The Pacific’s Biggest War Games Keep Getting Bigger

Every two years the US, its allies, and like-minded nations assemble their military forces in Hawaii for Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), the world’s largest maritime exercise. With 29 countries from Asia, the Pacific and beyond, RIMPAC’s host, Commander, US Pacific Fleet, describes the war games as five weeks of cooperation and coordination with the goal of peace and stability in a free and open Indo-Pacific. Navy officials emphasize RIMPAC is centered on multi-national trust building, interoperability, and readiness to respond to a wide range of potential operations across the globe.

From late June until early August, 150 aircraft, 40 surface ships, 14 land forces, and 25,000 personnel take part in a range of war training exercises: urban combat, amphibious assault, live fire (rockets, missiles, mortars), air and sea-based drone capabilities, and humanitarian aid and disaster relief. This year’s RIMPAC also includes a ship sinking exercise in which several military forces will destroy a decommissioned naval vessel using multiple weapons systems.
A History of RIMPAC

RIMPAC was first held in 1971 with three countries (Australia, Canada, USA), but has grown to include formidable Asian military powers (Japan, South Korea, India) as well as regional partners (Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia), six Latin American countries (Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru), as well as nations large (Australia, Canada) and small (Tonga, Sri Lanka).

This year RIMPAC also includes seven European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom).

China participated in RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but hasn’t been invited since 2018. Wade said, China was not invited this year “because of the reluctance to adhere to international rules, norms, and standards.”

By contrast, major US ally Israel, which faces international condemnation for its conduct of the war in Gaza, is participating in its third RIMPAC, and while it is not sending aircraft or vessels, a RIMPAC spokesperson confirmed Israel has dispatched personnel. The Israeli military declined multiple requests to comment for this article.

While RIMPAC is widely seen as a warning to China, Wade said, “RIMPAC does not single out a particular nation or send messages to anybody.”

Even if that is true, the United States’ signaling is loud and clear. Rahm Emanuel, US ambassador to Japan, recently described the United States as “the permanent Pacific Power.” In a televised interview, Nicholas Burns, US ambassador to China, said the two countries are “vying for military supremacy” to determine who would be the most powerful in the most strategically important part of the world. In June, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the Indo-Pacific region the US’s “priority theater of operations.”
Permanent Pacific Power

In addition to RIMPAC, the US and its allies conduct dozens of war games with varying frequency across the Pacific: Pitch Black, Keen Sword, Cobra Gold, Tiger TRIUMPH, Ulchi Freedom Guardian, and Super Garuda Shield, to name a few.

In the weeks leading up to RIMPAC, as China was clashing with the Philippines in the South China Sea and carrying out military drills around Taiwan, the US and its allies were also conducting joint drills in the South China Sea and “freedom of navigation” transits through the Taiwan Strait.

The US and allies also conduct ongoing military exercises within and around mainland Japan, Okinawa, and the East China Sea. Additionally, a suite of joint exercises are carried out in the Korean peninsula including US-South Korea air training, and combined, multi-domain, interagency exercises using cyber and space assets “with an emphasis on counter nuclear operations.”

The US also conducts wargames with Australia, Thailand, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and India.

Meanwhile, the US is enhancing and expanding military strategic access agreements and partnerships with Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and the Philippines, and developing new military relations with Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.

The Department of Defense National Strategy called US alliances and partnerships its “greatest global strategic advantage.” In a recent speech at a defense summit in Singapore, Secretary of Defense Austin said, “we’re breaking down national barriers and better integrating our defense industries.” Calling the agreements historic, Austin added, “they’re just the starting point.”

This spring, the US extended Compacts of Free Association with three Pacific nations (Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau), under which the US claims “the right of strategic denial” or exclusive military control over vast areas of the Pacific. For decades, the US has tested intercontinental ballistic missiles in the Marshall Islands in support of its nuclear deterrent.

On the US territory of Guam, the US recently activated its first new US Marine base since 1952 and is planning to further expand radar, missile defense and other military capabilities. The US Navy also controls two vast testing and training complexes (MIRC and MITT) surrounding the Northern Mariana Islands used for a number of military purposes including sonar, live-fire training, and other activities.
Close to the Herd

Asked how RIMPAC stands out from other US war games in the region, John Hemmings, a faculty member at Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies said, “RIMPAC differs in scope and size from others and that’s very evident. It started off as maritime but it has become multi-domain and includes space and cyber and air.”

On RIMPAC’s growing roster of participants outside the Asia-Pacific region, Hemmings, who stressed he was speaking in a private capacity, said that by deploying aircraft, vessels, and weapons across the world, participants can demonstrate their ability to execute formidable strategic and logistics feats.

