U.S. Strategy in the Asian Century: Empowering Allies and Partners

Several scholars and former senior American officials have written about the catastrophes that would result from the loss of American power in the world.¹ Although this analysis is instructive in highlighting the importance of American power in the preservation of a liberal international system, the improbability of a complete American withdrawal from the Indo-Pacific requires considerations of more realistic scenarios.

Scholars have often examined the so-called patron’s dilemma, which deals with the question of how a major power (or “patron”) can best provide security to its allies without becoming trapped in unwanted conflicts. The dilemma is that strong commitments worsen the risk of entrapment but improve deterrence against attack, whereas a weaker commitment reduces the potential for entrapment but diminishes the deterrent effect of the overall relationship. As described by the scholars Keren Yarhi-Milo, Alexander Lanoszka, and Zack Cooper, great power patrons primarily make such decisions on the basis of the extent to which their leaders believe that they and their ally share common security interests, and whether the patron believes that its client has sufficient military capabilities to deter its main adversary without the patron’s assistance.2

Therefore, if the United States remains engaged in the region but is not able to convince its allies and partners to play a greater strategic role, three broad scenarios are possible.

The first scenario is ever-expanding unilateralism. Washington could choose to continue the robust investments needed to unilaterally address the many security challenges facing the Indo-Pacific. Without substantial contributions or adjustments from its allies and partners, its basing structure and logistical infrastructure will become increasingly costly, and vulnerable. The Indo-Pacific will likely require a significant portion of American defense spending and deployments, which would likely have the dual effect of expanding budget deficits while reducing the American military presence (and increasing strategic risk) in other parts of the world.

The second scenario is a diminished role. Isolationist sentiments within the United States have gained ascendance in many circles in Washington, and threaten to substantially limit the ability of the United States to address challenges and maintain power in the Indo-Pacific. The likely result would be weakened confidence in the reliability of American commitments, diminished stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, a gradual fading of American leadership on several issues of strategic importance, and a weakened liberal order. This will tacitly leave other issues to the whims of an anarchic international system or another power looking for a strategic vacuum to fill—namely, China. A Sinocentric Asia would operate in a fashion that would be highly problematic for the United States. Established rules and norms, like freedom of the seas and the peaceful resolution of disputes, would be pushed to the wayside in the face of Beijing’s preferences. The region would become more corrupt and less democratic, and it would be consumed with intraregional tension.

And the third scenario is hollow leadership. It is possible that the United States can continue to rhetorically expand its regional commitments but fail to provide the necessary resources to do so. Indeed, great powers often initiate risky military and diplomatic interventions in far-off regions because of the refusal of their leaders to accept losses in their state’s relative power, international status, or prestige. Instead of cutting their losses, leaders often continue to invest blood and money in failed excursions into the periphery.3 Allies and partners, as well as adversaries, will be fully aware of the expanding gaps in America’s rhetoric and its capabilities and will likely react accordingly. The result would probably be little different than if the United States were open about accepting a diminished regional role. Confidence in American power would be diminished, regional stability and prosperity would be threatened, and the liberal order would be weakened in the face of a rising and increasingly ambitious China.

To effectively address these challenges and preserve the stability and prosperity that the regional order has enabled for the past several decades, the United States must adjust its strategies and policies toward the Indo-Pacific. To counteract changes to the regional balance of power and China’s exceptionalist objectives, the United States should enhance its own geopolitical strength and empower its allies to contribute more to the health and success of a twenty-first-century regional liberal order—a de facto arrangement of primus inter pares. At the same time, the United States should focus its energies, and those of its allies and partners, on preserving the key principles that have made the liberal order so beneficial for its own interests and for the entire Indo-Pacific.

This chapter proposes a framework for the United States to buttress its own power, while at the same time approaching its alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific as geopolitical platforms for cooperation and the coordination of efforts across all aspects of national power in order to address shared challenges and build a twenty-first-century regional liberal order.

