U.S. Strategy in the Asian Century, by Abraham M. Denmark

U.S.

STRATEGY

IN THE

ASIAN

CENTURY Empowering Allies and Partners ABRAHAM M. DENMARK

INTRODUCTION Challenged Friendships in Challenging Times

We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.

—HENRY KISSINGER

A

llies and partners have played a highly consequential role in America’s foreign and national security policy since before its founding. France was a key supporter of the colonists during the American Revolution, providing George Washington and the Continental Army with supplies, weapons, nancing, and the much-needed diversion of an English focus outside North America in their global competition for power.

Despite President Washington’s admonitions to future generations that “the great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible,” the United States has long understood that its power was augmented with strong foreign relationships.1 Historically, allies and partners have functioned both as a complement to American power and a conduit for it. Though not formal

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allies at the time, the United States came to the aid of France and Great Britain for World War I and World War II, laying the foundation for a collective defense arrangement that has lasted for decades.

It was during the postwar era when the United States established the structure of its East Asian alliances and partnerships, which during the Cold War served to deter large-scale Soviet aggression and contain the spread of communism while also enabling the United States to exert its in uence around the world.

As the geopolitical environment has evolved and American interests have changed, Washington’s approach to alliances and partnerships have evolved as well. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, NATO has acted to stop genocide in the former Yugoslavia and later augmented the United States’ liberation of Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In Southeast Asia, the spread of terrorist organizations spurred the United States to revitalize its alliances and partnerships in the region to ght their spread and counter their attacks.

Today, the Indo-Paci c looms as a vital region for American economic, political, and security interests. The region includes the world’s largest economies, representing two-thirds of global growth; it accounts for 60 percent of global gross domestic product; and it is home to some of the world’s largest and most advanced militaries and several of nuclear powers.2 The Indo-Paci c’s tremendous strategic importance to the United States, and to the fate of global geopolitics, was the motivating factor behind the Obama administration’s rebalance to the Asia-Paci c and the Trump administration’s strategy to build a free and open Indo-Paci c.

Yet just as this region continues to grow in signi cance for the United States, the essential dynamics of its geopolitics are in the midst of a fundamental change. China is steadily growing more powerful, and it is becoming increasingly assertive in the pursuit of its objectives. Concurrently, American engagement in the region is seen across the region as both insu cient and unreliable.

This book argues that these changes in the regional balance of power threaten the existing liberal regional order, which has been

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fundamental to regional stability and prosperity for decades. It also argues that the regional balance of power is no longer only about military capacity, but instead involves multiple measures of national power—including trade and investment ows, economic throw-weight, soft power, and military potential. This book explores how US allies and partners are increasingly adopting hedging strategies to account for these changes, and proposes a strategy for the United States to empower its regional allies and partners to help strengthen these critical relationships and defend the key principles that are the foundation of the liberal regional order.

This strategy will require the United States to adjust the original conceit of its approach to alliances and partnerships, which were as much about restraining allies as about confronting threats.

Indeed, as persuasively argued by Georgetown University professor Victor Cha, the United States established its alliances with Korea (in 1953) and the Republic of China (1954) in order to both contain communism and to stop Syngman Rhee’s and Chiang Kaishek’s governments from, respectively, provoking con icts with North Korea and mainland China.3 For the US alliance with Japan (1951), Washington was less concerned about Tokyo entrapping it in an unwanted con ict, but more that Japan’s postwar recovery would occur without US involvement. Although the rationales for these alliances have evolved signi cantly over time, the militarycentric, hub-and-spokes system that grew out of the US approach to Asian alliances in the early 1950s remains the foundation of its strategy today.

