Question: Which of these statements do you agree with?

1. America needs its alliance partners in Asia to defend its own economic and national-security interests.
2. America's alliance partners in Asia need the United States security umbrella to defend against Chinese expansionism.
3. A breakdown of the American alliance in Asia would lead to more instability in the region.
4. All of the above.

These are the best of times for American efforts to build its alliances in Asia. They are the worst of times as well.

These are the best of times because China's expansionist activities, particularly since 2008, have rudely awakened China's Asian neighbors to the need to build a strong balancing coalition against a rising China. Since this awakening, existing American allies like Japan and the Philippines have been seeking stronger ties with the United States. Other nations ranging from India and Indonesia to Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam have likewise sought to align (or realign) themselves more closely with the American security umbrella.

Such favorable political developments for US diplomacy notwithstanding, these may well also be the worst of times for building an effective alliance. The core problem here is one of false promises, neglected relationships, limited engagement, and often intemperate or empty rhetoric. It is a problem that may be laid squarely at the doorsteps of a US Congress, Pentagon, and White House that have all been mightily distracted by events elsewhere on the globe.

The poster child for these worst of times has been America's so-called “pivot” to Asia. In 2011, in belatedly recognizing the economic and national security importance of the region, President Barack Obama, at the urging of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, announced with great fanfare that the United States would make the Asia-Pacific the primary focus of national-security policy.1 As part of this pivot, the Pentagon announced it would increase the percentage of its total naval fleet dedicated to the Pacific to some 60 percent.²

Such announcements have, however, turned out to be false promises and empty rhetoric because the United States has failed in spectacular fashion to “walk the pivot talk.” The problem may be traced to some simple pivot math.

This math starts with the observation that the US naval fleet has been steadily shrinking from its high of more than five hundred ships during the Reagan years of the 1980s down to the less than three hundred today. Moreover, because of continued and massive defense-budget cuts, the fleet now seems destined to fall into the two-hundred-ship range.³

What this steadily shrinking fleet means to experts like Professor Toshi Yoshihara of the US Naval War College is this: By the year 2020, the United States will have the “same amount of combat power” as when the pivot began in 2011. This is because while the relative distribution of ships may indeed shift to the Pacific, the absolute numbers are declining. In math terms, 60 percent of a smaller fleet will lead the US pivot exactly back to the grossly inadequate place in Asia where it started.⁴

As to how such a smaller fleet may radically affect the American risk calculus in Asia—with disastrous results—Yoshihara provides this perspective:

The basic argument for dramatically shrinking the US fleet is that our weapon systems are far more capable than systems even 10 or 15 years ago and so our increased quality will make up for any decline in quantity. However, I go back to the dictum that quantity has a quality all its own; and a sunk ship is indeed a sunk ship. So if we have fewer assets that we will be able to use in theater, we will be less and less willing to risk a smaller fleet that, per unit, is more valuable to us. And what that means is we're going to play right into China's strategic calculus which is to raise our perceptions of our cost and risks in intervening in issues that China cares more about. This makes it even more likely that we might hem and haw and decide not to act at all over some contingency involving China including, say, a war over Taiwan.5

To this sobering conclusion, Yoshihara's coauthor and colleague at the Naval War College, James Holmes, has added this further pivot twist: Many of the ships that the Pentagon will be counting in the pivot-to-Asia column in the future will be small shore-hugging ships that are not “high end combat assets.”⁶ To Holmes:

As diplomatic signals go and as deterrent signals go, this makes the pivot a pretty bush-league thing.⁷

What we appear to have here, then, is the exact opposite of one of the most famous phrases ever uttered by an American president: “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” Indeed, instead of following Teddy Roosevelt's deterrence dictum, the United States is pivoting loudly—and merely angering Beijing—while waving the smallest of pivot sticks.

Here, Senior Fellow Seth Cropsey of the Hudson Institute drills down further on this little-stick problem when he observes that:

The United States has already cut its defense budget by half a trillion dollars and is aiming for another half a trillion.⁸

To Cropsey:

That does not send a signal to those in Asia who look to us for security and friendship and support. That doesn't send a signal to them that we're serious.⁹

And at least in Cropsey's worldview:

Weakness is always an invitation to aggression.¹⁰

As for the broader problem that falling defense expenditures create for the ultimate goal of deterrence, Heritage Foundation Research Fellow Dean Cheng has succinctly put it in this peace-through-strength way:

A United States that is weak is a United States that cannot stand by its alliance commitments is a United States whose credibility is open to question. Conversely, a United States that is strong, that is firm in its alliance commitments is much more likely to deter conflict.11

Even noted China moderates like Professor David Lampton of Johns Hopkins University agree with the important stabilizing and balancing functions of America's alliances in Asia. In his words:

If the United State precipitously weakened or disassociated itself from its Asian alliances, this would be very destabilizing. It would either force those countries to acquire their own forms of deterrence, which quite conceivably in some cases could mean nuclear weapons. Or it might lead these nations to conclude they need to go along with China on issues, economic and otherwise, that would be harmful to American interests. So, precipitous, disassociation from our alliances, I think would be catastrophic.¹²

Given the importance of America's alliances in Asia, the real question is how to best manage these relationships. American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael Auslin has provided arguably one of the most thoughtful and nuanced analyses of the present “worst of times” situation and how to make it right. To Auslin:

The issue is not whether America has enough men and women and planes and ships in the Pacific—it has had 300,000 troops forward deployed for close to half a century. The real question is: “What are we there for?” And the ultimate fear of our allies is that even with these 300,000 troops, America might not have the political will to uphold the very order that it helped create.¹³

As to why America's allies in Asia are increasingly fearful of an American abandonment, to Auslin, the problem goes far beyond any failed pivot and instead cuts to the very heart of the “what are we there for” matter. In his view:

It's not that our allies don't think we would come to their aid in extremis, in the case of war. It's that they understand that most of their lives are dealing not with war but of all those in between actions.¹⁴

Auslin paints these “in between actions” metaphorically as that “whole huge waterspace between just plain everyday diplomatic life that happens in the region on one end and all-out war on the other.” In Auslin's view, it is within this huge waterspace that America's allies have concerns over all sorts of issues, from illegal fishing and pollution to oil drilling and territorial disputes.15

The problem to Auslin, however, is that America “doesn't seem to have a clear strategy.” It thinks “just being in Asia with its massive might is simply enough.” In sharp contrast, America's allies are saying: “You have to not only be here; you have to be involved.”¹⁶

As to what such involvement might look like, Auslin cites the case of the Philippines—a frequent target of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. While Auslin firmly believes it is not the job of America to protect Philippine territory, the United States can nonetheless come to the aid of the Philippines with far greater intelligence sharing and far more training, and by providing the Philippines with the kinds of weapons it needs to defend itself. Unfortunately, in Auslin's view, the United States has done none of that.

Ultimately, what Auslin worries about most with America's lack of a real fine-grained involvement in the waterspaces of Asia is the steady erosion of American influence and what it might portend. As Auslin puts it:

When our political will prevents us from helping our Japanese friends in, say, the Senkaku Islands dispute or when in a much broader sense, it becomes increasingly clear to our allies that the America's “pivot” or “re-balance” to Asia is just rhetoric, the result is that US credibility gets undermined. And once America's credibility gets undermined, the next step is for its influence to drop.¹⁷

Of course, once America's influence drops, this opens the door to its allies going their own way—either bandwagoning with China to the detriment of the United States or acquiring their own nuclear arsenals to fend off an aggressive China. Either way, the result to Auslin is a “signal policy failure” with devastating consequences.¹⁸

The bottom line from this surveying of expert opinion is clear: If there is to be a continuation of peace and prosperity in Asia, there must be a strong balancing alliance to offset the growing power of a rising China, and such a strong alliance can only exist if the United States engages with a much higher level of involvement in the region. Former ambassador to China Stapleton Roy has most broadly framed the strategic challenge:

It is a fundamental interest of the United States to preserve the credibility of its alliances. [However,] China's military modernization program has the potential to erode US naval and air superiority and therefore to raise questions about the reliability of the United States as an alliance partner.19

To this warning Ambassador Roy adds:

The United States cannot sit idly by if the Chinese create capabilities that erode the credibility of our alliances because of the allies’ belief that the United States military can no longer operate in areas where it needs.²⁰

The rub here, of course, is that the US military will not be able to “operate in areas” to protect its allies unless those allies welcome the United States with open arms and forward bases. This is ultimately why Potemkin-village pivots,²¹ empty rhetoric, limited engagement, and distractions in other parts of the globe are so corrosive to peace in Asia. As Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation ultimately advises:

We need to have a policy that stands by our allies so I would stop making commitments that we then walk away from. I think it was Lincoln who said: “Better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you're a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” So if we're going to make a commitment, we need to stand by it. And if we're not prepared to fulfill that [commitment], then keep our mouths shut.²²