Although most American strategists appropriately focus on strategies and investments to sustain and advance American power in the region, far less analysis has been devoted to strategies for building and harnessing the power of US allies and partners themselves. Yet to give this latter aspect of US Indo-Pacific strategy greater attention would not diminish American power and influence in the region itself. It is US allies, after all, that have enabled and supported America’s leadership in the Indo-Pacific for decades.

America cannot do this alone. As its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific rise in geopolitical power, the United States has an opportunity to harness the power of like-minded nations to evolve the regional system in a way that sustains and strengthens the key attributes of the past. This chapter describes such a strategy, arguing that, instead of ignoring or attempting to reverse these strategic trends, the United States should build and employ the tremendous geopolitical power of its allies and partners in order to shape the future direction of the Indo-Pacific order in a way conducive to America’s interests and those of its allies and partners.

Either out of fear or ambition, America’s allies and partners require a positive vision for the future, and a strong argument about how working with the United States will help them realize their own national objectives.5 As such, a critical aspect of an initiative by the United States to enable its allies and partners is to build a common vision for the future of Asia. Although the Trump administration’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” is potentially a good start, the contours of this strategy remain unclear and require further elucidation.

This chapter proposes a positive vision whereby the United States should work with its allies and partners to enhance the power of America and that of its friends, and work collaboratively to strengthen and evolve the regional order to sustain the key liberal principles of the postwar order that enabled the region’s stability and prosperity.

As it stands today, the United States and its allies and partners share the same primary challenges in the Indo-Pacific: a rising China, an uncertain United States, and an alternately belligerent and engaging North Korea. Yet there are significant disparities in whether these trends are seen as positive or negative, and severe or manageable. These are significant, but not insurmountable, differences. The key for the United States will not be to convince its allies and partners that they are wrong, but rather to listen to their concerns and find a common ground on which to build.

This approach was suggested by then–US secretary of defense Ash Carter’s speech at the 2016 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Secretary Carter described the US role in the Indo-Pacific as providing, with its network of allies and partners, the “oxygen” of regional stability that has underwritten rapid economic growth and the development of security ties.6 He advocated for the further development of the increasingly interconnected region into a “principled security network.” Such a network would entail “nations building connections for a common cause, planning and training together, and eventually operating in a coordinated way.” The United States would continue to serve as the primary provider of regional security and as a leading contributor to the region’s principled security network, while at the same time empowering its allies and partners in the region to do more for themselves.

Although a strategy to empower allies and partners to contribute to the health and success of the regional liberal order is clearly in the interest of all involved, few are likely to express their strategy in such a way. Rather, they are far more likely to focus on, and be motivated by, issues closer to home—such as managing territorial disputes, protecting freedom of navigation, and building the ability to resist coercion and aggression. Yet strategies to address these motivations could, if properly conceived and implemented, also be constituent parts of a broader effort to strengthen the regional order. The next subsections give primary examples of how common concerns could be used as the driver of cooperation between the United States and its allies and partners to fortify the liberal regional order.

Considering the challenges it faces, the foundation of the United States’ engagement with its allies and partners should be to preserve the key principles that have enabled the region’s stability and prosperity, while also adapting its approach to reflect the requirements of a changed world. At a geopolitical level, this will mean sustaining the key attributes of the liberal order that it has trumpeted since the end of World War II, which were described by Henry Kissinger as “an inexorably expanding cooperative order of states observing common rules and norms, embracing liberal economic systems, forswearing territorial conquest, respecting national sovereignty, and adopting participatory and democratic systems of government.”⁷

A key challenge for American foreign policy professionals seeking to sustain aspects of a liberal order will be a striking ambivalence about the liberal order among some Asian partners, and even in the United States itself. Indeed, the Trump administration has evinced disdain for aspects of the liberal order, by questioning the utility of alliances and undermining the legitimacy of the World Trade Organization’s appellate function. Yet at other times, such as its call for a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” the Trump administration has demonstrated an implicit embrace of aspects of liberal internationalism. The reality is that there has likely been a significant debate about these issues within the Trump administration itself, with the president potentially falling on either side of the debate depending on the issues involved.

