First, it was Japan that was negotiating Reciprocal Access Agreements (RAA) with partner nations such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and others. Now, the Philippines has followed suit with Visiting Forces Agreements (VFA), concluding several deals already and looking to add New Zealand to the list by the end of the year. Their respective government officials have indicated that these are essential to their national security, but it raises questions: how exactly are they essential, and what should observers make of all this?
The easy answer here is for someone to say, “this is all about mitigating China’s unilateral efforts to upset the regional status quo”. But such an answer only tells part of the story, because an RAA or VFA itself is not going to do anything about that. Rather, those agreements are just building blocks for security partnerships that Indo-Pacific countries have been pursuing over the past decade to enhance their ability to operate together and respond to myriad challenges to the rules-based international order.
There are different building blocks that partner militaries must pursue to make their relationships functional, and for any observers seeking to understand the recent and future negotiating efforts taking place, it is necessary to recognise what those building blocks are and why they matter.
Fundamentally, there are five basic requirements for successful military-to-military cooperation that compel certain negotiated agreements or instruments. The first is that partner militaries must have a basis for cooperation. In other words, there has to be some agreement between governments – whether formal or informal – that lays out the scope of cooperation and the interests underpinning it. These could come in the form of signed agreements (e.g., the Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation between Australia and Japan), but governments can also use joint statements either as supplements to those agreements or in lieu of them.
The second is that they must be able to exchange information. Most military intelligence is classified with restricted access, and governments tend to have different rules regarding security clearances, handling of classified material, and responses to unauthorised disclosures. To work through those issues, governments negotiate information sharing agreements, the most common of which are called General Security of Military Information Agreements, or GSOMIAs.
It is not enough to have security guarantees or well-worded pledges to establish a credible deterrent: presence and interoperability are the best signals to competitors and would-be aggressors.
The third is that they must have mechanisms for logistical interoperability. It is not as simple as saying, “If a partner needs it, we will give it to them.” There is a line of accounting for every ounce of supply and piece of equipment, so “acquisitions and cross-servicing agreements” are used to govern what may be provided at no cost and which things must be reimbursed.
Fourth, it is useful to be able to exchange security technology and pursue joint research and development. To support those efforts, governments may enter into agreements related to the transfer of defence technology or the sometimes vaguely labeled practice of “security cooperation”. Put another way, these agreements are what enable the sale of weapon systems and/or access to proprietary information related to those weapon systems.
The fifth is that partner militaries must be able to operate in each other’s territories. This is important to support peacetime training opportunities, as practice is essential to ensuring readiness of forces and interoperability with foreign partners. It is also important for enabling real-world operations, be it anti-piracy, sanctions monitoring, disaster relief, or response to armed aggression.
But to allow these activities to proceed, there must be a legal framework in place. How do governments handle entry and exit of military personnel and equipment? Are there taxes or other duties levied against them? What happens if there are incidents or accidents? To answer those questions and others like them, governments have two options: they can produce ad hoc diplomatic clearances, or they can conclude an agreement related to the temporary or long-term stationing of forces. These may be called a Status of Forces Agreement, a Visiting Forces Agreement, or, if they cover operations in both parties’ territories, a Reciprocal Access Agreement.
These are the agreements that countries such as Japan and the Philippines have been negotiating and concluding over the past decade because their governments recognise the importance of functional security relationships with multinational partners. It is not enough to have security guarantees or well-worded pledges to establish a credible deterrent: presence and interoperability are the best signals to competitors and would-be aggressors. Further, there are immediate security requirements that necessitate near-term activity between security partners.
Given the shifting political-military dynamics throughout the region, observers should expect more of these agreements to make headlines in the coming years. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and deepening ties with North Korea, China’s continued effort to assert dominion over the East and South China Seas, and calls from the newly minted US administration for America’s allies to “do more” all add to the impetus for evolving security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.
Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom have already been working on these sorts of agreements for years, but they are likely to accelerate their efforts while other countries such as Germany also look to join the fray. How those countries attempt to deepen ties with other partners from South or Southeast Asia remains to be seen. Whatever the specific outcomes, comprehensive security relationships are being formed, and these are the building blocks they have been using to construct them.
