Asia-Pacific in Flux

June 14, 2024

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Introduction

The three-decade-long sugar high of American unipolarity has come to an end. The come-down is denied by some, but the reality of adaptive necessity is painful.

America's minilateral initiatives in Asia must be seen within this context. Undoubtedly, they are aimed at "containing China." The heart of this strategy is to enlist former colonies, post-war client states, and sub-imperial allies. The most recent quadrilateral agreement has been among Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and the US, dubbed the "Squad."  This comes on the back of the Quad (US, Japan, India, and Australia) and AUKUS (Australia, UK, and US).

This flurry of minilateral activities reflects a waning regional hegemon riddled with displacement anxiety. What was dubbed the "American Lake" in the years immediately after World War II, controlled by an expansive military presence in North and Southeast Asia, is beginning to show its limitations. America's hegemonic grip, exercised via a combination of military and financial-cum-economic levers, has loosened. The minilaterals are part of a strategic ambition to either hold onto whatever elements of US primacy are left or to reclaim lost primacy. For the US, China is viewed as the greatest geopolitical threat, which has been made clear time and again by those in the present US administration and Congress.

The rationale of the minilaterals is clothed in the rhetoric of "deterrence." The argument posits that the deterrence of China by force leads to peace and stability in the region. Contrary to this claim, I suggest that the pursuit of American Primacy in the name of deterrence doctrine is actually aggravating regional insecurities and increasing the risks of conflict. Put plainly, the pursuit of US Primacy in Asia is detrimental to stability and peace in the region. If the US and its regional allies genuinely seek regional stability and peace, they should abandon the strategic policy framed by the deterrence doctrine. Instead, there should be a greater commitment to engaging in regional multilateralism. However, regional multilateralism, anchored by ASEAN centrality, would be incompatible with American Primacy.

 

Asian Primacy?

Since 2000, America's overall defense budget has accumulated to 16.05 trillion USD, which is not trivial.  The US maintains a significant presence across Asia, with over 80,000 permanent military personnel stationed at more than 240 military bases across Northeast Asia and the Pacific region.  The American security doctrine sees US security interests in all quarters of the globe; nowhere is immune from US intervention if the US deems it necessary.

The US military footprint in Asia has been normalized in much mainstream commentary. Against this backdrop of normalization, any increases in the military capability of others are portrayed as destabilizing. This is how China's military modernization has been presented. By ignoring the existing US build-up, coupled with its historic and contemporary aims of blunting China, the narrative suggests that China's actions are unprovoked aggression. This is the same gambit that's been employed in Central Europe.

The American blue water navy is supposedly the most feared array of destructive capability ever amassed. Yet, despite decades of head start and insuperable defense spending leadership, the US has reached a point where many now doubt its primacy in Asia. In a recent lecture at the US Naval War College, Professor James Holmes, a former US navy surface-warfare officer, cautioned against the assumption that budget is equivalent to effectiveness. He made a compelling argument for why purchasing power parity (PPP) is a more meaningful way of comparing countries, asserting that either China or Russia got more for a dollar invested than the Americans did. He takes aim at various "zombie" arguments about American naval prowess and maritime strategy (such as budget, tonnage, and number of hulls or airframes) before turning to the map of the Pacific to show why it is so hard for the US navy to overpower a rival great power in its own backyard.

For analysts such as Elbridge Colby, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, the immediate challenge for the US is to regain some semblance of "balance in its favor."  The fact that the notion of "balance in our favor" is oxymoronic seems to have eluded Colby. Colby argues for more budget allocation to America's capacity in Asia, based on the premise that the US must accept budget constraints. Consequently, he argues that Europe should shoulder a greater share of the budget responsibility for NATO's defense requirements. Colby has argued that the US cannot sustain a two-war strategy and it must reduce its commitments in Europe and the Middle East; otherwise, it will not be able to deal with the issues in Asia.

Besides budgetary concerns, industrial capacity is another area of material constraint. The necessity for the US military to upgrade its industrial capacity to "defend" Taiwan is now a frequent recognition of contemporary conditions. Put plainly, the US has no choice but to enlist its Asian client states, former colonies, and sub-imperial allies into a new mission of primacy reclamation. The various minilaterals reflect both vestigial leverage and loyalty, as well as serve as a symptom of American limitations. The aim, however, will be to subsume partner forces under American military command should the need arise. Interoperability is a key design imperative so as to meet expectations that allied forces will accede to US-dictated priorities.

The American blue water navy is powerful, no doubt, but it is not omnipotent. The tyranny of distance is a primary threat to US military success in the western Pacific, together with the tyranny of water, time, and scale. Many of America's naval vessels are currently in dry dock. Almost 40% of US attack submarines are out of commission at any one time.  Skilled worker shortages and supply chain issues delay repairs. Maintenance programs are encumbered by massive backlogs, impacting deployment availability.  Maintenance program delays compound serious doubts about the durability of much of the hardware. The USS Boxer has, for example, had to return for further maintenance just ten days into a Pacific deployment.

