Ben Morgan’s Pacific Update: Discussing military exercise season in the Pacific

An indication of developing tensions in the Pacific is the notable increase in the size and scale of the region’s regular military exercises. This year’s exercise programme indicates how concerned local nations, and the wider international community are about Pacific security. 

Exercise Han Kuang 2025

Ex Han Kuang is a large joint exercise conducted annually by the Taiwan Defence Force, and runs from 9-19 July.  This year’s Ex Han Kuang is the biggest, and longest in the exercise’s 41-year history.  

The exercise involves practicing land, sea and air combat operations, including short notice call outs.  Activities designed to practice the skills necessary to repel a potential invasion.  This year’s exercise includes a large civil defence component during which the island’s government will practice using phone alerts and air raid sirens to inform people about incoming attacks. The rehearsals include road closures and shutting down commercial areas and transport hubs. Taiwan is taking the threat seriously preparing its citizens in case of an attack. 

Ex Han Kuang also includes a large increase in the number of reservists called out at short-notice. This year the reserve component of the exercise increased by 50% to 22,000 personnel.  The use of reserves demonstrates the importance of this exercise because the economic impact of removing these troops from their normal civilian employment is significant.

Recent Chinese activity, including large scale air and naval exercises, the development of amphibious warfare capabilities and consistent probing of Taiwan’s air defences indicates that China’s rhetoric about returning Taiwan to mainland rule may transfer into military action. A situation that the Taiwanese government is taking seriously, with a broad programme of reform including making Ex Han Kuang bigger because as the BBC reports “The changes in Han Kuang are actually part of a broader push to reform Taiwan’s military and defence, which has come under criticism both domestically and externally in recent years.”  

Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025

Ex Talisman Sabre is a large joint exercise led by Australia, and is run bi-annually synchronised with Exercise RIMPAC, led by the US. The two exercises work together to ensure the US, its allies and partners conduct a large joint exercise every year. 

This year Ex Talisman Sabre brings together more than 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations, to practice their warfighting skills on land, sea and in the air between 13 July and 4 August. 

Ex Talisman Sabre is specifically designed to strengthen interoperability between participating nations. The exercise provides an opportunity for Australia to lead collaboration in two key areas.  The first is integration of smaller nations into the wider US-led coalition of forces.  Military personnel from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand will all participate and practice combat operations working with larger powers.  

Modern digitised militaries like the US, UK and Australia use a variety of secure battle field technology to transfer information.  Success operating with smaller militaries that cannot afford the latest communications equipment requires development of procedures and processes to move information around, Ex Talisman Sabre provides opportunities to practice this skill. 

Ex Talisman Sabre also provides an opportunity for Australian collaboration at the other end of the capability spectrum by working with larger, more sophisticated militaries. For example, this year the UK is sending Carrier Strike Group 25, a naval task group centred on the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.  The task group includes Spanish, Canadian and Norwegian escorts, providing opportunities to work with other NATO nations.

Espirit de Corps magazine quotes a Canadian Armed Forces press release that provides useful insight into the sophistication of Ex Talisman Sabre’s participants stating that “It will also be the first major exercise to involve a broad spectrum of Canadian Armed Forces capabilities deployed together, drawing on personnel and assets from the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Canadian Forces Cyber Command (CAFCYBERCOM), 3 Canadian Space Division (3 CSD), and Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM).” An indication of how important the exercise is internationally, Canada taking the opportunity to deploy a wide range of capabilities from ships, to cyber warfare to special forces because of the potential for deployment to the Pacific region, 

This year’s Ex Talisman Sabre is not the largest in history, but is close and like Ex Han Kuang indicates Australian defence concerns and planning considerations.  Australia plays an important role in the region because it is large, sophisticated and trusted enough by the US to potentially lead joint military responses in the South West Pacific.  

Therefore, it needs to practice working with the Pacific’s smaller nations and being the point of integration with the US, NATO or both in a future conflict. And, larger NATO nations recognise the importance of Australia’s role and of working with the US in the Pacific, so send sophisticated and expensive contingents to the exercise.

Exercise Resolute Force Pacific (REFORPAC) 2025

REFORPAC is a large US Air Force led exercise that runs from 10 July to 8 August, and practices the movement of air combat power from the US to the Pacific. 

