The 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States of America and the 2026 National Defense Strategy demand a major shift in burden sharing, expecting allies and partners to do more on certain aspects of regional security. Given this emphasis on burden sharing and providing “critical, but more limited support” to allies and partners, what are strategies that can be used to enhance the Department's approach to strategic security, economic, and technology partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region? Furthermore, does the military need a new model for security cooperation to foster this network of capable allies and partners, particularly given reductions in dedicated security force assistance capabilities?
To navigate these requirements globally—from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific—should the U.S. military develop a single, global approach to burden sharing or should it vary by region? Are there specific incentives in security cooperation and foreign military sales that could guide partner investment toward capabilities that enhance their self-defense and contribute to shared regional security objectives? One example of this shift is the Republic of Korea taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited U.S. support. What are the strategic and operational implications of burden sharing with northeast Asian allies like the Republic of Korea and an increasingly militarized Japan? Are those burden sharing implications different when compared to allies like Australia or other NATO allies with stakes in various regions?
Ultimately, what best practices could the military build upon to incentivize and enable this burden sharing, including with respect to foreign military sales and technical interoperability? Specifically, how does a focus on technical interoperability help or hinder operational integration with these diverse allies and partners across varying theaters? To fully realize this integration, to what extent can multilateral exercises enhance these efforts and move regional partner forces from theoretical interoperability to a demonstrable, combined capability to defend against a real-world contingency?
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Bishop, Dalene, "China's Claim to the South China Sea: Legal Legitimacy, Historical Justifications and Geopolitical Implications," AFGC thesis, 2025, 41 pgs.
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Bishop argues that unilateral military actions like FONOPs have limited strategic deterrent value unless they are paired with diplomacy and coalition-building. To enhance its approach, the U.S. must promote the "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" (FOIP) strategy and strengthen integrated security ties with regional partners like the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, and Australia. Furthermore, Bishop recommends leveraging multilateral strategic forums like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)—which includes the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia—to collaborate on maritime security and counter China's Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) threats reaching into the Second Island Chain.
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Burgess, Maj. Thomas G., "Security Cooperation and Coalition Partnership in the Indo-Pacific," AFGC thesis, 2026.
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Answers this by diagnosing the limitations of the current U.S. "hub and spoke" alliance model and the hedging strategies employed by Southeast Asian countries who fear choosing sides between Washington and Beijing. To enhance its strategic approach, Burgess concludes that the U.S. must pivot its military diplomacy to outcompete China's heavy, region-specific investments. He recommends that the U.S. provide stronger assurances and guarantees to these hedging states, strategically leveraging arms sales to promote a "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" as a mutually beneficial economic and security arrangement. By doing so, he argues the U.S. can transform isolated bilateral relationships into a stronger regional coalition capable of countering Chinese influence.
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Judd, Maj. Colby D., "Asymmetry in the West," AFGC thesis, 2025, 41 pgs.
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Judd emphasizes that the US cannot overcome the "tyranny of distance" in the Pacific without significantly expanding its network of regional allies. He recommends building out the "hub-and-spoke" model of alliances. By expanding the spokes (treaty allies like Japan, Thailand, Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines) surrounding Taiwan and China, the US can secure distributed basing locations across multiple axes and apply coordinated diplomatic and economic pressure in the "gray zone" below the threshold of conflict.
- Larson, Stephen M., "Integrated by Necessity: Understanding the United States-Japan Defense Relationship," SAASS thesis, 2025, 102 pgs.
- Larson provides insights into enhancing strategic partnerships in the Asia-Pacific by demonstrating that US engagements must deeply account for the intertwined economic and security motivations of the host nation. He shows that Japan has historically prioritized economic prosperity, preferring to take a path of deeper defense integration with the US rather than allocating a larger percentage of its own government budget to an autonomous military. To effectively enhance these partnerships, Larson suggests that US strategists must understand how allied political parties—such as Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—use "multi-vocal" approaches to balance domestic desires for autonomy with the practical need for US security. By recognizing that partners like Japan use bilateral integration to ensure their own security without massive financial burdens, the US can better tailor its diplomatic and military strategies to align with the economic realities and political flexibility of its Asia-Pacific partners.