Air dominance is another dimension of US military power in the Pacific that is now in serious doubt. Distance from supply lines weakens the capacity of force projection (as demonstrated by the supply chain failures in Ukraine), which undermines US airpower deterrence. According to some analysts, China's air force could "achieve air denial, and possibly even air superiority, without ever defeating US air superiority fighters in combat."  Whether the US air force is combat-ready at all is another question that casts a pall of doubt over American capability. The American F-16 has experienced a number of in-flight emergencies of late,  and there are doubts as to the US military's ability to keep the F-35 in the air due to spare parts shortages hampered by poor training of maintenance crew.  There also are doubts as to the suitability of America's aging amphibious vehicles. 
More recently, the failure to bring the Houthis to heel in the Red Sea exemplifies these combat limitations. The braggadocio isn't matched by performance. None of this is to suggest that the US does not boast high destructive capability, but there are sufficient grounds publicly available to conclude that unilateral preponderance is not a modern reality. This conclusion may not be to the liking of "primacists" in Washington and the wider network of American allies globally and in Asia, but it remains a present-day reality.

The US-Japan-Philippines Trilateral

While the recent trilateral meeting involving the leaders of the US, Japan, and the Philippines was hailed by some observers as emblematic of America's unwavering commitment to its interests in Asia, it paradoxically evinced a sense of funeral rites in progress. Just as Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in his speech to the American Congress, lauded America's role as a global peace anchor since eviscerating two Japanese cities in 1945, injecting a sense of boosterism in the face of American "self-doubt," he was also singing a hymn to the end of America's unipolarity in Asia.  He damned American incapacity with faint praise just as he readied to debut Japan as a fully-fledged exporter of next-generation fighter aircraft to be jointly developed with the UK and Italy.  Kishida is undoubtedly committed to an American presence in Asia, but Japan's re-energized military posture speaks to a strategic reckoning that the US is no longer capable of being the unilateral hegemon of Asia. When Kishida said "the US should not be expected to do it all, unaided and on your own,'' the message wasn't so subtle: the US can no longer do it on its own.

Kishida's speech to the American Congress comes at a time when the United States has intensified its efforts to assert or reclaim American Primacy in Asia. Assert if one holds the view that it still holds military preponderance; reclaim if one believes that it doesn't. Kishida is in the latter camp. Through a series of so-called minilateral arrangements, the US has in recent years sought to enlist its Asia-Pacific client states, former colonies and sub-imperial allies to anchor a 21st-century bulwark on the western edge of the "American Lake."

The Quad, AUKUS, and now the trilateral involving Japan and the Philippines form part of a lattice-like network, in all practical intents and purposes, aimed squarely at the containment of China. The rationalization behind this network is the preservation of regional stability and a "free and open Indo-Pacific," with the deterrence of Chinese "aggression" in the South China Sea and across the Taiwan Strait as the two immediate focal points. While the latest trilateral is all about China, Japan is exploiting the contemporary circumstances to abandon its pacifist posture, and reassert itself as a military force that can one day step out of America's shadow.

AUKUS

The unfolding AUKUS nuclear submarines debacle exemplifies the financial and industrial limitations of the American military-industrial complex. It also illustrates confusion amongst its allies as to both the state of play and purpose.

The financing of the nuclear submarines - the signature feature of the AUKUS arrangement - is something left for the Australians. Australian Congress itself remains deeply concerned about American production capacity to meet its own requirements, let alone supply submarines that would be lost to American control. Each year, on average, the US builds 1.2 to 1.3 submarines. To meet its own targets, it needs to increase output to an average of two Virginia-class submarines per year. If it's supposed to deliver three submarines to Australia in the 2030s, output would need to rise to 2.33 per year.  This is unlikely. Recent budget cuts in the US for next year's submarine program have catalyzed a flurry of handwringing amongst AUKUS proponents as they seek to allay any public concerns about either US commitment or program viability. 

Protestations to the contrary have so far failed to rescue the AUKUS proposition from claims that Australia's involvement represents a concrete diminution of national sovereignty on a nation's most critical question: national security. Instead, the chorus of concerns that AUKUS represents subordination to American priorities continues to broaden and find voice across the Australian body politic. Unsurprisingly, expectations that the submarines will ultimately not be lost to American command were made clear recently by Kurt Campbell, US Deputy Secretary of State,  affirming long-held concerns that the AUKUS deal would subordinate Australian sovereignty when it matters most - in a conflict over Taiwan. 

