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Top U.S. military officer calls for trilateral cooperation amid military buildup by North Korea, China

Published: 11 Jul. 2025, 12:55

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Adm. Kim Myung-soo, his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Dan Caine and his Japanese counterpart Yoshihide Yoshida pose for a photo during their meeting at the JCS headquarters in Seoul on July 10. [JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF]

The top military officer of the United States stressed the importance of security cooperation among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan to reestablish deterrence against an "unprecedented" military buildup by North Korea and China.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chief of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), made the remark as he attended a trilateral meeting in Seoul with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Adm. Kim Myung-soo and Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida.

"Our focus in the United States remains on reestablishing deterrence and doing so needs and requires the trilateral cooperation between our three countries," Caine said. "The DPRK and China are ongoing an unprecedented military buildup with a clear and unambiguous intent to move forward with their own agendas."

DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"We need to be mindful of that, we need to be able to demonstrate resolve, to be entrepreneurial and proactive in our partnerships, to make sure that our leaders at every echelon understand and trust each other, and to take the best available combat capability and capacity between our three nations so that we can fight tonight, fight together and win together," he said.

Caine noted how their trilateral cooperation has expanded from one focusing solely on North Korean threats to broader security agendas, recalling former U.S. JCS chief Gen. Martin Dempsey's remarks in a 2014 trilateral meeting.

"That afternoon, Gen. Dempsey said in the first Tri-Chod conference, that we're illuminating a future path together, a path where partnerships can evolve through persistent and regular engagement, from building capacity to really sharing responsibility," he said.

"It's on the shoulders of those three that we move forward today into an incredibly delicate chapter in our nations' plural history," Caine said.

South Korea's Kim and Japan's Yoshida echoed the call, urging for the need to keep up the momentum of their trilateral cooperation.

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Adm. Kim Myung-soo, his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Dan Caine and his Japanese counterpart Yoshihide Yoshida pose for a photo during their meeting at the JCS' headquarters in Seoul on July 10. [JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF]

"The meeting taking place in South Korea itself demonstrates to the Indo-Pacific region and to the world that security cooperation between South Korea, the United States and Japan is being established in a stable manner," Kim said.

"It is very important to maintain and continuously develop the momentum of the trilateral cooperation at a time when North Korea's nuclear and missile threats are advancing and regional security challenges exist," he said.

Japan's Yoshida called for advancing and institutionalizing trilateral cooperation and strengthening deterrence against the North by increasing "rock-solid unity" among the three nations.

Friday's meeting is the first Trilateral Chiefs of Defense (Tri-Chod) meeting held in Seoul. Caine's visit marked the first trip to South Korea by the highest-ranking U.S. military officer since his predecessor, CQ Brown, who visited Seoul in November 2023.

The top generals of the three countries held their last Tri-Chod gathering in Tokyo last year, attended by Kim, Brown and Yoshida.

In the meeting, the three military leaders agreed to expand their trilateral multi-domain Freedom Edge exercise and condemned the North's continued nuclear and missile developments and its growing military cooperation with Russia.

Yonhap