Record 30 nations join RIMPAC as Pacific allies expand naval cooperation

South Korean admiral commands maritime component for first time

The Rim of the Pacific exercise, the world’s largest international maritime drill, ended Friday after five weeks of operations centered on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The biennial event, known as RIMPAC, brought together 30 nations and roughly 30,000 personnel, surpassing previous participation records, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Dozens of warships docked at Pearl Harbor, including the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, a Japanese Aegis destroyer, a South Korean tank-landing ship, and a Canadian patrol submarine. The carrier, used in filming for the 2022 film “Top Gun: Maverick,” served as a centerpiece for the exercises and can host roughly 70 aircraft and about 5,000 U.S. military personnel, said Capt. Adam Bean, who is in charge of the ship’s air squadrons.

“There’s not many places we can’t go,” Bean said. “We have the ability to project power, presence.”

The growing size and scope of RIMPAC illustrates deepening military cooperation with U.S. partners in the Pacific, even as President Donald Trump lambastes allies and threatens to withdraw American support, the Journal reported. The exercises serve as a deterrent signal to China and North Korea, according to officials involved.

Jeff T. Jablon, deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, served as the top official overseeing RIMPAC. He declined to say how China or North Korea may perceive the mass exercise, but said, “I’m sure there’s some deterrent effect when they see 30 like-minded nations working together.”

Allies took on an unusually large share of senior leadership roles this year. Rear Adm. Takuo Kobayashi of Japan’s maritime self-defense force was among several allied officers commanding multinational exercises, including one involving the sinking of decommissioned American warships. Just three of RIMPAC’s most senior roles this time were American, the Journal reported.

“If you have 30, 50 or 100 friends,” Kobayashi said, “it’ll be better than just one or two formal alliances.”

South Korean Rear Adm. Kim In-ho oversaw all of RIMPAC’s maritime components, becoming the first official from an Asian country to do so. “We’re from different environments, languages but all together, we can become one partner,” Kim said.

The Philippines sent its coast guard for the first time, the only non-U.S. nation to do so, as the country faces off against Chinese military forces that have aggressively pressed territorial claims in the South China Sea. Capt. Ryan L. Bakabak of the Philippines Navy, sitting aboard the country’s new guided-missile frigate, said the Philippines is increasing military spending. Coming to RIMPAC allows Manila to benchmark against other allies and learn how to receive resupplies at sea from the U.S. or allies.

“I agree with what Washington is saying that allies need to do more,” Bakabak said.

RIMPAC, founded by Australia, Canada and the U.S., started in 1971 with five participants. This year, allies from around the world participated, including the U.K., Germany, France, Colombia and Peru. The exercise is one of more than 100 annual joint exercises the U.S. Pacific Command conducts with allies, according to the Journal. Other multinational drills are also growing. This year’s Balikatan exercise in the Philippines doubled in size from four years ago, featuring seven countries and more than 17,000 personnel. Talisman Sabre in Australia saw the first live-fire exercise of the mobile, ground-launched Typhon missile system outside the continental U.S.

Concerns over the reliability of the U.S. loomed over the exercises, the Journal reported. Trump has called into question the U.S. commitment to alliances such as NATO, and active conflicts in Europe and the Middle East have shifted some personnel and hardware out of Asia, sparking fears the U.S. is overstretched, said Jessica Taylor, a former Defense Department official who focuses on Asia-Pacific security issues.

“Why do we risk antagonizing China if we don’t know if Trump and the U.S. will be there tomorrow?” said Taylor, now a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative.

The U.S.’s traditional hub-and-spoke approach to the region, consisting largely of bilateral agreements, leaves the Asia-Pacific lacking uniform communications systems, radar and logistics, the Journal reported. For instance, the U.S. and its allies don’t all store blood the same way, which could mean replenishments are rejected during active conflict. RIMPAC served as a test bed for allied navies to operate in formation with unmanned vehicles and jet fighters, and to test new weapons systems at a maritime missile-range facility north of Oahu.

“It’s not the same when you are testing it alone,” said Andres Howard, a Chilean navy commodore who also served as a senior RIMPAC official.

North Korea in mid-July denounced the RIMPAC exercise as a “blatant war rehearsal” and warned it would trigger countermeasures from regional countries, as previously reported.