AUKUS is also causing disturbances to the peace within the region, with Pacific Island nations and Southeast Asian nations expressing varying degrees of discomfort or concern. Pacific Island leaders have cautioned New Zealand that their relative silence on the AUKUS question does not imply support for New Zealand's interest in joining the arrangement.  The same could be said for Australia, which has so far failed to convince both a concerned region and a skeptical public that AUKUS makes strategic or tactical sense.

Indeed, the failure of its advocates to fully persuade the Australian public of AUKUS' merits has caused some of its strongest institutional supporters to publicly express their worries. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has expressed concern that the arguments about why AUKUS warrants support have not been sufficiently well presented.  They call for improved messaging. The problem is that by making this call, it is assumed that there is a cogent case. But there isn't, and that's the nub of the problem.

Strong voices have emerged from within the mainstream defense and security community, questioning AUKUS from a strategic standpoint. Strategic and operational doubts and risks are intertwined, as an operationally problematic or extremely risky plan invariably casts doubt on the original strategic intent.

Strategically, as noted, doubts have been raised in relation to the impact on Australian sovereignty. Jonathan Caverley, a researcher at the US Naval War College, recently observed that "Australia, and any other country entering AUKUS in the future, will pay in autonomy as much as in dollars."  He goes on to say that:

Whatever is actually produced by the AUKUS deal, the only concrete outcome to date has been Australia spending over half a billion US dollars - the epitome of setting money on fire - to signal its total reliance on the US for security.

However, the persistent question of implementation risks refuses to go away. Research academics Brendan O'Connor, Lloyd Cox, and Danny Cooper have discussed a broad range of strategic uncertainties, including the "bet" on American stability and long-term commitment.  Former Australian submariner and federal senator Rex Patrick recently delivered a scathing assessment of the project risks associated with the proposed submarine program.  He didn't need to question the strategic merit to demonstrate that there's a significant amount of "pie in the sky" thinking behind the plan.

This "pie in the sky" thinking has material consequences. These will impact Australia's "room to move" when it comes to bilateral relations with China. The AUKUS deal is part of a wider plan to reform the Australian Defense Force, which was deemed "not fully fit for purpose" in a 2023 review. This realization follows two decades of accumulated policy failures that have progressively seen the dilution of Australia's sovereign capacity as part of the nation's overall defense capabilities.

In the Australian 2000 Defense White Paper, the highest priority was stated as being "able to defend Australia without relying on the combat forces of other countries." By 2023, the concession was made that Australia could not meet its defense requirements without dependence on the US. Between now and 2040, Australia will rely on America for its defense. The delays in delivering the AUKUS submarines increase this risk even further, leading former senior Australian defense executive Mike Scrafton to recently observe that:

If the used Virginia class purchase falls through or is delayed by two or three years, Australia will not have an effective capability for defending the strategic approaches to Australia, or an effective submarine force, for the next twenty years. There is no alternative plan for Australia's independent defense.

Under these circumstances, in narrow defense policy terms, Australia's capacity to act autonomously is severely constrained. It is, in effect, becoming dependent on someone else with limited ability to influence them. These material conditions have the propensity to transform Australia from a sub-imperial power into a dependent vassal.

Paradoxically, America's limited manufacturing capacity will, intentionally or otherwise, limit Australia's capacity to act independently within the Asia region, unless Australia is once again willing to address the contradiction at the heart of its foreign and defense policies.

AUKUS shines a light squarely on the contradiction: whether Australian foreign and defense policy is to be designed to align with US Primacy doctrine (as it appears with AUKUS) or focus on dealing with an Asia where American Primacy is not only a thing of the past but also contrary to the current multipolar dynamics of the region.

Asian Multipolarity and US Deterrence Doctrine

Much of the talk about the need to build up America's position in Asia hinges on the doctrine of deterrence, with the stated objective to "deter" China from aggression in the South China Sea and/or the Taiwan Strait.

China has a greater interest than the US in ensuring the South China Sea remains safe for commercial traffic. The US has been studying possible ways of blocking passageways through the Strait of Malacca for years. This has, undoubtedly, conditioned China's assessment of the risk to freedom of commercial navigation. In 2003, then Chinese President Hu Jintao spoke specifically of the "Malacca Dilemma," which referred to a lack of alternatives and vulnerability to a naval blockade. He further suggested that "certain powers have consistently encroached on and tried to control navigation through the Strait."  These "certain powers" are undoubtedly a reference to the US. In the past 20 years, however, the balance of power in the South China Sea has clearly shifted. The US navy no longer has carte blanche control over this body of ocean.

Territorial disputes remain points of contention. The tensions over the Ren'ai Jiao are the most visible manifestation of this. Despite US President Joe Biden's recent declaration of "ironclad" support for the Philippines, it's doubtful that the US will be drawn into direct naval engagement with China over the dispute. China will continue to forcefully assert and defend its position, just as the Philippines will do.

