Discussions about U.S. military posture in the Indo-Pacific often assume that the United States will have the ability to not only quickly access its military capabilities stationed in the region, but also to freely operate from bases in allied countries. The authors of this report explore this assumption, examining the opportunities and constraints that the U.S. military might face when operating from the territories of Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Philippines. The authors examine the basing and access assumptions for the U.S. military should it wish to preposition supplies in, and operate from, these allies in peacetime and in a conflict over Taiwan when these allies themselves have not been attacked. For this research, the authors conducted a comprehensive literature review of historical and current studies on access; held an internal RAND workshop with military experts to determine the types of capabilities and access requests the United States might make of Japan, the ROK, and the Philippines in a Taiwan contingency; conducted extensive discussions and interviews in the fall of 2022 with officials and experts in Japan, the ROK, and the Philippines and with U.S. government personnel and experts in the United States who work on issues related to these three allies; and examined important agreements the United States has with each treaty ally that are relevant for U.S. military access and basing. The authors present their findings regarding access and basing for each ally and recommend ways to improve outcomes in both areas.

The authors assess trends in how U.S. allies and partners view the evolving competition with China and Russia and identify opportunities that the United States and the Department of the Air Force (DAF) can leverage for cooperation and coalition-building. Although many countries share U.S. concerns, their perspectives of the threat posed by China and Russia vary depending on their region, history, economy, and other factors. Current U.S. and DAF security cooperation (SC) planning efforts focus on how countries can align their policies, priorities, and investments with those of the United States. Ensuring that DAF organizations also incorporate these countries' perspectives into planning can help the DAF more effectively direct its SC activities and resources in an era of strategic competition. This research was completed in September 2022. It has not been subsequently revised.

Russia's war against Ukraine shocked the world both in terms of its naked aggression and brutality. Aside from the hostilities themselves, Russian aggression has sparked conversations about a similar war being started by other major powers in other parts of the world. In particular, given China's persistent claim that Taiwan is a breakaway province and the history of Chinese provocations directed at Taiwan, comparisons are naturally drawn between Russia's aggression and possible Chinese kinetic military action against Taiwan. This, in turn, has led key U.S. allies to look at the war in Ukraine to draw lessons for their security planning, a trend that has opened new opportunities for the United States and Japan to expand and deepen their security ties with one another. Comparing the situation in Ukraine with a possible invasion of Taiwan elicits several important questions for the United States and its ally Japan. To assess the implications of the war in Ukraine on the Indo-Pacific region and the lessons that today's conflict may portend for the U.S.-Japan alliance, the RAND Corporation organized a pair of conferences in fall 2022. These conference proceedings contain a summary of those events and an analytical assessment based on those conferences.

Ensuring military access to the territory of allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific in the event of a future conflict with China is a critical concern for U.S. policymakers. The physical and political geography of the region sharply limits U.S. options to such an extent that some allied and partner decisions to provide or refuse access could determine the outcome of a conflict. A clearer understanding of how and why U.S. allies and partners are likely to make conflict-phase access decisions, and what U.S. policymakers can do to affect the decisions ahead of time, is therefore essential. In this report, the authors examine how U.S. allies and partners make conflict-phase access decisions and how the United States and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) might be able to influence decisions in advance. The authors developed a framework for assessing such decisionmaking, then applied it to five specific allies and partners in the region (Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and India) to assess their strategic outlooks, internal politics, and economic incentives and to identify the peacetime policy levers that are most promising for affecting the states' decisionmaking.

The U.S. defense strategy and posture have become insolvent. The tasks that the nation expects its military forces and other elements of national power to do internationally exceed the means that are available to accomplish those tasks. Sustained, coordinated efforts by the United States and its allies are necessary to deter and defeat modern threats, including Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and reconstituted forces and China's economic takeoff and concomitant military modernization. This report offers ideas on how to address shortcomings in defense preparations.

Debates in the United States about policy toward Taiwan tend to focus on the choice between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity and how these options affect China's calculus on invading the island. The authors expand the discussion by considering how Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Philippines would react to a range of policies the United States may choose to signal either an increase or a decrease in support to Taiwan. To do so, the authors reviewed each ally's historical relationship with Taiwan and the contemporary relations with the United States, China, and Taiwan. They also interviewed policymakers and experts in Japan, the ROK, and the Philippines about their views on hypothetical U.S. policy changes, including potential changes in U.S. diplomatic, intelligence, military, and economic relations with Taiwan. The authors find that Japan favors increases in many forms of U.S. diplomatic and military support to Taiwan and would adopt similar policies up to a point. The ROK and the Philippines favor the status quo and are less likely to increase support to Taiwan. All three allies oppose reductions in U.S. support to Taiwan, both because they believe it might lead to instability in the Taiwan Strait and because they would interpret reduced U.S. support to Taiwan as a signal of waning U.S. commitment to their own security. Such concerns would likely lead Japan and the ROK to try to draw the United States closer and increase defense spending. The Philippines' response would likely depend more on who is in power and China's recent behavior.