- Rieske, Nathan E., "Influencing India--The U.S. Battle for Strategic Partnership," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- Rieske answers this by recommending a multifaceted strategy to strengthen the U.S. partnership with India as a counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific. Rather than forcing a formal military alliance—which India is likely to reject due to its steadfast policy of "strategic autonomy"—he argues the U.S. should pursue a flexible strategic partnership. To enhance this partnership, Rieske suggests the U.S. prioritize its economic relations by balancing trade (specifically by encouraging India to diversify its supply chains away from China to the U.S.) and negotiating mutually low tariffs. Militarily, the strategy should focus on gradual interoperability through joint exercises rather than pushing for permanent base sharing, which could unnecessarily provoke China.
- Reynolds, Rachel L., "Leapfrogs and Shortcuts: Paths to Technological Performance on US and Chinese Strategic Evolutionary Landscapes," SAASS thesis, 2020, 101 pgs.
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Small, Maj. Robert, "US Policy in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Hybrid Approach to Consider Interdependence," ACSC elective paper (Asia Rebalance), 2020, 22 pgs.
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Sweet, Maj. Jefferson, "Finding Credible Stability: How to Capitalize on Multinational Synergy in United States Indo-Pacific Command," AFGC thesis, 2025, 42 pgs.
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Sweet answers this by proposing the creation of a "Quad-plus" multinational alliance designed to balance both soft and hard power in the Indo-Pacific. He suggests utilizing the original Quad nations (the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia) as a NATO-like security core to provide collective military defense and exert "hard pressure" against Chinese expansion. Concurrently, he advocates expanding the alliance into a second tier—the "Quad-plus"—by incorporating New Zealand, South Korea, Brazil, Israel, and Vietnam. This second tier would exert "soft pressure" by focusing on socio-economic development, thereby directly linking the economic prosperity of vulnerable regional nations to a collective military security framework.
- Conlon, Col. Jennie E., "The Cobbled Road to Equipping US Allies: A Look at Rotary Wing Acquisition in the Indo-Pacific," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2024, 30 pgs. Winner of the AWC Maj. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale International Affairs Award
- Dobre, Maj. Costinel-Viorel (ROUAF), "Integrated Deterrence: Department of the Air Force and NATO Space and Cyberspace Interoperability" AFGC thesis, 2025, 66 pgs.
- Dobre's research indicates that technical interoperability strictly helps operational integration, and a lack of it causes severe bottlenecks. For example, mismatched SATCOM protocols have delayed operational coordination by 15 minutes, and outdated national firewalls left 40% of NATO states highly vulnerable during hybrid warfare exercises. Implementing unified Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) frameworks and standardizing encryption protocols are critical to eliminating operational silos and enabling synchronized, real-time responses.
- Dorans, Maj. Larissa A., "Identifying Barriers to Empower Allies and Partners: What Are the Primary Barriers to Empowerment, Cooperation, and Interoperability for US Partners and Allies," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- Dorans’s research examines how disparities in equipment, technology, and cyber capabilities act as primary tangible barriers to operational integration. She demonstrates that U.S. military systems frequently outpace the infrastructure of allied forces, making technical equivalence incredibly difficult to achieve outside of core NATO structures. Using the Ukraine conflict as a case study, Dorans illustrates that even established standardization frameworks, such as NATO's Standardization Agreements (STANAGs), can fail under the rapid stress test of a mass equipment transfer, leading to complex maintenance challenges and delayed supply deliveries. To answer how a focus on technical interoperability impacts integration, she argues that while eliminating technical disparities entirely is not feasible, the U.S. must invest in shared platforms, secure communication hardware, and flexible battlefield innovation to prevent equipment incompatibility from hindering multinational operations.
- Koeltzow, Col. Christopher, Brent Peterson and Eric Williams, "F-16s Unleashed: How They Will Impact Ukraine's War," AF Fellows research, published by Center for Strategic & International Studies, June 11, 2024.