In relation to the Taiwan question, the emerging conventional Western trope revolves around a balancing dilemma. This has been recently described by Australian Ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, as to how to deter an "invasion of Taiwan" without provoking unilateral action from China. 

The doctrinal and practical dilemmas are laid bare in the lacuna of Rudd's formulation. First, there can be no invasion of one's own country. Second, unilateral Chinese action only comes with de facto or de jure moves toward independence. Support neither, and there's next to no risk of unilateral Chinese action. So, where do different minilateral participants stand on these pivotal issues? For example, where does Australia stand on the Taiwan question? If it does not support independence - as claimed for decades - then there is no basis for contemplating deterrence as a meaningful question, unless it wants to involve itself in the affair. Third, if there's any real concern about cross-strait conflict, what are third parties doing to promote peace and enhance the prospects that the tension will end without bloodshed?

The deterrence doctrine is not a pathway to creating meaningful peace. Instead, it risks catalyzing escalation and further destabilization. The American pursuit of "balance in our favor" is the demonstrative evidence of the escalatory potential of the deterrence doctrine. The mainstream narrative that, in effect, normalizes America's decades-old military dominance in the Pacific, North, and Southeast Asia in particular suggests that China's military modernization is the catalyst justifying US containment as a response, in the name of deterring China's "aggression." However, China's modernization is actually a response to an environment where it finds itself surrounded by American military installations.

The failure of deterrence to work in Gaza is a recent example of another aspect of the doctrine's practical limitations. The idea of deterrence is that the counterparty is dissuaded from aggression due to an asymmetric balance of power. Yet, Hamas wasn't deterred despite the overwhelming asymmetry in forces vis-a-vis Israel. At best, building up arms in the name of deterrence may buy some time, but out-escalating an adversary is a risky business, particularly when one's own situation is riddled with limitations.

A Multipolar Peace?

The pursuit of and participation in minilaterals reflects both American limitations and aspirations, just as it exploits participants' own ambitions and anxieties. These limitations arise from the fact that the US now confronts realities indicating that its doctrine of "all area dominance" is a fading "entitlement," because many US foreign policy elites can't imagine an alternative world, and so seek to restore (or hold onto) regional primacy. As for participants, Japan seeks to bolster its own standing, taking advantage of evident weakness in the American regional architecture. How Japan does this is a delicate act, given the presence of US troops in Japan, but there are clear signs of Japan's ambitions that draw, to some extent, upon its historical ambitions. History also plays a role in Australia's uncertain perspective. Professor David Walker, a leading authority in the study of Australian perceptions of Asia, spoke of an anxious nation when he described Australia's attitude toward Asia and China in the late 1800s and early 1900s. More recently, Allan Gyngell, former Director-General of the Australian Office of National Assessments (ONA), among other high profile roles, articulated the idea that Australian foreign policy is defined by a fear of abandonment. Australia's AUKUS move can be interpreted through these dual lenses. As for the Philippines, it's clear that while the present leadership seeks American cover, which also suits US containment ambitions, this attitude is not universally held. In any case, it is hard to see the Americans sending in the Seventh Fleet in response to Philippine grievances over a contested shoal.

Moreover, none of this contributes to a peace that recognizes the existing realities and legitimate interests of the region's largest nation. Similar to how the West sought to ignore Russia and pursue a strategy of containment and destabilization, which presaged the current debacle in Europe, the US and its regional allies are seeking to create a regional apparatus that contains or sidelines China. The European lesson should be that this approach is more likely than not to end in disaster. Worse, none of this prioritizes the crafting of a multipolar regional peace as its core objective. Such a peace requires a broader canvas, which can enable parties to frame security and economic prosperity as co-dependencies, where detente is not subordinated to pursuing zero-sum objectives with an adversarial mindset. The deterrence doctrine is part of the problem, not part of the answer.
There are alternatives, but these rely on the need to create and sustain institutions of stability that buttress economic development and foster conditions for sustained regional peace. This work necessarily amplifies the multilateral, consensus-based modus operandi of much of Asia as an alternative to the either-or ambitions of American Primacy. Such ambitions undermine Asian multipolar institutions and are incompatible with ASEAN centrality. They are anathema to peace in Asia.

 

 

 

 

 

Please note: The above contents only represent the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of Taihe Institute.

 

This article is from the May issue of TI Observer (TIO), which zooms in on new developments of those minilaterals in the Asia-Pacific and examines how these changes will redefine strategic dynamics and the security situation in the region. If you are interested in knowing more about the May issue, please click here:

http://www.taiheinstitute.org/UpLoadFile/files/2024/5/31/1327268243b64df50-7.pdf

 

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