Multinational Combined Joint Force Offers Credible Collective Deterrence

The Indo-Pacific’s networked deterrence architecture must evolve into an institutionalised, combined joint mechanism that can harness the collective power of like-minded nations. Without change, a coalition approach will fail to deter threats to sovereignty and those to the rules-based order. Standing up a multinational, joint combined framework would fill a gap in the region’s security architecture and ensure the military instrument can deliver political ends.

Credibility, implicit in that framing, must be made explicit. Today, the credibility of collective deterrence rests in the identification and ambition of a few bilateral partnerships with a stated willingness to uphold the rules-based order. This approach is not networked or integrated. A practical option would be to assemble a coalition of the willing in rising crisis when sovereignty is being threatened, relying on ad hoc national force packages coordinated off the back of existing bilateral relationships. This model creates doubts around whether the partners can act as one, under time constraints.

Collective deterrence through military means raises operational questions: Who leads coalition building, coordination and option development? Who is the single point for intelligence sharing, and can they all share the same type of sensitive information? Who communicates the deterrent threat to discourage the adversary from a particular immediate action? These cannot be solved ad hoc. Nor will all adversaries evaluate and weigh mass, scale and lethality of each partner the same way for all threats; the signal must be coherent and tailored, or risk failure and possible escalation.

Time is a weak link. Credibility depends on whether a multinational combined joint force can operationalise quickly enough to deter before events lock in and it’s too late. Coalitions have historically had lengthy preparations and lead times. And while intra-war deterrence might still have value in a coalition context, it veers toward limited war or compellence, which are an even higher bar for success. Ultimately, even where capability, capacity and will exist, credibility is a matter of whether the adversary believes the threat can be executed in time.

A coalition organised for deterrence in a China-related contingency would require real-time coordination, intelligence sharing and joint decision-making at a level not yet demonstrated outside of exercises in the Indo-Pacific. Only three permanent institutions exist globally—the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) in the Middle East, the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) in Northern Europe, and NATO—as frameworks designed to deliver focused, credible combined-joint capabilities with clear unity of purpose and political-military cohesion.

To make a combined joint force credible, like-minded allies and partners must address known challenges to coalitions. Political aims and thresholds, national caveats and rules of engagement require alignment. Command and control with clear supported and supporting relationships for information sharing must be clarified to empower fast decision-making. Interoperable capabilities and communications must be prioritised in ways that integrate for true force multiplying effects that ensure speed to task. Partners should establish strategic communications to clarify a single narrative messaging resolve, attribution and response actions, and establish de-escalation pathways to manage risk. Access, basing and overflight arrangements should be in place and regularly demonstrated in ways that support deterrence objectives, as well as habitual force generation and rotations to demonstrate readiness.

Coalition-based, collective deterrence will only be credible if an adversary believes partners can act as one within hours and days, not weeks. That requires compressing the decision-to-deployment-to-integration sequence, with pre-agreed authorities and command relationships so options can be activated within hours. The means and political will exist; credibility now depends on converting coalition intent into cohesive speed.

Institutionalised mechanisms such as the CMF and JEF are examples of how to structure a multinational joint force for military readiness. For collective deterrence to be a viable strategy in the Indo-Pacific, it must be tailored to the region’s needs, geopolitical dynamics and be sufficiently flexible to be politically palatable. Pursuing a multinational joint force, under the umbrella of collective security, not a NATO-like formal collective defence treaty that binds its members, is the only realistic institutional option for our region to actualise collective deterrence.

The Indo-Pacific has a growing cadre of like-minded nations that share collective influence, but only by hard-wiring multinational cooperation, coordination and cohesion—politically and militarily, across the strategic, operational and institutional levels—will collective deterrence be credible.

Courtney Stewart is deputy director of ASPI’s Defence Strategy Program.

This article appeared originally at The Strategist (ASPI).