Yet a military-centric approach is insu cient in a region where the balance of power in the Indo-Paci c is increasingly measured via a continually evolving assessment of hierarchies of relative levels of existing and potential national power. Further states will perceive a series of power hierarchies among various measures of national power, be it overall economic strength, the resilience of domestic politics and economics, per capita income and innovation, defense budgets, qualitative assessments of military capabilities, geography,

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and soft power. These multiple, interrelated hierarchies—referred to here as a “heterarchy” (see chapter 2)—will inform great power competition in the Indo-Paci c and likewise drive the development of strategies by the region’s middle powers to hedge against tremendous strategic uncertainty.4 This means that the United States cannot focus solely on military power, but must also become involved in all aspects of national power in its strategy toward the Indo-Paci c. From trade and investment to development and security assistance, this book argues that the United States needs to tailor its regional strategy to t the demands of the emerging era of complex regional competition.

This book primarily focuses on the need for the United States to empower its key allies and partners in the Indo-Paci c, many of which are focusing more on the role they will play in the emerging regional heterarchy. The scope of this book encompasses the American allies (Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea) and partners (India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam) that are most critical for a US strategy in Asia. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but instead an examination of some of the most critical alliance and partner relationships in the Indo-Paci c. Discussions of Thailand, for instance, are not a major feature of this book—largely because there is little potential for the US–Thai Alliance to substantially change as long as the military government remains in power.

At times, the book also discusses the role that allies and partners outside Asia—and especially in Europe—can play in US strategy in the region. Although other observers may group American allies and partners di erently—potentially focusing on treaty allies only, or solely grouping nations based on allies and partners that are democratically governed—this book focuses on allies and partners whose interests in strengthening aspects of a liberal order in Asia align with those of the United States and that are generally comfortable with the United States playing a signi cant role in the region’s geopolitics.

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As their power rises, America’s allies and partners in Asia have an opportunity to contribute more to the health and success of a rules-based liberal order that has been critical to the region’s stability and prosperity for generations. Successfully empowering allies and partners in this way, however, will require the United States to broaden the aperture of these relationships and place a greater emphasis on political coordination and economic integration in addition to military cooperation.

It will also require an intensi ed e ort to build allied capabilities in a way that enables them to play a larger role in contributing to the liberal order and providing public goods while also mitigating the potential for arms races or the fueling of lingering intraregional rivalries.

This book describes a broad strategy that involves a diverse set of initiatives designed to empower US allies and partners in the Indo-Paci c: Developing a shared vision for the regional order • Sustaining critical principles • Competing with a rising China • Navigating a multipolar Asia • Providing public goods • Confronting a belligerent North Korea

Bolstering American power and leadership in the Indo-Paci c • Domestic investments as foundations of national power • Investing in tools of American foreign policy • Protecting against disengagement

Maximizing US engagement and in uence • Alliances as a comprehensive platform for cooperation • Robust economic engagement • Building governance and ghting corruption

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Developing military capabilities and presence • Strengthening and reforming security assistance • Buttressing regional maritime security capabilities, including building regional coast guards and developing a regional maritime domain awareness network • Expanding missile defense • Enhancing island and shore defense • Coordinating with allies and partners • Managing unintended consequences

Expanding economic interconnectivity • Strengthening economic integration under US leadership • Building physical and digital infrastructure

Deepening diplomatic coordination • Maritime security • Space • The digital domain

Networking alliances and partnerships By implementing a strategy to empower its allies and partners in the Indo-Paci c and more e ectively drive them to contribute to the health and success of the regional liberal order, the United States has an opportunity to proactively address emerging regional challenges and sustain American regional power and leadership. Such a strategy will not only enhance regional stability and prosperity—it will also enhance the ability of the United States to compete with China.

Although this is not an anti-China strategy, it does recognize the extent of the challenge posed by China and proposes a positive approach to advance the interests of the United States and its allies and partners.

In pursuing this strategy, the United States will face two signi cant dilemmas in the Indo-Paci c. First, if the United States continues to shoulder the vast majority of costs for the defense of its allies and the preservation of the liberal order, this will simply reinforce

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allied tendencies toward free riding and will not help address the changing balance of power in the region. Conversely, an unconsidered reduction in US capabilities and engagement in the region (or threats to do so) may back re and diminish US in uence while undermining the perceived reliability of American commitments.