In this vein, buttressing international laws and norms can be especially useful for the United States and its allies and partners as they seek to navigate the complex disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) clearly identifies the rights of coastal states and transiting vessels through international waters and territorial waters, as well as exclusive economic zones. A diplomatic effort to harmonize regional interpretations of the rights, and coordinated programs to exercise these rights by employing freedom-of-navigation operations, would significantly buttress the relevance, power, and credibility of UNCLOS.

Another critical principle of a liberal order that should be strengthened is the sovereignty of nation states. In this, a great deal of work needs to be done. Several US allies—especially Australia and New Zealand—have come under increasing attack by Chinese influence operations. Entities as disparate as politicians, companies, and universities have come under increasing pressure from the United Front Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to adopt policies conforming with Beijing’s preferences.8 The United States has also not been spared such efforts, including the well-documented efforts by Russia to influence the 2016 presidential elections,⁹ and also Chinese initiatives to force American companies to change how they list Taiwan and other areas on their websites.¹⁰

Although the Trump administration publicly criticized Beijing for these efforts, more can be done.¹¹ Because they face a common threat, and because preserving sovereignty is one of the most commonly shared principles across the region, the United States should establish a mechanism to share information and coordinate responses to efforts to interfere in democratic processes. To demonstrate solidarity with smaller states that are under increasing pressure from abroad, the United States would be able to greatly strengthen its regional ties.

US officials should also be cognizant of the challenges inherent in discussing issues of sovereignty. China will routinely use sovereignty issues to push back on US policies toward Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Tibet. Furthermore, authoritarian regimes routinely cite sovereignty to deflect international concerns about human rights abuses. This is not to say that sovereignty is an issue to be ignored; rather, it is to highlight the complexities of this issue as a principle for the United States and its allies and partners.

Finally, a critical principle for the United States to promote with its allies and partners is the adoption and strengthening of participatory and democratic systems of government. Democracy is not an American value, per se. It is a human value, and one that has been embraced across the Indo-Pacific region to great success. Yet there has been some evidence of a democratic decline in Southeast Asia in recent years, as some previously democratic states have grown more illiberal, and some authoritarian states have receded further away from liberalism.12 There is a danger that the United States and its democratic allies may turn their backs on these countries, and give their competitors an opportunity to displace the United States, tolerate further authoritarianism, and engage in corrupt practices to enrich themselves and expand their power.

The most significant geopolitical development in the Indo-Pacific since the end of the Cold War has been the rise of China from one of the region’s poorest and most dysfunctional nations into a major power that has the potential to challenge the United States for regional (though not global) dominance.¹³ As described above, China has gained significant political influence across the region and built an advanced military capability that may soon challenge American military primacy in Asia. China has also begun to construct alternative political and economic architectures that circumvent established institutions and reflect Beijing’s interests and prerogatives.

China today is a confident economic and political power that is charting its own path in both domestic and international affairs. It is increasingly assertive in international affairs and is willing to tolerate turbulence and risk in the pursuit of its interests. It is investing in advanced technologies and military capabilities that will put it in the economic driver’s seat for the coming decades, and it has demonstrated an ability to use all elements of national power in the pursuit of its goals. It has identified its objectives and how it plans to achieve them, and it follows through by devoting significant resources to these ends.¹⁴

The United States’ competition with China will be a defining geopolitical aspect of the twenty-first century, and future historians will certainly write that the first years were slow going. It has taken the United States far too long to explicitly recognize that it was in a great power competition that has significant implications for its own interests, prosperity, and security. But recognizing that one has a problem and understanding its scale is the first step toward finding a solution.

