Hawaii is becoming an increasingly active training ground for militaries from around the Pacific and beyond. This month the Army ran an exercise that brought 900 foreign service members to the islands to train alongside 9,000 American troops.

It was the latest training rotation in the Hawaii portion of the Joint Pacific Multinational Training Center, a series of training ranges in Hawaii and Alaska, that the Army is using to train its soldiers for Pacific operations as the Pentagon increasingly sees the region as its most critical theater of operations.

The Army’s 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks took the lead in the Hawaii exercise. The division also has been sending soldiers around the region training in other countries — most recently in Indonesia for exercise Super Garuda Shield this summer — as the U.S. competes with China for influence.

The latest Hawaii iteration of JPMRC was the largest yet with soldiers from the 25th along with the the Army’s 1st Special Forces Group, 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade and the 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force. It also brought in troops from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, the Maldives, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The exercise officially began Oct. 7 and ran for more than two weeks. Col. Paul Hayward, a New Zealand army officer stationed at Schofield as the 25th’s head of interoperability, said the large presence of multinational troops at JPRMC this year stood out, telling the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “From a multinational point of view, that’s double what we had last year.”

The Army’s training operations in Hawaii are growing even as the clock ticks on land leases the Army acquired for training ranges across Hawaii in 1964 for a mere $1. The leases expire in 2029, and the Pentagon is in negotiations with the state Board of Land and Natural Resources on what terms the military will have to agree to in order to retain training grounds — and what specific lands, if any, the military will get to keep.

But on the ground, participants’ minds were on the task before them.

“What we’re really getting a lot out of in this exercise is the realism of it,” said Maj. Andrew Nicol, an officer with the British army’s 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland — known in the U.K. as the Black Watch.

The Scots first attended the exercise in Hawaii in 2023 working alongside troops from Indonesia. This year another batch of soldiers from the Black Watch came to Hawaii working alongside another group of Indonesian troops, as well as with troops from the island nation of Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

This is Maldives’ first time coming to Hawaii for the exercise. Capt. Ali Shareef, a Maldives marine corps officer with his service’s newly formed special operations group, said that “it’s a great opportunity for a country like Maldives to be participating in an exercise at this scale. Usually we participate in bilateral exercises, and this is the first time we have participated in an exercise at this scale.”

The participating countries have their own varied reasons for sending troops all the way to Hawaii for the exercise. The training took place amid a backdrop of boiling international tensions as conflicts around the globe rage and major powers compete for influence.

“The fact that we that we have 10 multinational partners here adds to the level of complexity, but (also) realism as well to the exercise,” said Nicol. “Any conflict, on any continent, is going to be multinational.”

Building bonds

Different countries brought different levels of troops and equipment, as well as different experiences.

Japan brought 320 troops along with their own armored vehicles and an electronic warfare system. Lt. Col. Kazuhisa Yoshio, commander of the Japanese troops, said the Hawaii training grounds offer opportunities that his troops wouldn’t have back home, particularly with electronic warfare — which is used to disrupt enemy signals or track them.

He said that under Japanese law they cannot use the “full spectrum” of their equipment for training within Japan’s islands, explaining, “We cannot conduct the maximum capability for the (electronic warfare) assets.” But in Hawaii there are no such restrictions.

Lt. Col. Ibrahim Soulisa of the Indonesian military said his soldiers take pride in being experts in jungle operations and sharing their experience with other troops in Hawaii. But he said the training grounds here also offer things they don’t have back home.

Notably, they don’t have the latest models of the multiple integrated laser engagement system — better known as MILES — which works as a sort of advanced laser tag system used to train soldiers for combat.

The various forces had to work through a series of language and cultural barriers. But Hayward said that “when you get a group of professional soldiers together from whatever country, every professional soldier is the same. They want to win, they want to be the best, they want to represent the country as well as they can.”

“So I think having everyone together in that kind of one environment and on the same team creates that cooperative spirit and actually gets them to push each other,” Hayward said. “Everyone wants to push each other further, and in doing that it builds trust amongst that group, amongst the team, trust amongst the countries.”

