HUA HIN, Thailand – Air Force Gen. Steve Nordhaus, chief of the National Guard Bureau, attended the 2025 Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense Conference to strengthen the National Guard’s partnerships in the region Aug. 27-28.
Nordhaus joined Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, alongside defense chiefs and senior military leaders from 29 nations to discuss shared challenges and opportunities together.
Co-hosted by Paparo and Gen. Songwit Noonpakdee, Thailand’s chief of defense forces, the conference highlighted a collective commitment to regional security cooperation.
This marked the first time a National Guard Bureau chief attended the Indo-Pacific CHOD conference.
“I was privileged to join Gen. Caine, Adm. Paparo and so many of our global teammates,” Nordhaus said. “The National Guard is committed to supporting U.S. Indo-Pacific Command goals to enhance U.S. national security by building shared capacity with our partners to promote stability and preserve peace through strength.”
The National Guard integrates with 18 Indo-Pacific nations through the Department of Defense’s National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program. This cost-effective program accounts for 20% of U.S. security cooperation activities at just 1% of the budget, facilitating over 1,000 annual exchanges with 115 partner nations. The SPP fosters enduring professional and personal bonds between partner nations and U.S. states, territories, and the District of Columbia.
“Steve, thank you for what the Guard brings to this critical region and for your leadership in sustaining the tremendous momentum of our State Partnership Program,” Caine said in his opening remarks. “Many of you here are active in the State Partnership Program, and it's such a great case of decades-long relationships that build on trust with each other.”
The Indo-Pacific, designated the DoD’s priority theater, spans half the Earth’s surface, from the U.S. West Coast to India’s western border and from Antarctica to the North Pole. Home to over 50% of the world’s population, 3,000 languages, and five U.S. treaty allies—Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand—the region is pivotal to global security.
As Caine noted, “The story of the 21st century will be written in the Indo-Pacific.”
Nordhaus held bilateral talks with military leaders from Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Singapore to deepen ties and explore new opportunities. He also joined multilateral discussions with Paparo and leaders from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines. Paparo praised the National Guard’s civilian-acquired skills, such as cybersecurity expertise, as a force multiplier.
This year, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii National Guard partners celebrate the 25th anniversary of consistent engagement within the SPP. This milestone underscores their enduring commitment to U.S.-Philippine collaboration. Their partnership is the longest-running SPP relationship in the Indo-Pacific, reflecting a quarter-century of shared progress in regional security, training and stability.
It's also one of the most consequential, as both the Philippines and Guam are situated in the first and second island chains, respectively. The first and second island chains are conceptual, strategic lines of islands in the Western Pacific that structure America’s containment strategy in East Asia.
With approximately 30 SPP engagements conducted annually between the two nations, the training aims to enhance a wide range of critical competencies. These include rotary-wing aviation exchanges, advancements in cybersecurity, tactical combat casualty care, leadership development, incident command systems, urban search and rescue and various other specialized programs.
In May, a team of cyber professionals and an intelligence analyst from the Guam National Guard attended Balikatan 2025, participating in a three-week cyber defense exercise alongside teams from various nations.
Meanwhile, the Washington National Guard recently completed its third annual Enduring Partners exercise with the Royal Thai Armed Forces, expanding this year to include both Army and Air Guard elements for a multi-domain approach.
“This is just another example of the exponential return on the investment that the U.S. State Partnership Program brings to these relationships,” Caine said of Enduring Partners. “What is created through all of these exercises is the same thing that got each of us here.
“It's the mutual trust that we've built over many, many years of shared experience. It's the partnerships and it's the relationships.”
From Bangladesh to Vietnam, to Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and the islands of Tonga, Fiji and Samoa, National Guardsmen train with counterparts to build partner capacity to share the burden of global security.
“Every engagement strengthens both sides,” Nordhaus said. “In the Guard, we say ‘stronger together, stronger tomorrow,’ which perfectly describes our mission triad: defending the homeland, supporting the warfight and building partnerships from local to global.”
Through joint exercises and cooperative engagements, the SPP bolsters partner nations’ capabilities, fostering stability and deterring aggression.
"Throughout our histories, we’ve fought together and we’ve bled together," Caine said. "Today, we train together. And when we train together and operate together, it sends a strong and unmistakable message: this is a team you do not want to test."
Mark Scott, Guam National Guard; Master Sgt. Brandy Burke, Washington Air National Guard; Tech. Sgt. John Linzmeier, Hawaii Air National Guard and Staff Sgt. Andre Taylor, USINDOPACOM, contributed.