Those bilateral engagements followed stops earlier that day at both U.S. Forces Japan headquarters at Yokota Air Base, and separately the Yokohama North Docks, where Austin heard directly from military personnel about maturing efforts to modernize the alliance’s command-and-control capabilities.

They also came as the two allies work on refining requirements to reconstitute USFJ into a joint force headquarters.

“As the security situation in the region is increasingly severe, I would like to continue to move forward with important initiatives of the alliance and cooperating our efforts to strengthen alliance capabilities to deter and respond, as well as to mitigate the impacts on local communities,” Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told Austin and his team during the open-press portion of their bilateral meeting.

Austin also emphasized how the two nations are operating in a clear-eyed manner regarding the challenges to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and other areas of the world.

“That includes coercive behavior by the People’s Republic of China in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and elsewhere in a region. It includes Russia’s reckless war of choice in Ukraine, and it includes [North Korea’s] support for Moscow’s war, as well as its other destabilizing and provocative activities,” he said. “But we’re meeting these challenges with confidence and resolve, and we remain committed to advancing our historic trilateral cooperation with [the] Republic of Korea.”

As the defense leaders alluded to, their meetings this week unfolded as Syria continues to erupt in political chaos, South Korea confronts backlash and works to recuperate from its president’s recent, temporary declaration of martial law, and conflicts continue to play out both in Ukraine and around Israel.

While the main portions of the Pentagon chief’s engagements were closed to the press on Tuesday, senior U.S. defense officials briefed a small group of journalists traveling in Austin’s delegation on the progress and implications of the deepening U.S.-Japan military partnership.

“The department has been working to realize the vision that Secretary Austin outlined in July” at a 2+2 dialogue in Tokyo, one senior official said.

There, American and Japanese national security officials solidified a plan to revamp their alliance’s command and control — or C2 — capabilities, including by enabling more collaboration on next-generation technologies within their defense industries and by expanding joint, cross-domain missions.

“The United States and Japan are on track to deliver that vision, as [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] continues to convene working groups with Japanese counterparts to build out alliance coordination procedures and other operational measures for enhanced bilateral cooperation. There have been several such working groups so far,” the senior defense official said.

They added that, at the same time, America is also moving to reshape USFJ into a joint force headquarters by revamping its resources and facilities to expand and enable more cooperative missions and responsibilities.

“We are in a good position to implement these requirements in the months ahead, ensuring that the JFHQ is in a strong position to operate effectively with Japan and that the alliance can respond in peacetime and contingencies,” according to the senior defense official.

In their view, “Japan has been investing more than ever in its own capabilities.”

They pointed to how, in particular, the island nation has been moving to take on more roles and missions in the alliance and the broader region — including by standing up its own joint operations and command center that should open up sometime early next spring.

“And in the context of that, we made an alliance decision to upgrade U.S. Forces Japan, which has largely been in the business of managing the alliance itself, but not an operational command,” the senior U.S. defense official said.

They committed to sharing more information on the technical aspects of this pivot in the near future.

“But currently, the U.S. Forces Japan commander is dual-hatted as the 5th Air Force commander — and the decision that Secretary Austin made this summer as an alliance decision is to split those and to have a standalone [USFJ] commander that would be in command of this upgraded command, and one of the principal responsibilities of that will to be linking up with Japan’s new joint operational command in a way that we have not done before in the U.S.-Japan alliance,” the official said.

Additionally, they pointed out that the original language lawmakers proposed for the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (the House-Senate negotiated version of the NDAA was released Saturday) incorporates a reporting requirement that if passed would mandate Defense Department personnel to inform Congress members about the progress that’s been made since the nations first agreed to boost their military partnerships.

“That’s just another sign and symbol of the bipartisan congressional interest and support that we see on this issue,” the senior defense official said.

During the official bilateral dialogues with Nakatani and Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Tuesday, Austin repeatedly emphasized that — despite intensifying warfare in multiple regions around the world — he believes that the U.S.-Japan alliance is presently stronger than ever.

“We share a vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific, and I’m proud of how much we’ve accomplished over the past four years. We’ve announced major improvements to our force posture, advanced groundbreaking defense industrial agreements and taken steps to upgrade our command and control, and we’ve worked more closely than ever with our partners across this region in support of stability, deterrence and peace,” the Pentagon chief said.

In his opening remarks with Austin, which reporters were permitted to observe ahead of the closed-door meeting, Ishiba said the global conflict landscape is changing “very quickly, on a weekly basis” — and that current events now playing out in Syria and South Korea were difficult to imagine or predict not that long ago.

“A century from now, we will consider what’s happening in 2024 as something historic. So, we need to be accountable for today’s world, as well as the world of tomorrow’s generations,” he said.

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The engagement marked the 56th U.S.-Republic of Korea Security Consultative Meeting. 

Shortly after that SCM, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and ROK Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-Hyun briefed reporters on plans to co-modernize their weapons arsenals and promote regional security endeavors in and around the Indo-Pacific.

“Moving forward, we’ll build on our momentum. And we’ll expand the scope and scale of our cooperation. We’ll use our strategic advantages and innovation in our defense industrial bases to bring cutting-edge tech to our warfighters,” Austin said.

In the meeting, the defense chiefs agreed to launch a new Regional Cooperation Framework covering a range of deliberate focus areas, including maritime security, multilateral exercises, capacity building, technical and defense industrial cooperation and information-sharing.

“Sec. Austin and I pledge to strengthen cooperation in science and technology and defense industry, based on the defense vision of the alliance. We plan to establish a vice minister-level Defense Science and Technology Executive Committee within this year to explore the application of cutting-edge science and technology in the defense sector,” Kim said through his interpreter.