Nicol said “You’ve had nations that have flown significant different distances across the world that have effectively not worked together before but, in a very short space of time, managed to do that and deliver a kind of combined effect, plugging into a U.S. division in a kind of multidomain context.”

Shareef said his time in Hawaii was “very fruitful for us in terms of the training and also in terms of the relationship that we have been able to build with all the partner countries that we have worked together, and also having the confidence to work with partners who are near and far from our country.”

Maldives came with a small group of troops, but Shareef said that “even though we are a small nation, we bring kind of the ability to understand the tactics, techniques and procedures of different countries, because most of our officers are trained in different countries.”

Shareef himself was trained by the Indian military and received some medical training in the United States. However, while military professionals are often quick to form personal friendships, they train and operate in the shadow of geopolitical posturing.

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, who came to power in November on an “India Out” campaign, ordered the withdrawal of Indian troops from his country soon after taking office. The last Indian troops left in May, and Muizzu signed a new defense cooperation agreement with China.

But this month Muizzu went to New Delhi to meet Indian Prime Minister Na­rendra Modi, with the two agreeing to improve relations. In September, India extended emergency financial support to Maldives at the request of Muizzu’s government, just days after China agreed to strengthen trade and investment in the island nation.

“No nation is exempt from the threats that exist in the world today,” said Shareef. “Even though we are a small country, we have to work along with all the the countries to better confront the threats that we have in our region.”

Shareef added that “even though we don’t share a land border with any country, the sea, the Indian Ocean, is full of threats. We have piracy and all these kind of things. So we work together with all the countries in our region to confront threats like this.”

On the land

The Army established JPMRC as an alternative to training grounds it has used on the mainland, with the new ranges focused on Indo-Pacific operations.

But within the U.S. military establishment, there has been debate about the role of the Army in the region, where the senior U.S. military leadership has been historically dominated by naval officers. Some analysts have argued the Army is taking up money and resources that could be better used by the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force to operate across the vast blue ocean that dominates the region.

Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of U.S. Army Pacific, who oversaw the official rollout of JPMRC in 2021, has been promoting the concept of a Pacific “land-power network” and has sometimes frustrated his critics with his frequent refrain that “people live on the land.” During this year’s iteration of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual Land Power in the Pacific symposium in Waikiki in May, Flynn argued that none of the other military branches can effectively function in the region without Army support.

“That line doesn’t always resonate … but here’s why this is true,” Flynn told a packed room at the Sheraton Waikiki. “All branches of our militaries are dependent on land and will always return to land: Ships require ports, planes need airfields, satellites communicate with ground terminals, even cyber-effects depend on terrestrial-based infrastructure.”

Hayward said that when it comes to multinational training, both in exercises in Hawaii and across the region, he has “seen a real progression over time, the number of partners, what they’re bringing to the table; but also the way we’ve integrated them across the division, I think has been a marked difference from last year.”

Shareef said that when it comes to building those relationships, it “doesn’t happen just by talking. It happens only when you get an opportunity to physically work together.”

But how large JPRMC can actually get in Hawaii, and for how long the Army can sustain it, will depend in large part on what sort of agreement the Pentagon and the BLNR come to on the leases. In response to recent draft environmental impact statements on the prospect of retaining land for training, the Army has in some cases received scathing feedback.

After releasing a draft EIS for the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island for feedback in 2022, community members and some state officials charged that the document had data gaps regarding the effects of its activities on endangered species and lacked clarity on ordnance cleanup plans and other concerns. Military officials have for their part emphasized that millions in Pen­tagon funds go toward conservation programs on the ranges, often required by law.

This summer the Army asked for feedback from the public on a draft EIS for Oahu training areas.

September’s Native Hawaiian Convention on Hawaii island featured a panel discussion titled “Aina Back: Military Lease Expirations in Hawaii.” In response to a question at the panel about Native Hawaiian voices in the discussion of the leases, Camille Kalama of the organization Ko‘ihonua said, “It’s definitely the only opportunity in our lifetime to have a say in what happens.”