The rise of China poses a vexing challenge for all the nations in the Indo-Pacific, and especially US allies and partners. Although they certainly seek to benefit from China’s economic growth and they are not keen to be used as pawns in a great power competition between Beijing and Washington, they are also wary of the implications of a powerful China for their own independence. Leaders and scholars across the Indo-Pacific have expressed profound concern that a rising China will seek to constrain their freedom of action and demand greater degrees of deference on issues of disagreement. In Japan, policymakers and scholars continue to debate the best strategy for engaging China and hedging against its rise, but most now agree that China’s increased military spending and activities pose a challenge to the region.15 Conservative leaders advocating for increased military spending, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have expressed their concerns over China’s economic strength and expanding military capabilities. In remarks made in New York City in 2013, Abe hinted at this concern by contrasting the annual 0.8 percent increase in Japan’s defense budget with China’s annual increase of over 10 percent.¹⁶ South Korean policymakers and academics also increasingly view a rising China as a challenger to the region’s order, despite a “charm offensive” from China.¹⁷ South Korean leaders have voiced concern particularly over China’s willingness to use economic leverage to obtain security concessions.¹⁸

Such fears are not solely theoretical. China has repeatedly demonstrated a penchant for using leverage in order to press for its own interests across the region. Indeed, the estimable Evan Feigenbaum of the Paulson Institute (formerly of the State Department) usefully identified five typologies of leverage utilized in Chinese foreign policy: passive, active, exclusionary, coercive, and latent.¹⁹

As has happened between great powers multiple times in the past, geopolitical competition between China and the United States is likely to occur in their strategic periphery. In Asia, this means that the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea will likely be the theater for the United States, China, and (in the case of the South China Sea) India to compete with one another for relative power and influence. Yet such competition is unlikely to be played out on the battlefield as it had been in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—the potential for all-out war between the great powers remains low, though smaller-scale conflicts and peripheral interventions are more likely possibilities. Instead, competition will occur in the functional spheres of influence of the emerging regional heterarchy—international laws and norms, trade and investment flows, freedom of the seas, maritime gray zones, technology standards, regional architecture, and culture.

It would also be equally foolhardy, however, to pretend that competition between China and the United States does not exist. Too often, scholars and officials have tried to demonstrate their commitment to maintaining positive and constructive relations with China by claiming that the United States is not competing with China or that some actions taken by the United States in the Indo-Pacific have nothing to do with China’s rise. This is not to say that everything the United States does in Asia is about competition with China, but to deny that China motivates major aspects of US strategy toward the Indo-Pacific is difficult. Such statements can actually damage American credibility in the region, because they send a message (however inadvertently) that the United States does not appreciate the implications of China’s rise or, even worse, that it does understand the implications of China’s rise and simply does not care. This is why the Trump administration’s acknowledgment of US competition with China is actually helpful.20 It recognizes a dynamic on which Beijing has been focused for years, and it opens space for discussion about how the United States can best compete with China.

The United States and its allies and partners should work together to ensure that China’s actions support, rather than undermine, key aspects of the liberal order. Ensuring that China does not undermine international laws and norms that preserve stability and prosperity is in the common interest of the entire region, and should be a unifying objective in this endeavor. This should apply to all aspects of geopolitics, including issues as varied as freedom of navigation, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the rules of the road for economic engagement and interaction. As such, cooperation with China should also be pursued in areas where US and Chinese interests converge. Yet Washington—as well as its allies and partners—should be careful to not allow promises of cooperation to be used by Beijing as leverage in other issue areas. Cooperation should never be seen as a favor granted by Beijing as a reflection of a generally friendly relationship, but rather as an action undertaken because cooperation is in the mutual interests of each side.

Overall, it is in the interest of the United States that its Indo-Pacific allies and partners balance, rather than bandwagon, in response to China’s rise. Although Washington should not oppose efforts by any country to engage Beijing—indeed, engagement is a critical aspect of any strategy toward Beijing—it should ensure that such engagement does not transform into a more general strategy of bandwagoning and acquiescence to Beijing’s coercion and suzerainty.