This year’s REFORPAC provides useful information about evolving US tactics because it practices an interesting new set of skills based on dispersion of combat aircraft. US doctrine discusses the concept of ‘air manoeuvre’ or being able to quickly move, and then support combat aeroplanes around the world.  REFORPAC involves about 350 US and 50 Japanese aircraft and coordinating the long-distance movement and inflight re-fuelling of warplanes is a difficult logistical skill that this exercise will practice.

Another skill US doctrine discusses is called ‘agile combat deployment’ or the ability to operate sophisticated combat aircraft from small widely dispersed locations. The US Air Force describes it as shifting from large centralised ‘hubs’ to a network of smaller dispersed sites. A capability REFORPAC will test across Hawaii, Guam and Japan.  

A difficult skill that is necessary because large airfields are easy targets for modern missiles.  “The days of operating from secure, fixed bases are over,” Pacific Air Forces commanding General Kevin Schneider said on 4 March at the Air and Space Force Association’s Warfare Symposium. Keeping sophisticated modern war planes operational in isolated areas is a difficult task, and exercises like REFORPAC are specifically designed to test and develop this capability.  

Like Exercise Han Kuang and Talisman Sabre, REFORPAC teaches observers about how nations in the Pacific are planning for the next war. Air power is a defining feature of the ‘American way of war’ and will continue to be central too US strategy and tactics. However, the cost of combat aircraft is increasing exponentially limiting their availability, and precision-strike by drones and missiles is a new threat that must be countered. 

The scarcity of modern combat aircraft means that they cannot be everywhere at once, so projecting airpower requires the ability to quickly redeploy combat aircraft. And, when they redeploy into a conflict zone any existing bases are likely to be targeted by missiles or drones.  Therefore, combat aircraft operations need to become unpredictable and distant from existing airfields.  The US are already discussing deployment of individual fighters operating from roads or areas of hard stand, and this trend is likely to develop further.   

Melanesian update 

A regular update on the Pacific’s least reported trouble spot; Melanesia. 

Vanuatu and Australia at odds over strategic agreement 

Currently, Vanuatu and Australia are negotiating to re-sign a strategic agreement between the two nations called the ‘Vanuatu Australia Nakamal Partnership Agreement.’  The agreement is a plan for better cooperation between the two nations.  An important relationship within the context of Sino-Australian competition in Melanesia.  And area that is ‘close to home’ and that Australia is keen to limit Chinese diplomatic influence within. 

Vanuatu ‘on the other hand’ is keen to negotiate for easier immigration access to Australia for its citizens before signing the agreement. This is an example of small Pacific nations identifying and using their new importance in diplomatic relations.  Vanuatu now holds a position of negotiating power with both China and Australia and can use that leverage to empower itself in negotiations. 

The Lowry Institute’s Pacific geopolitical expert Mihai Sora, summed up the situation recently, stating “The context right now in the Pacific is of intense competition for influence, for access [and] for being the preferred partner whether it’s in the development space or the security space or the economic space” and “So, this gives individual Pacific countries a great deal of leverage to essentially get better deals from traditional partners and get better deals from new partners as well.”  

It is likely that we will see more small Pacific nations appreciating the power they have in Sino-Australian and Sino-American competition and starting to negotiate more strongly with traditional partners. 

Timor Leste and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Timor Leste is currently applying for ASEAN membership sponsored by Indonesia. Last week, ASEAN Secretary-General, Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, met with Timor Leste’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Bendito dos Santos Freitas on the sidelines of the 58th ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting and Related Meetings in Malaysia. The meeting is noteworthy because later this year ASEAN will vote about Timor Leste membership.

ASEAN membership is likely to benefit Timor Leste but will bring a new dynamic into Melanesian politics.  Although ASEAN is not a security alliance, it is highly influential and Timor Leste membership brings that influence further into Melanesia.  Adding another influential international organisation into diplomatic discussions in the region. 

Indonesia is also supporting ASEAN membership for Papua New Guinea.  Although Papua New Guinea is unlikely to be accepted, this policy indicates that Indonesia sees itself in a leadership role in Melanesia potentially conflicting with Australian, and Chinese objectives.  Another trend to keep watching in Melanesia,

 

Ben Morgan is a bored Gen Xer, a former Officer in NZDF and TDBs Military Blogger – his work is on substack