US-Japan-South Korea Will Tuker Information On Today's Early Warning Missile Data

JAKARTA - Secretary of Defense (Menhan) of the United States (US) Lloyd Austin plans to hold a meeting with his allies in Asia, Japan and South Korea today, Sunday, July 28.

This is the first trilateral meeting in 15 years.

We have made enormous, trilateral progress since the Camp David summit, with early warning missile data shared live and trilateral training plans, said the senior US defense official, quoted from CNN, Sunday, July 28.

The trilateral meeting took place about a year after US President Joe Biden held his first summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David in August 2023.

After the summit, Kishida announced that there would be another meeting every year involving Japanese ministers, namely foreign ministers, defense, national security advisers, finance, industry, and trade.

According to the unnamed US defense official, the US Defense Secretary is expected to announce that the US intends to reshape the US-Japan Force (USF-J) as the headquarters of a joint force whose task is to act as a partner of the Japan Joint Operations Command (J-JOC).

He continued, details of this implementation will be determined within a working group led by US Indo-Pacific Command. There is no intention of integrating Japanese troops into US command.

The goal here is for the USF-J to become the headquarters of a standalone three-star joint force. Finally separated and no longer part of the 5th Air Force," the official said.