Pacific Trident III:  The Strengths and Weaknesses of the U.S. Alliance System Under Gray Zone Operations

“Pacific Trident III:  The Strengths and Weaknesses of the U.S. Alliance System Under Gray Zone Operations”  is the latest paper by DKI APCSS Associate Professor John Hemmings.

The paper looks at how tabletop exercises (TTX) are used to train participants on crisis management.  The TTX, Pacific Trident III,” was created and run by Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA (Sasakawa USA), a think tank based in Washington D.C.

According to Hemmings, “The tabletop exercise utilized two different crises at the same time, challenging the United States and allied players as to which was the ‘real’ crisis, and which merited prioritization. Also, both crises involved gray zone tactics (operations other than war) to achieve their objectives. In many ways, the fact that there were two gray zone operations at the same time showed the alliance system’s strengths and exposed some of its weaknesses.”

This article was previously released by the  Sasakawa USA and is reprinted with permission. View original article

Dr. Hemmings is an associate professor at the Daniel K Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of DKI APCSS, the US Department of Defense or the US government.