By Adam Lockyer

Between June 24 to July 31, Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2026 took place on and around the Hawaiian Islands. RIMPAC is the world’s largest international exercise. In this, its 30^th iteration, RIMPAC boasted 25,000 personnel, 40 surface ships, 5 submarines, and 140 aircraft. Beyond the impressive headlines, however, RIMPAC has become a relic of the Cold War and needs revitalization and reorientation.

Major maritime exercises serve a range of functions, including to certify crews, and for the participants to learn new skills, test equipment, and gain experience working alongside units from near and from afar. In addition, however, a good major maritime exercise should also be a vehicle for strategic messaging. Major maritime exercises are relatively rare and expensive enterprises. So, they send a strong signal to the participants and to onlookers what the exerciser considers to be its main strategic challenges and helps to outline how they plan on responding to those challenges. In my newly released book – Conventional Maritime Deterrence: The Operational Foundations of Influence at Sea – I unpick how major maritime exercises can contribute to deterrence. I explain how they have a performative dimension. They tell opponents (as well as friends and one’s own forces) a strategic story about the future. If you do this, then this is how we will respond and we are very good at it, so it is probably best that you don’t.

Yet, RIMPAC is symptomatic of many of the current suite of international maritime exercises in being wedded to an international strategic environment that has long moved on. At best, it is a missed opportunity. At worst, it negatively affects strategic messaging and, therefore, the effectiveness of our overall deterrence posture.

RIMPAC’s Origin Story

RIMPAC was first held in 1971 and, after being repeated in 1972, became the US Pacific Fleet’s largest biennial multinational exercise. The Cold War in the Pacific had a very different cadence to that across in the Atlantic. Few doubted that Europe and the Atlantic would be the epicenter of any future conventional war between the United States (and its allies) and the Soviet Union (and its aligned states). The Pacific, on the other hand, was likely going to be a relatively quiet backwater. Indeed, until the 1980s, US naval strategy called for the Pacific’s aircraft carriers to be swung over to Atlantic to reinforce, or replace, the Atlantic’s carrier forces. Through the 1970s, the Soviets in the Far East were more concerned about the Chinese land forces that were amassed along their shared border, than American naval power. They feared that Beijing might seize the opportunity of a war in Europe to mount a surprise attack in the East. Moreover, America’s Pacific allies – Australia, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea – were quietly pleased that they might be able to sit out the conventional phase of World War III.

So, unlike the NATO members in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, who regularly participated in more realistic and warlike exercises (e.g., OCEAN SAFARI or NORTHERN WEDDING), America’s Pacific partners were less enthusiastic about rocking the boat by conducting forward exercises directed towards the Soviet Union’s Pacific periphery. As a result, the US Pacific Fleet largely conduct unilateral forward exercises (such as the FLEETEX series in the 1980s) with some occasional Canadian involvement.

RIMPAC was an exercise for its times. In addition to the pleasant climate, beaches, and shopping, Hawaii was far enough away from the Soviet Union so not to be provocative. The participants were attracted by the prospect of working alongside the world’s best navy and undertaking activities that they often did not have the opportunity to do back home. The exercise scenario usually involved some creative writing so that all the foreign units could practice what they came to do, and no-one would be left out. Unsurprisingly, the prospect of traveling to Hawaii and doing fun things continues to make RIMPAC very popular. In 2026, there were once again contingents from around the world, including Israel, Germany, Poland, and Greece.  

This is not to imply that RIMPAC, in its current form, has no strategic value. Indeed, its inclusive scenario, its non-provocative setting, and its ability to attract partners from far and wide, has several positive outputs. First among these is that signals the breadth of the United States-led coalition without forcing any one nation to choose a side. The mere fact that the US Pacific Fleet pulls contingents from over 30 nations is a tangible example of America’s enduring soft power. Second, attracting thousands of foreign personnel, from around the world, allows the participants to build inter-personal relationships that can be drawn upon later. Establishing and maintaining international friendships – at all levels – banks valuable social capital that can be spent later in the pursuit of the national interest. Finally, the argument could be made that the sight of over 25,000 personnel, all working to advance interoperability, contributes to deterrence by influencing perceptions of the balance of power across the Pacific.

The argument here is not that RIMPAC has no strategic value. If we could continue to hold an old and new RIMPAC, then we certainly should. But this would be lazy analysis when we know that budgets are not keeping pace with demands and, therefore, regional navies are already operating beyond their stretching point.

The argument here turns on the opportunity costs. If we accept that the Pacific has the capacity to hold one large regional-wide biennial exercise, is RIMPAC, under its current guise, the very best option?

RIMPAC for a New Era

The Pacific is no longer a quiet strategic backwater. For exercises to better contribute to strategic messaging, and deterrence, they should evolve to reflect the challenges that the region is now facing. Some exercises should concentrate upon responding to the most likely flash points. For example, exercise scenarios that challenge participants to respond to localized conflicts in the South China Sea or in Japan’s near seas.

China’s exercises around Taiwan that rehearse a blockade or maritime quarantine (e.g., its JOINT SWORD series), for example, should be treated as a message that has been delivered, and now requires a reply. The response being a US-led anti-blockade exercise. This exercise should employ the same strategic language as the Chinese (e.g., an emphasis on jointness, etc.) so that nothing is lost in translation. The resulting strategic message will be clear: if you do that, we will respond this way, and as you can see, we are very good.

