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Increasing threats and leadership are the two main factors that have propelled trilateral cooperation among Korea, the United States, and Japan in recent years.
The China threat has increased as the balance of power has changed and as China’s behaviors have become more assertive. U.S. leaders now see China as a near-peer competitor and have entered an earnest power competition with it. Most states in Asia, including Korea, perceive an increasing potential threat from China.
Many Asian countries thus want to prepare for the growing potential threat of China by gradually strengthening their cooperation with the United States and forming minilateral groups. Nonetheless, most of these states do not yet perceive an imminent and truly serious military threat from China. Even U.S. leaders do not believe that a conflict with China is imminent, and thus tend to see the competition with China from a long-term perspective.
The North Korean threat is also growing as North Korea makes real progress in nuclear armament. This threat has increased the necessity of trilateral cooperation, especially from the Korean perspective. However, the North Korean threat has been present for many years, and North Korea does not pose a threat to the extent that it makes Korea, the United States, and Japan feel the imperative to cooperate.
These threat factors are important propellants for cooperation now, and they will become even more powerful in the future. However, compared to the Cold War period, the threat factors are not currently strong enough to compel the three countries to overcome all other obstacles to cooperation.
The Camp David process became possible with the Korea-Japan rapprochement. This rapprochement was not just driven by threats; it required the initiative of President Yoon and the reciprocation of Prime Minister Kishida. Since the Cold War ended, Korea and Japan have had a precarious and sometimes rocky relationship, and historical problems in particular became increasingly difficult to deal with. Strong leadership, as found during the tenures of Kim Dae-jung and Obuchi Keijo in the 1990s as well as in the current leadership, has been central to creating a cooperative relationship.
There are still serious obstacles that the three countries need to manage or overcome in the process of trilateral cooperation.
In the current security environment, for instance, the strategic priorities of the three countries still differ. While Korea prioritizes North Korea as the most imminent and significant threat, the United States and Japan tend to focus on China.
The policies of the United States and Japan toward China also have some differences, although they are converging. Korea is still pursuing a cooperative relationship with China, although it is increasing its efforts to hedge against the potential threat China poses. The United States and Japan are mainly balancing China.
Furthermore, as structural pressures are not yet overwhelming, domestic political factors can quite easily intervene to disrupt the whole process. Importantly, Korea-Japan relations remain the weak link in trilateral cooperation. Their improved relationship is based on precarious political support. Especially in Korea, historical problems can still seriously disrupt the relationship, and leadership changes or political calculations might dial back the process of rapprochement.
Considering this situation, if Japanese leaders make sincere statements about their forward-looking view of history, potentially in the joint vision statement commemorating the 60th anniversary of normalization of relations next year, it will help consolidate political support for rapprochement in Korea. Both states should also maintain their long-term efforts toward trust building.
During the Camp David summit, a comprehensive package of cooperation initiatives was agreed upon, encompassing various high-level consultations, avenues for security cooperation, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, economic and technology cooperation, and people-to-people exchanges.
Among these measures, security cooperation needs to be the first priority for trilateral cooperation. Korea-U.S.-Japan trilateral cooperation is primarily intended to maintain the status quo in East Asia in the face of the increasing threats posed by China and North Korea. Moreover, the deep and institutionalized cooperation among the three countries’ militaries and security institutions could serve as a firmly established area of cooperation that should be sustained.
The three countries should establish the tradition of regular trilateral exercises in surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, missile defense, and air operations to increase interoperability and coordination of roles and ways of operation over time.
And, as agreed recently, the three countries should establish regular multi-domain military exercises. In the future, multi-domain operations will be the way for the three countries’ militaries to jointly operate in order to maintain their superiority.
In addition, a higher level of information sharing will be necessary for greater security cooperation. At this point, the three countries should focus on the effective sharing of ballistic missile warning data, which is crucial to deter and defend against North Korea.
While trilateral security cooperation has already made substantial progress, there are new areas in which it is necessary for the three countries to advance cooperation in the future.
First, the three countries should prioritize engaging in extensive discussions on their respective roles and methods of cooperation in the maritime area. The most serious threat in East Asia is the growing naval power of China. If China were to dominate the near seas of Korea and then the East China Sea, defense lines could be seriously breached and alliances weakened. It is necessary for Korea, the United States, and Japan to dominate those seas and, at a minimum, to deny Chinese dominance. Furthermore, the North Korean submarines carrying nuclear weapons are becoming serious threats.
In this regard, achieving information dominance will also be crucial to maintaining strategic superiority. It is necessary to increase sharing of the three states’ intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, gradually strengthen the linkages of battle networks, and enhance cooperation on maritime domain awareness.
Second, to maintain an advantage against revisionist powers, the three countries should synchronize military innovation by commonly developing future capabilities and operational concepts that would strengthen their military effectiveness and interoperability.
For this purpose, trilateral cooperation on advanced military technologies should be enhanced. The three countries particularly need to cooperate in developing anti-ship ballistic missiles, counter-hypersonic missile systems, laser weapons, cyber capabilities, and automated weapons systems, as well as fundamental technologies such as AI and quantum computing. This technological cooperation could be implemented through a trilateral format or through Pillar Two of AUKUS, a security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Additionally, the United States’ developing concept of all-domain operations and its corresponding practices should be further shared with Korean and Japanese allies.
Third, strategic dialogues at various levels should be deepened. The three countries still have differences in strategic priorities and policies. Substantive discussions regarding each other’s understandings of the security environment and varying policy views constitute a critical basis for advancing trilateral cooperation.
Notably, alongside the annual defense ministers’ dialogue, the role of the Defense Trilateral Talks as an assistant secretary–level consultation group should be strengthened to plan and coordinate trilateral security cooperation more effectively. Furthermore, working groups such as the maritime security working group should be established to coordinate activities in specific priority areas as trilateral security cooperation progresses.
Dr. Wooseon Choi is a professor and Director-General of the Department of International Security and Unification Studies at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea.