U.S. Approach to Strategic Partnerships
TOPIC SPONSOR: HAF A5SM
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?
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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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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.
- 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.