Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III laid out a new Defense Department vision for ensuring a prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific through enhanced collaboration among Southeast Asian nations as he met with key defense leaders today in Vientiane, Laos.
The release of the Defense Vision Statement for a Prosperous and Secure Southeast Asia caps Austin’s two-day series of engagements with regional counterparts as part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Minsters’ Meeting-Plus.
The blueprint calls for investments aimed at securing domain awareness across air, maritime and cyber and information domains as a first step to enabling defense and building capacity to respond to illegal intrusions and coercion in the region.
In the air domain, the U.S. will continue its ongoing efforts to improve regional partners’ ability to detect and identify activity within their sovereign airspace and incorporate that information across their government information systems.
The U.S. will also enhance its engagement with the ADMM Cybersecurity Information Centre of Excellence through tabletop exercises designed to identify gaps in regional responses to cyber threats.
Additionally, the U.S. will amplify efforts to use commercially available technology and identify areas for cooperation among partners to expand maritime domain awareness throughout the region.
The vision statement also proposes expanded cooperation between the U.S. and Southeast Asian allies and partners through multilateral exercises.
Yesterday, Austin announced that ASEAN member states approved a second iteration of a U.S.-led maritime exercise with ASEAN countries, which was first held in 2019.
This exercise adds to a comprehensive series of exercises alongside Southeast Asian partners throughout the Indo-Pacific including Exercise Balikatan, an annual bilateral exercise between the U.S. and the Philippines, Exercise Cobra Gold, a multinational exercise co-hosted by the Royal Thai Armed Forces and the U.S., and Exercise Super Garuda Shield, a longstanding bilateral exercise between the U.S. and Indonesia that has grown to include partners throughout the region.
Additionally, the vision statement lays out continued efforts to offer educational and training opportunities for ASEAN partners, including through the Emerging Defense Leadership Program, which the U.S. began hosting last year.
As part of the program, ASEAN countries nominate representatives who, once selected, attend trainings in person in Hawaii and virtually.
Other lines of effort identified as part of the vision statement include defense industrial and institutional capacity building among ASEAN countries and defense mitigation of climate impacts to the region.
The road map underscores Austin’s continued commitment to strengthening cooperation with ASEAN member states and partners across the Indo-Pacific throughout his tenure.
“It’s great to be back at the ADMM-Plus for my fourth time as secretary,” Austin told reporters yesterday after holding his first day of talks at the forum.
“Being here is a priority and a sign of strong support for ASEAN’s central role in regional security,” he said. “Engagement with ASEAN is focused on practical cooperation and mutual respect, and that includes training the next generation of leaders and tackling emerging challenges and deepening maritime cooperation.”
Austin’s visit to Laos marks the second-to-last stop on his 12th trip to the Indo-Pacific since taking office as he continues to build upon the strong partnerships forged under his tenure throughout the United States’ priority theater of operations.
Austin’s final stop is in Fiji, marking the first visit to the country by a U.S. defense secretary.
While there, Austin will meet with Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Baron Waqa.
The secretary is expected to announce that the U.S. and Fiji will begin negotiations on a Status of Forces Agreement that will empower the two countries to work more closely together.
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