster relief training ever. Expeditionary forces and 2,500 participants from eight countries will work with outside organizations, including UN officials and nonprofits. Training will include statewide mass casualty training and strengthening crisis response capabilities for overseas disasters, as well as urban search and rescue training to reflect “real-world operations during humanitarian crises.”
While organizers have praised RIMPAC for fostering cooperation among partner nations, it has also drawn criticism from environmental and climate activists, indigenous groups and others in the region, who have called for the exercise to be canceled.
In response to the demonstration, which took place outside the US Pacific Fleet headquarters in Pearl Harbor, the US 3rd Fleet Public Affairs Office said in a statement: “RIMPAC’s goal is to enhance our nation’s security in an environmentally and culturally sensitive manner and to recognize the continuing freedom of those who have the right to protect our environment.”
Kyle Kajihiro, an assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of Hawaii, pointed to multiple examples of military contamination in Hawaii and other parts of the Pacific and said, “These effects have left the Hawaiian Islands in a state of flux.” [land] It becomes uninhabitable and turns places of life and abundance into spaces of death.”
“The military’s track record on environmental and cultural resources speaks volumes in contradiction to its claims,” he told Al Jazeera.
