15 March 2026 – 1700 Okinawa, Japan
"LEROY JENKINS"
The words popped up on the screens, causing hearts to beat faster. Each member of the team replied “Guns Up!” to acknowledge receipt of the order.
The team prayed they would never receive the text, but they had prepared for their mission. As the clock began ticking, they scrambled to the flight line. By midnight, 32 men and women from across the U.S. naval services and civilian agencies were airborne to meet their counterparts and complete their mission. They had trained to collaborate with allies during campaigns and, if necessary, in times of conflict.
Meanwhile, the U.S. team’s allied counterparts readied the watch floor and billeting. Months in advance, these bilateral teams had mapped out their first hours together should conflict become imminent. Now, they initiated their plan.
Partnerships will be integral to how the naval services will engage in a conflict in the western Pacific. Our regional partners recognize this. As a senior Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade officer noted during Iron Fist 24, “This is a rehearsal, not an exercise.”1 However, should deterrence fail, there will be limited time to organize, plan, and allocate resources to the coordination teams that will collaborate with partners during the conflict. That work must start now.
Coordination by Choice, Not Chance
Coordination cells are not organic. They will require prioritization and resources from the naval services, the joint force, and its partner nations.
The United States and its regional allies conduct multiple annual exercises in the Pacific—Iron Fist, Keen Edge, Resolute Dragon, Cobra Gold, and Balikatan, to name a few—and the Navy and Marine Corps’ participation expands their understanding of partners’ capabilities and needs, provides greater awareness of key terrain, and bolsters trust. However, in their present form, these exercises are insufficient. As China’s military capabilities increase and its willingness to flex its military might expands, the naval services should expand the scope and scale of future operations, activities, and investments (OAIs) in the Pacific.
Future OAIs should combine a command post exercise (CPX)—which involves commanders and their staffs and communication within and among participating headquarters—with a field training exercise (FTX). Without extensive interaction with a higher headquarters, an FTX has limited training value. Linking an FTX and a CPX forces tactical units in the field and the command element to confront the real-world challenges of capacity, time, space, and distance.
As OAIs increased in complexity, commands would realize the difficulty of synchronizing operations across services, nations, domains, distances, and time. Coordination cells offer a means to achieve this synchronization, especially in the first hours of a conflict.2 For example, these cells could work with the joint force to permit access to partner nations’ sensor networks and other critical information flows to build situational awareness and refine and accelerate decision-making.
Marine Corps and Navy planners should alter OAIs to incorporate coordination cells in battle tracking, information dissemination, and decision-making. These measures are actionable today.
The combined, joint, and partnered fight in the Pacific also hinges on the relationships between the commanders themselves. In an email, General James Mattis highlighted the importance of commanders’ relationships by recommending Bruce Catton’s Grant Takes Command as part of his reading list.3 Introducing nations’ flag and general officers to one another is more than just exchanging gifts and pleasantries. OAIs provide touch points for commanders to discuss their conceptions of the mission, how their capabilities overlap, and how they will employ their forces in a partnered fight.
These flag- and general officer-level interactions serve as rehearsals for the demands of such a fight, in which every commander, U.S. and partner, will have to make decisions with little information, limited time, and many lives at stake.
Personnel Are Key
The Navy and Marine Corps can show their commitment to partnering in the Pacific by staffing a coordination cell with capable, motivated, and personable individuals ready for the demands of the mission. Coordinating, advising, and partnering requires patience, self-awareness, and intellectual curiosity. Commands should provide their most capable, promising officers for these billets.
As these officers will be representatives of the naval headquarters, commanders should evaluate their performance to advocate for their career advancement, including top-level school and command billets. When the naval services value the contributions of advisors and partners, Marines and sailors will seek out these demanding yet underappreciated billets.
A New Partnering Paradigm
The challenge in the Pacific requires the joint force to reexamine its understanding of partner force development. Twenty years of conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria still colors the force’s conception of partnering and security force assistance, and a shift in thinking is needed.4 The demands of counterinsurgency are distinct from the integration and employment of partners in great power conflict. The United States and its allies will face enemies capable of fusing advanced sensor networks and precision-strike capabilities that pose unprecedented threats to regional and global stability.
During bilateral exercises Resolute Dragon 24 and Keen Sword 25, the Japanese Western Army displayed a superior level of engagement, sharing insights on how it would defend its citizens if China were to attack. Japanese, Thai, Korean, Philippine, and other partner forces can provide knowledge of local terrain, unique capabilities, and access to remote locations.
The joint force, not just the naval services, should push the envelope on exercise design, focusing on staff integration in addition to expending rounds. Integrating systems and building shared understanding with partners builds lethality. U.S. forces should reconsider their partners’ needs and recalibrate their approaches to bilateral engagements before, during, and after OAIs.
Presence is Not Enough
Coordination cells would buy critical decision space for the joint force in the first days of conflict in the Pacific and help position forces should the conflict be protracted. For allies, U.S. presence during OAIs alone will not suffice. A partnership that will endure during conflict requires shared risk and commitment. Resourcing coordination cells with talented personnel and linguists, expanding the aims of OAIs, increasing flag and general officer engagement, and building information-sharing networks would demonstrate U.S. commitment to allies in the first island chain.
Preparation for a potential conflict in the Pacific often neglects the crucial role alliance coordination will play. The construction of a coordination mechanism must be a priority for the naval services. The time to act is now.
1. MajGen Hajime Kitajima, commander of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, made this statement during an Iron Fist 24 briefing.
2. Michael Hirsh, “The Pentagon Is Freaking Out About a Potential War with China,” Politico, 9 June 2023.
3. Geoffrey Ingersoll, “General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis Email About Being ‘Too Busy to Read’ Is a Must-Read,” Business Insider, 9 May 2013.
4. Shawna Sinnott and Andrew Milburn, “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Enduring Lessons of Security Force Assistance,” Modern War Institute at West Point, 28 January 2022.