There is some movement in this direction. VALIANT SHIELD, for instance, is a Western Pacific exercise that has evolved from being a unilateral exercise in 2006, into now being multinational (the 2026 iteration is primarily a US and Japan affair with Australia, Canada and New Zealand sending smaller contingents). VALIANT SHIELD rehearses defensive sea control operations through the Pacific Rim island chain. That is, integrating land-based missiles, aircraft and drones with naval units to achieve sea control through the choke points and island chains. VALIANT SHIELD ’26, held between June 22 and July 1, highlighted some of the challenges with putting theory into practice. For example, although during VALIANT SHIELD the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group and the Japanese flat-top JS Kaga (DDH-184) along with other vessels exercised around Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the land-based activities – that included the Japanese Typhon Missile System and HIMARS – were all 1,600 miles away on the Japanese main island of Kyushu. While this simply reflected many of the political, logistical, and geographic realities of running a large multinational exercise, it remained some way from the ideal case of strategic messaging that would be far more geographically focused and have a sharper exercise scenario.

In addition, to localized scenarios, there is need to rehearse how America and its allies would respond to a regional-wide conflict. The leading candidate would be a reimaged RIMPAC.

In the future, rather than traveling to Hawaii, participants could enact how they plan to respond to regional war. RIMPAC would become the umbrella exercise under which regional allies and security partners rehearse their part in a regional war. For Pacific Rim nations (e.g., South Korea, Japan, and Australia), this would mean exercising in their own near seas with contributions from extra-regional states. For its part, the US Pacific Fleet would practice coordinating its efforts with its regional allies. A Western Pacific RIMPAC would also be a valuable opportunity for land forces to rehearse racing forward to important maritime choke points to assist in seizing and holding sea control through the littorals. The US Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept could be tested and refined at scale and alongside allies. Indeed, in addition to the US Marines, several of America’s allies and friends are moving in a similar direction. The Australian Army, for example, is being equipped with large landing craft and long-range missiles, with the explicit expectation that it will surge forward into the Melanesian archipelago to its north and contribute to achieving defensive sea control through the choke points.

It would be valuable to the participants to observe how their own operational concepts work in conjunction with their partners and begin working through the inevitable initial kinks in coordination and logistics. Equally as important, the strategic messaging would sharpen. For Beijing, this would be a jarring image of a how a regional-wide war may unfold. This, more than any other factor, will reinforce conventional maritime deterrence.

Of course, not all will be happy. The ASEAN states, for instance, could be expected to quietly communicate objections. And their views would not be entirely wrong. On balance, the economic opportunities offered by engaging with China still outweigh the security risks for most Indo-Pacific nations. Furthermore, the Indo-Pacific region has no choice but to learn to live alongside a great power whose diplomatic, military, and economic strength already casts a long shadow over the entire Pacific and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. However, it should be explained to concerned parties, that regional peace, stability and economic prosperity is reinforced by making it clear through words and deeds what a conflict would look like should Beijing decide to walk down the wrong path. Although counter intuitive, the best way of securing our business ties with China might be to reimagine our major maritime exercises so they are much better at telling a story about the future no one wants to see play out.

For similar reasons, it wouldn’t be surprising if the number of participating nations in RIMPAC shrunk. Those nations that don’t have vital national interests at play in deterring China will likely sit future RIMPACs out. But a RIMPAC that reorients towards depth rather than breadth would not necessarily be a bad thing. In the post-Cold War era, when America sought to advance the international rules-based order under its leadership, signing up as many member states as possible made sense. Even a token contribution to an international exercise, such as RIMPAC, signaled a commitment to the principles that the exercise represented. Today, however, the depth of the participants’ commitment matters more. An authentic depiction of how the participants plan to respond in different situations will produce both higher quality training and strategic messaging.  

Effective deterrence requires a fine calibration. If a posture of a deterring actor appears too risk-averse or lacking in force, then an opponent may decide that the actor’s heart really isn’t in it and accepts the gamble. On the other hand, if a posture is too reckless or aggressive, then it might lead to a security dilemma. Many years ago, Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein convincingly presented historical cases of deterrence that exacerbate the sense of insecurity in the target and triggered the exact war the deterring states were attempting to avoid. The challenge is calibration. Major exercises should not be too provocative nor too timid. The direction of movement in the defense posture of America’s key Pacific Rim partners is towards variations of a strategy of denial (e.g., see Australia’s National Defence Strategy). These are not offensive nor overly aggressive strategies. The new RIMPAC would simply breathe life into these strategic documents. The activities themselves would likely resemble VALIANT SHIELD ’26 but stretch the length of the Pacific Rim island chain. This Goldilocks exercise would, on the one hand, clearly demonstrate unity, commitment, capability and provide a compelling strategic narrative, while also being decidedly defensive in orientation and located in the near seas of the Pacific Rim partners.  It would be a RIMPAC for our times.

Adam Lockyer is the Executive Director of the Geopolitical Risk Research Centre and Associate Professor in Strategic Studies at Macquarie University. He is the author of four books, including his latest: Conventional Maritime Deterrence: the Operational Foundations of Influence at Sea (Georgetown 2026). He was awarded the 2015 Fulbright Scholarship in US-Australian Alliance Studies at Georgetown University, and before joining Macquarie held positions at the University of New South Wales, the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, DC.

Featured image: Multinational ships sail in formation during Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2026 in the Pacific Ocean, July 22, 2026.  (U.S. Navy Photo)