This Wednesday, June 29, is the start of the Rim of the Pacific (Rimpac), one of the largest naval exercises in the world. The event, which takes place every two years, brings together 26 allied countries of the United States this year. The maneuver around Hawaii and southern California will be an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate its strength and the extent of global maritime partnerships amid escalating tensions with China and Russia.
international department, Jelena Tomic
Let’s go for the 28th edition of Rimpac, a meeting of exercises in naval aviation which will involve this year, and until August 4, four countries of the Quad – the United States, India, Japan and the Australia – and five countries bordering the South China Sea.
In all, 26 countries will take part in the maneuvers, including Tonga, a small island state in the Pacific Ocean, whose unprecedented participation is not trivial. It takes place in a context of growing Sino-American rivalries and as Beijing inexorably advances its pawns in south pacific islands.
Launched in 1971, the naval training organized by the command of the American Pacific fleet will mobilize 25,000 soldiers, 38 vessels, four submarines and more than 170 aircraft. South Korea will also participate in the training and will send warships, submarines, maritime patrol aircraft, and some 1,000 sailors this year, a record since 1990.
The United States thus wants to deny its rivals, who describe an American navy in decline, and to demonstrate its deterrent force and its influence at the planetary level.
