At U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s annual International Military Law and Operations Conference, the military’s top officer in the region argued that law is “strategic terrain.”
The event, held last week in Honolulu, drew military lawyers, academics and diplomats from across the region to talk about the nuances of how and when military force is used.
Adm. Samuel Paparo said during his speech opening the conference on Monday, “we are stronger when our disagreements are aired with transparency and with mutual respect and where we can find legal consensus. It means coming together with one loud, strong voice to safeguard international rules and norms while enthusiastically promoting our shared values.”
He argued that “legal vigilance and legal diplomacy are not sidebars to deterrence. They are a centerpiece of deterrence.”
Paparo also took aim at China, accusing it of waging “lawfare” -- leveraging legal systems to advance political or economic objective -- against smaller countries. China has been locked in a series of territorial disputes with several countries over waterways, reefs and land formations near Japan and in the South China Sea, a critical waterway that more than a third of all international trade moves through.
Beijing has claimed most of the South China Sea as its exclusive sovereign territory over the objections of other countries that border it. In 2016, an international court ruled in favor of the Philippines, finding that China’s territorial claims have “no legal basis.”
But China has doubled down, building bases on disputed islands and reefs. It also has declared laws regulating these territories, using its coast guard to attack vessels and occasionally make arrests of mariners in disputed waters.
“China has made the law a weapon,” Paparo said. “We must make the law a shield, a shield and a signal. They declare laws unilaterally and then apply them retroactively. They pressure nations to concede sovereign rights that nations lawfully possess. They use false claims of legitimacy to justify coercion. This is not the rule of law. This is the rule by law, and that distinction between law as a tool of order versus a tool of power is the fault line of our time.”
The conference took place as the administration of President Donald Trump has been seeking to reshape the U.S. military and how it sees itself.
On Sept. 5, Trump signed an executive order giving the Department of Defense a “secondary” name of the Department of War, and allowing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to call himself Secretary of War in official correspondence, public communications and ceremonial contexts.
The department’s website defense.gov is now rerouted to war.gov, which displays “U.S. Department of War” at the top.
Hegseth has argued that the U.S. military has become weak and needs to adopt a far more aggressive ethos. Before leading the Pentagon, Hegseth rose to prominence as a Fox News commentator who famously lobbied Trump during his first presidency to issue pardons to three American service members who had been prosecuted for war crimes, including two whose crimes were reported by their own troops.
As Trump signed the executive order, Hegseth was by his side. He said that as a war secretary he will prioritize “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”
Military commanders in Hawaii have sought to strengthen relationships with countries across the Pacific. Palau, which has no military of its own but has become an increasingly strategic operating area for the U.S., sent lawyers to participate in the conference. Its president, Surangel Whipps Jr, also delivered a keynote address before flying to the Solomon Islands to participate in the Pacific Islands Forum.
Capt. Dustin Wallace, INDOPACOM’s top legal officer, said that the weeklong conference offers a venue “where we can talk about the substantive issues … (and) allows people to build bonds that will pay dividends for us every day moving forward.”
Last year, the conference was held in the Philippines, but this year brought it to the ‘Alohilani Resort Waikiki Beach. Among the issues on the agenda were artificial intelligence, responses to cyberattacks and how to crack down on rampant illegal fishing in the Pacific.
Despite harsh rhetoric toward China, Wallace and Paparo said that INDO PACOM extended an invitation to Chinese military lawyers to attend this year.
“We still have a seat for them,” Wallace said. “We would love to have them here, and I tell that to folks honestly because a lot of what we talk about is highlighting what they do that we say is wrong. I would say the exact same thing if they were here … I always will be respectful and professional, but I would not change anything if the People’s Liberation Army judge advocates were sitting in the room.”
Wallace said that “we want to be able to, say, expose and oppose China, North Korea when they do things that are wrong. But the more important message that we have is let’s highlight what we’re doing that’s right. Let’s highlight what we’re doing together as allies and partners, and let’s identify specific things we can do.”
International law is currently being put to the test in battlefields across the globe as wars rage in Gaza and Ukraine.
The U.S. military also is facing new scrutiny. On Sept. 2, the American forces launched a deadly strike on a boat in the Caribbean in international waters that killed 11 people. Lawmakers and legal scholars quickly questioned the legality of the strike.
The Trump administration alleges that the strike was directed at members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua trafficking narcotics. The gang was recently designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization along with several other Latin American criminal groups, and the Trump administration believes the group is supported by the Venezuelan government.
Historically, the U.S. Coast Guard has led counter-drug operations at sea in which they seize drugs from vessels and arrest smugglers, collect evidence and interrogate suspects to learn more about the criminal networks that they are after. After the strike, Hegseth told Fox &Friends “we knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua … trying to poison our country with illicit drugs.”
But to date, U.S. officials have released no specific evidence, details on how they know that or stated specifically what sort of drugs they were allegedly carrying.
“They openly confessed to killing 11 people,” Venezuelan Interior Minister and ruling party head Diosdado Cabello said on state television on Thursday. “We have done our investigations here in our country and there are the families of the disappeared people who want their relatives, and when we asked in the towns, none were from Tren de Aragua, none were drug traffickers.”
Hegseth has vowed to carry out more strikes on suspected smugglers.
During a question-and-answer session with Paparo at the Waikiki conference, one attendee alluded to news coverage of the strike and asked the admiral how important it is to him to have legal frameworks in place for military operations conducted in the Pacific before they take place.
Paparo responded that “legal considerations must be first, during and after every single operation.”
“Laws govern our behavior and provide a social contract that allows us to be our best selves, else we become subject to a world and a life that is nasty, brutish and short,” Paparo said. “And so the law is what underpins every single thing that we do … this is why I place such a great premium on your profession. Without your profession, we are just lonely cavemen bashing people over their head for what we want.”
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