A Tale of Two 2+2s: Japan and the Philippines

This week U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken and U.S. secretary of defense Lloyd Austin visited Tokyo and Manila to meet with their counterparts in Japan and the Philippines—a rare sequence of “2+2” engagements on the ground in Asia. Both stops featured significant outcomes that signaled a period of historic strength among advanced alliances amid deep concern in Tokyo and Manila about a darkening regional security environment. Likely the last major alliance engagements of Biden administration, the visits build on a strong record of strengthening alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.

Q1: What are the most important outcomes of the Japan 2+2?

A1: A key outcome from the meeting in Tokyo on July 28 was the announcement that the United States will “reconstitute” U.S. Forces-Japan (USFJ) into a Joint Force Headquarters, under U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), to “assume primary responsibility for coordinating security activities in and around Japan.” The new headquarters will serve as the day-to-day counterpart for the new Japan Joint Operations Command (JJOC), a standing command that will be established in April 2025. Presently, USFJ is an administrative organization that oversees the U.S. military presence in Japan but has virtually no operational authority over forces based there. This arrangement is a relic of the original post-World War II alliance bargain, in which Japan provided bases for U.S. power projection across the region in return for a U.S. commitment to defend Japan—but little was expected of Japan as a defense partner itself. The 2+2 announcement begins to put meat on the bones of the commitment that U.S. president Joe Biden and Japanese prime minister Kishida Fumio made in April 2024 to “bilaterally upgrade our respective command and control frameworks.”

The reconstitution of USFJ will take several years, likely until around 2027, as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) works with Congress to provide it with increased authorities, resources, and staff. DoD has already decided on a major reform: separating the roles of the commander of USFJ and the Fifth Air Force. Today, the USFJ commander serves both roles, but under the new construct, the commander will be solely focused on alliance matters—by itself a significant step forward in the relationship, which was long advocated by experts on the alliance, including CSIS. The scope of USFJ authorities, and the roles and missions it takes on, will ultimately depend in large part on the roles Japan’s Ministry of Defense accords to the new JJOC. The joint statement highlights initial focus areas including operational and contingency planning; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations; training and exercises; and logistics.

Q2: Why is the strengthening of USFJ important?

A2: The reconstitution of USFJ, along with Japan’s establishment of the JJOC, represents the most important reforms to the structure of the U.S.-Japan alliance in a generation. Although the two countries will maintain separate chains of command—unlike the U.S.-South Korea alliance, which features a combined command under a single commander during wartime—the establishment of parallel joint operational commands will enable much more robust planning and operational cooperation, from peacetime training and exercises to contingency response. In effect, the United States and Japan are building a far more operational alliance, one that is more capable of seamless and rapid responses to emerging crises. This deepening integration between the United States and its most capable ally in the region will reinforce deterrence and increase the credibility of the alliance’s combat power.

Q3: What about the U.S.-Philippines 2+2?

A3: The July 30 meeting in Manila between Blinken, Austin, and their counterparts Enrique Manalo and Gilberto Teodoro resulted in several important security and economic announcements. The most widely covered is the U.S. commitment to allocate $500 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to the Philippines from the fiscal year (FY) 2024 Indo-Pacific Security Supplemental Appropriations Act. This is a historic increase, quintupling the then-unprecedented $100 million the United States made available to the Philippines in late 2022. It also marks a rare case of bipartisan cooperation between the branches of government. In April 2024, Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced the Philippines Enhanced Resilience Act of 2024, which would authorize $500 million annually in FMF to the Philippines through 2029. Later that month, Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) authored an amendment to the supplemental appropriations act authorizing $500 million in 2024, which received unanimous bipartisan approval.

The overall amount of this FMF increase is headline-worthy. But what could make it genuinely transformative is the conclusion of the Philippines-Security Sector Assistance Roadmap which was finalized the day before the meeting. This roadmap, first previewed at last year’s 2+2 in Washington, lays out an agreed-upon list of priority capabilities that will guide Philippine procurement and U.S. security assistance over the next 5 to 10 years. So not only is the United States quintupling FMF to the Philippines, but the allies have already agreed on the most effective ways to spend that money.