Kim also confirmed that that new committee — the DSTEC — will puzzle out ways for South Korea to link with the AUKUS alliance on certain Pillar 2 projects to collaboratively accelerate emerging and disruptive military capabilities. The committee is envisioned to guide defense innovation and adoption of next-gen assets associated particularly with autonomous systems, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.

“We acknowledge the significance of securing supply chain resilience and modernizing alliance capabilities, and pledged to engage in active cooperation in the defense industry sector,” Kim noted — pointing specifically to maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) activities and efforts designed to revamp weapons systems and make them more interoperable.

The SCM participants also deliberated on plans to upgrade their shared early warning systems and missile defense capabilities, to ultimately deter and respond to advanced and novel missile threats from North Korea.

Notably, this meeting unfolded against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war that’s now at an extremely high risk of expanding to include involvement from that nation, also referred to as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK.

“We’re closely tracking the unprecedented level of direct military cooperation between Russia and the DPRK. In our meeting today, we shared our deep concerns about the deployment of DPRK troops to Russia. We also discussed how we’re going to work together with our allies and partners to respond to this dangerous and destabilizing escalation. The evidence now suggests that North Korea has sent around 10,000 soldiers to train in eastern Russia. Some of these DPRK troops have already moved closer to Ukraine,” Austin told reporters. 

“We’re seeing them outfitted with Russian uniforms and provided with Russian equipment. And I am increasingly concerned that the Kremlin plans to use these North Korean soldiers to support Russia’s combat operations in Russia’s Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine,” the secretary said. 

Kim noted that he views that deployment as North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s “attempt to maintain his dictatorship.”

The dictator “didn’t hesitate to sell out his young people and troops as cannon-fodder mercenaries. I believe such activities [are] a war crime that is not only anti-humanitarian, but also anti-peaceful,” the South Korean defense minister said.

He expressed belief that it’s still possible for the U.S., South Korea and other partners to overcome this escalation. But Kim also warned that North Korea would likely move to garner higher-tech weapons from Russia as a trade for its troops. 

“There’s a high chance that they would, in exchange for their deployment, North Korea is very likely to ask for technology transfers in diverse areas — including the technologies relating to tactical nuclear weapons, technologies relating to their advancement of [intercontinental ballistic missiles], regarding reconnaissance satellite, and those regarding [ballistic missile submarines] as well,” Kim said. 

In response to a question regarding how he gauges possible threats of North Korea interfering with the upcoming U.S. presidential election, Kim told reporters he doesn’t currently view that as a major concern. 

“However, I believe there is a high chance that they would want to exaggerate their existence [and alleged nuclear prowess] around the season of the U.S. presidential election — before and after the election,” the South Korean defense minister said. 

On Thursday, Austin and Kim are set to join U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and ROK Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul for a “2+2” foreign and defense ministers meeting.

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“We’re bringing together … some of our closest non-NATO partners to have a discussion around issues like resilience and cyber, disinformation, technology and the like,” a senior administration official said July 5. 

President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and many of their domestic colleagues and foreign counterparts are set to take part in this historic, three-day summit, which kicks off Tuesday and will commemorate NATO’s 75th anniversary. 

Broadly, the military alliance hosts these periodic meet-ups as opportunities for heads of state and other government leaders of member countries to connect in one place on key policy priorities — and ultimately agree upon and lay out strategic plans to guide their latest activities. This week’s gathering will be the first NATO summit held in Washington since 1999. 

This one will unfold against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine sparked by Russia’s invasion.

Top aims “include ensuring the implementation of new NATO plans for credible deterrence and defense, enhancing long-term support for Ukraine and fostering its future NATO membership,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters last week.

“During the summit, Secretary Austin will be engaged in discussions to ramp up transatlantic defense industrial production, ensure adequate defense investments from allies and the deepening of practical cooperation between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners to include Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea,” he added.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity at another discussion last week, a senior White House official also pointed to that increased focus on the Indo-Pacific.

“This particular grouping of the ‘IP4,’ as we call them in NATO lingo — Australia, Japan, New Zealand, ROK — these are some of our closest partners that we work with in the region,” the official explained.

While NATO first signed formal agreements with the Indo-Pacific 4 in the early 2010s, this partnership was elevated through the inaugural participation of those countries’ leaders in the alliance’s 2022 summit, held in Madrid. The NATO and IP4 partners reaffirmed their ties at the conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, last year.

“I will say that we’ve got some new projects that we’re going to be talking about at the summit with our Indo-Pacific partners on resilience. So resilience in the region, supporting Ukraine, as I mentioned, countering disinformation, cyber — and then also on tech cooperation and emerging technologies,” the senior administration official said.

America’s docket for the meeting, according to that official, also involves plans to discuss China’s intensifying support for Russia’s defense industrial base.

“With something like 90 percent of Russia’s semiconductors coming from the [People’s Republic of China], 70 percent of its nitrocellulose, which is used for propellants — and a lot of its optics, machine tools, etc. — all of this not only fueling Russia’s war against Ukraine but also creating a long-term challenge for European security that, obviously, our allies recognize. And so we will have, I think, strong language on this to address,” the senior official said.

On the sidelines of the summit, they confirmed, Biden will host a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and nearly two dozen allies and partners who’ve signed bilateral security agreements with the war-torn nation.

Among other reveals and plans alongside its NATO allies, the U.S. is also poised to announce new steps to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses and other military capabilities in the near term.

“Together, the Washington summit will send a strong signal to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that if he thinks he can outlast the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine, he’s dead wrong. We’re also going to send an important message to the rest of the world, including through our partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, as we stand together united and in support of democratic values,” the senior administration official told reporters.

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