In June, Coast Guard ships hailing from the United States, the Philippines, and Japan undertook joint operations near Japan’s Kagoshima prefecture, on the cusp of the East China Sea. At a time when China is wielding its own Coast Guard to bully neighbors and craft a new regional order defined by deference to Beijing, the multinational fleet sailing through Kagoshima Bay sent a powerful signal of resolve that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years earlier. If you ask policymakers