Bringing Japan and South Korea together as U.S. security partners

Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his ministerial counterparts, Kiharu Minoru of Japan and Shin Won-Sik of South Korea, jointly announced a new agreement titled, in rather wordy fashion, “Memorandum of Cooperation on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework.”

The agreement represents yet another major step in realizing Washington’s long-standing goal to secure a closer security relationship between America’s two powerful East Asian allies, Japan and South Korea.