The possible results—a rising China that threatens to undermine liberal internationalism across the region, and a retrenching United States—would threaten the overall stability of the region and set conditions for Beijing to establish dominance in the world’s most geopolitically critical region.

Second, building up the power and capabilities of US allies and partners in the Indo-Paci c—if done capriciously or without a robust understanding of the region’s underlying geopolitical dynamics—could unintentionally fuel lingering intraregional rivalries and incite regional instability. In the case of US allies, greater capabilities could increase concerns about entrapment in the United States. Moreover, allied overinvestment in some types of capabilities (e.g., antiaccess / area denial capabilities) could diminish their investments in other areas (e.g., power projection). The potential for arms racing, entrapment, and misaligned investments are certainly challenges that would need to be addressed, but can be mitigated by the adroit selection of capabilities to be built and the policies to be pursued.

Navigating these dilemmas will pose signi cant challenges for the United States. Speci cally, Washington must update its approach to its allies and partners in the Indo-Paci c to encourage more active and independent allies and partners in ways that support the critical features of the liberal order without in aming fears of abandonment or entrapment, sparking a regional arms race, or jeopardizing American in uence in the region. It can do this by emphasizing integration and interoperability, and by tailoring empowerment e orts to best match the interests and capabilities of the speci c ally or partner.

This book is fundamentally about power, order, and developing a new regional strategy in an era of profound change. It describes

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the Indo-Paci c’s rapidly changing power dynamics, explains how change has a ected the regional order in the past, and proposes an approach to empower US allies and partners in the Indo-Paci c in order to successfully adjust to these new realities.

The core argument of this book is that as the geopolitics of the Indo-Paci c evolve and the United States seeks to adapt, our allies and partners need us now more than ever. And we need them. Here is why.

“With insight and urgency, Abraham M. Denmark draws on his years in the Pentagon to describe how the United States can successfully adapt to rapid technological change and dramatic geopolitical evolution in the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. Strategy in the Asian Century is a must-read for anyone interested in how the United States can sustain its leadership in the world’s most important region.”

—ASH CARTER, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE “Denmark’s book is a timely reminder of how critical alliances and partnerships are to the United States, a fact only reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic. He draws on nearly two decades of experience working on the Indo-Pacific region inside and outside of government, delivering a country-by-country exploration of the Indo-Pacific’s geopolitical importance to the United States and an actionable blueprint for our future strategy.”

—CONGRESSWOMAN JANE HARMAN, DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT, AND CEO OF THE WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS “Denmark has written the playbook for the post-coronavirus world. Cooperation with allies and friends will become essential to balance China, which is determined to emerge from the virus in a stronger strategic position. This is where we start.”

—RICHARD L. ARMITAGE, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE “At a time of profound geopolitical change and increasing competition in the Indo-Pacific, Denmark offers a compelling strategy for protecting vital U.S. economic and security interests in the region: Use all of the instruments of our power—diplomatic, economic, military, and ‘soft’—to engage and empower our regional allies and partners to shore up the foundations of the regional order.

This insightful book is a must-read for scholars and practitioners alike.”

—MICHÈLE FLOURNOY, FORMER UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY “Denmark has delivered a timely and impactful study of how the United States can further its purposes in Asia through deeper engagements with allies and partners.

Deeply researched and clearly argued, this well-conceived book arrives at a critical juncture when American strategy in the region is under fundamental review.”

—KURT M. CAMPBELL, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

ABRAHAM M. DENMARK is the director of the Asia Program and a senior fellow at the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, for which he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

WOODROW WILSON CENTER SERIES

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS / NEW YORK cup.columbia.edu Cover design: Noah Arlow. Cover image: Alamy

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