Yet encouraging allies and partners to balance against the rise of China is, in itself, insufficient. The United States also has an interest in the type of balancing that its allies and partners pursue. Although intraregional balancing would be beneficial to the United States if it contributes to regional cohesion and enables enhanced trilateral or multilateral cooperation, Washington should be wary of efforts at intraregional balancing that could be used to take care of their own security through regional self-help strategies, the aggregate of which would amount to a challenge of the basis for American leadership in Asia and would likely foster an uncoordinated, indecisive, and potentially illiberal approach that will not sustain stability over the long term. Although such efforts would likely fail—multilateral cooperation without a dominant power is a recipe for indecision and floundering—they would send a clear signal to China and the rest of the region about American weakness.

In recent years, growth rates in the Indo-Pacific have been heavily weighted toward developing economies, while America’s Asian allies (Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines) have remained relatively stagnant. In recent decades, the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) exploded, from $383 billion in 1991 to $2.15 trillion in 2011 (in 2011 dollars).21 Similarly, India’s economy expanded significantly over the same period, from 3.1 percent of global GDP to 5.6 percent. The economies of America’s allies, by contrast, have not changed appreciably as a portion of global GDP, and Japan’s has collapsed, from 10.2 percent to 5.6 percent.²²

An increasingly multipolar Indo-Pacific will pose both a challenge and an opportunity for the United States. On one hand, the relatively stagnating power of America’s allies suggests that the relative power of these allies will continue to decrease over the coming years. This will be especially problematic if Asia’s rising powers use their newfound strength to assert territorial claims, redress historical grievances with their neighbors, or undermine fundamental tenets of the liberal order (e.g., freedom of navigation or the strength of international institutions). On the other hand, many of Asia’s rising powers are democracies, are generally friendly to the United States, and/or evince growing anxiety regarding Chinese assertiveness. Indonesia and India are the best examples of rising democracies that are concerned about rising Chinese power; some even believe that Myanmar’s recent reforms have been partially driven by concerns about China’s influence and an attempt to reach out to the United States. Although these countries are certainly not interested in becoming official American allies, and many harbor significant suspicions about the United States, deft engagement could expand areas of potential cooperation that would help the United States sustain its regional access and presence.23

Additionally, an important feature of geopolitics in a multipolar Indo-Pacific is its various subregional institutions—most significantly, ASEAN. Although Washington has already recognized that a robust and unified ASEAN would likely be an important bulwark for regional stability and economic integration and could help check Chinese assertiveness, ASEAN’s tendency toward dialogue over action will routinely frustrate American policymakers who are focused on results over dialogue and process.

In addition to the strategic dynamics described above that are changing the balance of power between Indo-Pacific states, significant changes within the polities of America’s allies and partners themselves are shaking some of the key foundations of America’s network of Asian alliances. For example, America’s developed Asian allies today are far more prosperous than they were when the relationships were first established at the outset of the Cold War. As a result, allied governments are (at least theoretically) better able to afford greater investments in military capabilities. Yet economic stagnation, along with looming demographic challenges, will likely drive investment toward domestic social programs and away from the military and foreign affairs.²⁴

These dynamics are already playing out in regional defense budgets. Military investments by several rising regional powers have expanded dramatically in recent years, while those of Asia’s established powers have stagnated. For example, while Indonesia’s defense budget tripled between 2001 and 2011, and India’s grew from $26 billion to $42 billion, the defense budgets of America’s allies remained largely stagnant, and declined relative to total regional defense spending, from 43 to 31 percent.25 Although the budgets of America’s allies remain large in an absolute sense, growth rates suggest the beginning of a fundamental shift in regional power that mirrors regional economic trends. This suggests that the US military will need to focus on capacity building and interoperability with its allies and partners, and that considerations of economic and demographic outlooks should inform US outreach efforts over the long term.

