Introduction 

The escalation of regional competitiveness has affected the stability and security of the Indo-Pacific. In this context, supply chain resilience, maritime security, and access to critical and emerging technologies have become national security priorities for the United States (US), India, and South Korea, whose economies remain highly interconnected and dependent on China. These dependencies expose strategic vulnerabilities, threatening economic prosperity and technological sovereignty. To address this, a new informal trilateral dialogue initiative was announced during the December 2023 meeting between the South Korean and US National Security Advisors, underlining the need to institutionalise a trilateral dialogue on strategic issues, particularly collaboration and cooperation on critical and emerging technology supply chains. The inaugural meeting of this informal initiative was held on 13 March 2024. It focused on laying the foundation and creating a framework for better coordination on shared economic and national security interests, while synergising respective bilateral engagements.

The idea germinated from the Biden administration’s attempts at establishing a web of strategic partnerships, starting with the trilateral initiative on technology cooperation. Shaped by the emerging geo-economic and geopolitical situation in the Indo-Pacific, the US needed to coordinate and connect actions with its allies and partners. Driven by this common understanding, the US, India, and South Korea collaborated to deepen strategic economic, maritime, and energy security partnerships. Their cooperation shared a unified vision for a free, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific, intending to bring together the capabilities of the three countries.

Besides cooperating on technological solutions, the three countries also prioritised defence industrial development and production, stressing the need to expand regional defence capacity. This was an attempt to establish interlinkages across trade, defence, and technology, tied together by national security considerations. Building on bilateral ties, the US and South Korea expanded development cooperation in India via the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Collectively, these efforts aimed to pool national capacities to support sustainable development in the Indo-Pacific.

The decision to establish a trilateral framework arose from mounting challenges in the Indo-Pacific, driven by China’s control and weaponisation of supply chains, along with its advances in sectors, including critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, industrial machinery, and advanced batteries. These restrictions threatened the security of the US and its allies and partners. Acknowledging the scale of the challenge and the need for coordinated actions, the three countries launched a minilateral framework focused on cooperation in areas including pharmaceutical supply chains, defence industrial development, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, space, quantum technologies, and digital public infrastructure, with scope for expansion.

As the China challenge grows, the strategic outlook of the three countries has increasingly converged. Despite differences in their economic and political engagement with Beijing, all recognise the implications of its expanding economic and military power. In the last decade, China’s influence has manifested differently for each: South Korea faced economic coercion from Beijing in 2016 following the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile batteries ; India endured the 2020 Galwan border clashes at the Line of Actual Control, which killed 20 soldiers and led to trade restrictions; and the US experienced Chinese restrictions on critical mineral exports, including rare earth elements. These incidents highlight Beijing’s adversarial relations with New Delhi, Seoul, and Washington DC. With great power contestation intensifying, Chinese power projection poses a serious concern, particularly for India and South Korea, which also share territorial and maritime boundaries with China.

Besides trade and commerce, in the maritime domain, China’s expanding naval ambitions stretching from the North Pacific, the Yellow Sea, the South China Sea, to the Indian Ocean, pose a serious challenge to the region's energy, economic security, and political stability. China’s maritime project, pursued through gray-zone warfare, has directly fuelled regional instability.

While tactical adjustments are being made at the political level between the US and its partners, including South Korea and India, the strategic rationale for the trilateral continues to remain intact. Institutional cooperation continues to deepen through military, business, and people-to-people engagement. The trilateral partners’ interests converge on regional priorities, ranging from establishing resilient technology supply chains, and strengthening defence industrial capacity to enhancing maritime security cooperation. These priorities were underscored in the understandings reached during US-India, US-South Korea, and India-South Korea meetings during the Trump 2.0 administration.

With opportunities across sectors remaining vast, it is only a matter of time before the respective administrations further deepen the trilateral framework. The political signalling from New Delhi and Seoul in elevating their strategic partnership marks a first step. The Trump administration’s continued investment in the Quad, US-Japan-South Korea, and US-Japan-Philippines minilaterals underscores the strategic importance of this regional framework within the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy. India and South Korea reciprocate through their respective Indo-Pacific visions.

Given this context, this special report examines prospects for trilateral cooperation between India, South Korea, and the US, including sectors beyond the framework’s current mandate. The report is organised into three themes: (1) Enhancing Opportunities for Strategic Partnership in the Korea–India–US Trilateral; (2) Synergising Trilateral Collaboration on Supply Chain Resilience and Economic Security; and (3) Forging Strategic Partnership across Maritime Security, Connectivity and Shipbuilding. Through these three themes, the report explores and highlights specific areas where the three countries can synergise their efforts, create industrial linkages, and collaborate to strengthen the regional maritime security order. The following paragraphs highlight the converging viewpoints on these themes and specific suggestions from Indian, Korean, and US contributors.

Recognising the vitality of the trilateral partnership, all three viewpoints overlapped on the theme of Enhancing Opportunities for Strategic Partnership, proposing a deepening of the trilateral strategic partnership. Tae-Hyung Kim described the trilateral as a “vital strategic asset” and urged its further strengthening. Pratnashree Basu argued that the trilateral could serve as a norm-shaping coalition to bolster India’s strategic autonomy, while Patrick M. Cronin emphasised using collaboration to lay the foundations for revitalising American manufacturing.

On the theme of Supply Chain Resilience and Economic Security, the three perspectives converged on strengthening trilateral collaboration in the technological domain, particularly critical minerals, green technology, and nuclear energy. Choongjae Cho recommended a hybrid approach in the technological domain—mixing soft and hard measures under a top-down system. Saurabh Todi and Kalyani Tidke argued for establishing a deeper collaboration in technology to expand India’s technology sector, while Troy Stangarone called for strengthening the three countries' economic security and supply chain resilience partnerships. 

Similarly, while emphasising the Forging of strategic partnerships across maritime security, connectivity, and shipbuilding, the three perspectives converged on phased institutionalisation of maritime security and stronger cooperation in shipbuilding. Ji Yeon-jung highlighted the importance of having a shared maritime security vision, including establishing a global shipbuilding industrial chain and trilateral connectivity projects. James R. Holmes emphasised developing maritime statecraft and fostering habits of cooperation through institutional culture, while Monty Khanna underlined specific areas of collaboration, including cooperation in the polar region, joint initiatives in third countries, and shipbuilding industries.

Collating Indian, Korean, and American standpoints, this report highlights the importance of leveraging their respective capacities under a common geostrategic framework for maintaining a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. Furthermore, considering the growing challenges, it emphasises the urgency to forge a trilateral strategic partnership between the three countries across sectors. Given the recent geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts in the Indo-Pacific, the contributors recognised the importance of collaboration for maritime security, connectivity, shipbuilding, semiconductors, economic security, and supply chain resilience as a first step for the trilateral’s consideration.

Read the Full Report Here

Harsh V Pant is Vice President, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. 

Abhishek Sharma is a Junior Fellow, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

All views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors, and do not represent the Observer Research Foundation, either in its entirety or its officials and personnel. 

• International Affairs
• India
• East Asia
• USA and Canada
• Critical Minerals
• critical technologies
• defence cooperation
• economic security
• India US South Korea trilateral
• Indo-Pacific security
• maritime security
• shipbuilding collaboration
• strategic partnership
• supply chain resilience

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