“The ability to go out to a faraway region, fly the flag, work with allies and partners in that region is, at the moment, becoming very much a way for European powers to… show their interest in freedom of navigation,” Hemmings said.

He added that wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the deteriorating international security environment, and political battles between authoritarianism and democracy are all contributing to a heightened sense of global insecurity. As a result, Hemmings said countries are doing what any nation does when it feels insecure: “strengthen its alliances and relationships and partnerships with those that it feels are like-minded and try to get close to the herd,” in this case close to states that may offer defense in the event of a conflict.

Hemmings called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “a big wake up call,” adding, “the Japanese and others spent a lot of time — Taiwan as well — persuading the Europeans that what can happen in Europe can also happen in the Indo-Pacific and that the two regions are intimately linked.” The relationship between China and Russia means that what happens in one region can affect the other.

With the increasing European presence in RIMPAC leading some to speculate about a “Pacific NATO,” Hemmings notes that each European country is participating on its own and not under the NATO flag. Regardless, the growing ties between Europe and Indo-Pacific nations is keenly recognized by NATO leadership, military leaders, and others.

In 2023, the US Navy’s chief of naval operations suggested that as international economic competition intensifies, he could envision a future RIMPAC-like exercise centered on Euro-Atlantic security based around the polar rim that connects the Pacific and the Atlantic by an increasingly navigable and contested sea route.
Opposition around the Pacific

While RIMPAC supporters are enthusiastic about the growing scale of exercises, RIMPAC is also being protested from Australia and New Zealand to California and Hawaii, Malaysia, South Korea, and across the Pacific. RIMPAC opponents point to an increasingly militarized Pacific, charging that war games elevate regional tension, and desecrate water, air, land and Indigenous values. In Hawaii, which has a long history of military-caused pollution, critics say RIMPAC is yet another example of environmental degradation. The exercise has also fed concerns that sex trafficking and sex work increase during large events like RIMPAC.

Neta Crawford, co-director of Brown University’s Costs of War Project, sees RIMPAC as part of perpetual war preparation that has been normalized and says it’s a trend that appears to be accelerating and intensifying its focus on China. The adage Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war) is steeply entrenched in American history, but she says, “the problem is that we can’t keep doing that and expect good things to happen.”

“If we keep this up,” Crawford says, “what we ensure is resources are spent on preparations for war that might or might not occur when we have resources that we need to spend on things like switching to alternative fuels and preparing for sea level rise…”

If you spend too much money on war and military forces, you accelerate your decline. This is the story of the rise and fall of most great powers.
Neta Crawford

Rather than continuing to pour record high resources into military spending to counter potential threats, the US government needs to confront immediate and worsening social, economic, environmental and climate crises, Crawford says. She points to the words of retired US Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear who participated in RIMPAC in 2008 and who called climate change the “most pressing long-term threat” to the Asia-Pacific region.

Continuing to prioritize limited resources for exorbitant and unnecessary military spending in order to maintain total control everywhere all the time to preserve American preeminence, leads to a greatly diminished United States, Crawford says. “If you spend too much money on war and military forces, you accelerate your decline. This is the story of the rise and fall of most great powers.”

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s 2023 Trends in World Military Expenditure fact sheet, US military spending far exceeded all other nations at $916 billion (37% of global spending). The second highest spender was China, but far below at $296 billion (12%). Ten of the top 15 largest military spending nations are participating in this RIMPAC.

Crawford says there needs to be a recognition that the costs of war include preparation for war and its aftermath. From pollution around military bases and impacts on climate change to the environmental, health, and social costs of caring for veterans, Crawford says, “it’s not just the act of fighting but all that happens before and after conflict is over.”

Asked about humanitarian aid and disaster relief, Crawford says the reason the military is “basically the only tool we have” is because we haven’t invested in alternatives. “We’ve been spending too much money on the military.” She suggests that other forces could be trained to conduct humanitarian aid and disaster relief efficiently and effectively at a lower cost, adding, “We don’t need a B-52 to deliver humanitarian assistance.”

But Crawford does recognize some of the values enshrined in RIMPAC. Deconflicting, interoperability, and coordinating with allies is not a waste, she says. “I think it’s very important that we have a world that’s interconnected in ways that build cooperation,” with community-building based on “we-ism” rather than “us versus them.”

Large-scale military exercises require a tremendous amount of resources that could be used more effectively, Crawford says, stressing the importance of finding new ways to respond to shared challenges. “We can make a better world. We can make other choices.”