In addition to NATO and the Biden Administration revamping defense relations in Europe, in an effort to make it impossible for the election of Donald Trump to undermine NATO’s drive for war with Russia, a similar process is taking place in Asia. The Defense Chiefs of Japan and South Korea met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Tokyo today, where agreements were reached to “help ‘institutionalize’ trilateral defense ties—part of a bid to make them more difficult to reverse, just months before the United States inaugurates its next president in January,” as the Japan Times reports.
It continues: “The memorandum of cooperation—which is not legally binding—was signed in Tokyo after talks between Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, South Korean defense chief Shin Won-sik, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as the three look to counter the increasingly sophisticated threat presented by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs in what they called a ‘new era of trilateral cooperation.’ Effective immediately, the agreement institutionalizes three-way defense engagement, including senior-level policy consultations, information-sharing, trilateral exercises and defense exchange cooperation to ‘contribute to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, in the Indo-Pacific region, and beyond,’ according to a joint statement.”