In addition to $500 million in new FMF, the two sides also reaffirmed their commitment to upgrade agreed locations on Philippine military bases to which the United States could be given access for rotational deployments and prepositioning of equipment under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). President Biden’s FY 2025 budget request is seeking $128 million for construction at seven of the nine existing sites (most likely the four newly announced last year—Lal-lo Airport, Camilo Osias Naval Base-San Vicente Naval Air Station, Camp Melchor F. dela Cruz in northern Luzon, and Balabac Island off the southern coast of Palawan—along with the older sites at Antonio Bautista Air Base in Palawan as well as Cesar Basa Air Base and Fort Magsaysay in Luzon).

One announcement that did not come was the long-discussed general security of military information agreement (GSOMIA). This would facilitate more sharing of classified information, including from U.S. surveillance platforms that could considerably improve Philippine maritime domain awareness over the South China Sea. Earlier in July, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, visited the Philippines and inspected some of the EDCA sites in what was reportedly an important step toward concluding the GSOMIA. During the 2+2, the four secretaries recommitted to finalizing the agreement by the end of 2024.

The Biden administration is also acutely aware that deepening the alliance with the Philippines must go hand in hand with more robust economic relations. If the government of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos cannot show that greater strategic alignment with Washington, along with Canberra, Tokyo, and others, leads to tangible benefits for Filipino citizens, then it will not be able to maintain the political support necessary for further alliance integration. The 2+2 therefore highlighted progress made recently on deepening economic ties and laid out plans for the future. The secretaries noted the first-of-its-kind Presidential Trade and Investment Mission that U.S. commerce secretary Gina Raimondo led to the Philippines earlier this year, the entry into force of the U.S.-Philippines 123 Agreement on civil nuclear cooperation at the start of July, the opening of the first Development Finance Corporation regional office in Manila in 2024, and, most importantly, the launch of the Luzon Economic Corridor.

The corridor is easily the Biden administration’s most ambitious and potentially impactful economic effort in the Indo-Pacific. It aims to mobilize billions of dollars of public and private funding from Japan, the Philippines, and the United States with an immediate focus on critical transportation infrastructure, clean energy for use in the Philippine semiconductor industry, and the development of commercial enterprises in Subic Bay. As if to draw a bright line between these economic initiatives and the future of the alliance, Secretary Austin traveled to the Subic Bay following the 2+2 to meet with representatives from Cerberus and Hyundai, which aim to develop ship repair facilities that will be used by the U.S. Navy, among others.

Q4: What is driving the modernization of these alliances?

A4: In a word: China.

The United States, Japan, the Philippines, along with like-minded partners including Canada, France, India, New Zealand, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, increasingly view China’s revisionist and coercive behavior as a shared threat and are working together to meet the challenge. The joint statement released in Tokyo is strikingly direct about the challenge: “The People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s foreign policy seeks to reshape the international order for its own benefit at the expense of others. . . . The PRC employs political, economic, and military coercion of countries, companies, and civil society . . . to achieve these objectives.”

Along with Japan and Taiwan, the Philippines is at the front lines of this challenge. The China Coast Guard and maritime militia have for more than two years used escalating forms of violence, from intentional collisions and forced boardings to Filipino troops stationed aboard the BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines has faced similar violence when patrolling Scarborough Shoal and is increasingly concerned about Chinese deployments elsewhere in the Philippine exclusive economic zone. This threat, which reached its most dangerous point on June 17 in an incident that cost a Filipino sailor his thumb, has pushed the Philippines to embark on a generational shift in its defense posture. Not only is the U.S.-Philippines alliance closer than ever, but the Philippines is also forging new security partnerships with the like-minded partners mentioned above. Recently, in early July, the Philippines concluded a reciprocal access agreement, allowing Japanese forces to enter the Philippines for training and exercises.

The simultaneous strengthening of U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific—arguably for the first time since the end of the Cold War—along with the growing linkages between them signify a still-nascent but clear emerging security architecture organized around balancing China’s revisionism.

Christopher Johnstone is senior adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Gregory B. Poling is a senior fellow and director for the Southeast Asia Program and the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at CSIS.