Additionally, popular sentiment within America’s Asian allies and partners—in which support for the United States is generally robust, but large segments of the population are often opposed to a large American military footprint and significant investments in defensive capabilities—can complicate relationship management and development.²⁶ These dynamics can be clearly seen in attempts by the United States and Japan to adjust the terms of American basing arrangements in Okinawa, where agreements to shift American military forces have been left unimplemented because of determined political opposition in Okinawa. Similarly, popular sentiment in South Korea over historical issues forced Seoul to scuttle a proposed intelligence sharing agreement with Tokyo, and has recently inflamed bilateral tensions over disputed islands. Clearly, the Pentagon’s goal of a force posture that is “politically sustainable” will only be accomplished if it addresses the internal dynamics of each ally and partner.²⁷ Recent enhancements to the US force posture in Japan and Australia suggest that the United States has been relatively successful in some areas, while persistent challenges in the Philippines and with Vietnam also suggest that it still has a long way to go.

As a result of these and other trends occurring within US allies and partners, Washington’s ability to convince its Asian friends to play a more significant role in the region will be fraught. Asking too much will likely breed resentment and distrust, while threats to withdraw support will raise fears of abandonment.²⁸ The United States therefore requires a nuanced understanding of the calculations affecting each of its allies and partners, what is possible, and what is a bridge too far.

Overall, navigating a multipolar Indo-Pacific will pose a significant challenge to regional stability and intensify demand for American leadership. Although opportunities exist for the United States to harness rising powers to buttress the international system, such an effort cannot substitute for American power and leadership. The United States will therefore require a framework that increases burden sharing with like-minded Asian nations in a way that also reinforces American leadership. Accomplishing this difficult task will require a nuanced approach that is grounded in a deep understanding of regional dynamics and that has significant input from America’s regional allies and partners.

Such leadership can be exercised in a wide variety of areas, utilizing multiple elements of national power. For example, US allies and partners—both in the Indo-Pacific and around the world—could contribute to the openness and stability of the maritime commons by contributing their own maritime forces for counterpiracy operations and sea lane patrols, by facilitating the presence of American maritime forces, and by supporting international laws and norms that protect the openness and stability of the global commons in international forums. Although allies and partners may be able to conduct these activities on their own, collective action among several states will require continued leadership from the United States.

This also applies to the space and cyber commons, in which China and Russia have sought to promote illiberal norms that would undermine their openness and stability. Beijing, for instance, has expressed ambitions to establish international laws and norms that would limit military-related freedom of action in space for its adversaries while concurrently allowing China to continue to develop and use ground-based antisatellite weapons. This is not to say that China today has violated existing international laws; in fact, China largely follows existing legal principles and norms to the same extent that the United States and other major powers have done.30 Yet at the same time, Beijing has joined Moscow in pushing for new agreements on space weapons that would prohibit the “first placement of weapons in space” while still allowing land-based antisatellite weapons to remain—an arrangement generally seen as conducive to Chinese interests at the expense of those of the United States.³¹

The United States therefore has an opportunity to work with its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific on establishing and strengthening international laws and norms based on liberal principles. This is also a potentially fruitful area of potential cooperation with Europe, as geographic proximity is less of a concern in space than it may be in other domains. For example, international law on space is not nearly as developed as it is for other domains, and is largely governed by treaties from the 1960s and 1970s.³² This is the case despite the dramatic technological changes that have made space far more accessible for smaller nations, as well as the critical role that space plays in the global economy, modern military operations, and global communications and media.

The development of new laws and norms that sustain access to space, and address emerging challenges such as the proliferation of orbital debris, would be a highly productive way for the United States, Europe, and like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific with interests and capabilities in space to work together to buttress liberal principles in space and push back against illiberal ambitions from Moscow and Beijing. From the distribution of resources to governance over the development and use of weapons in space and the management of space debris, Washington and its allies and partners share significant interests in coordinating their diplomatic approaches.

Similarly, in cyberspace, efforts by China and Russia to institute laws and norms at the United Nations would presumably sideline the Budapest Convention—which is supported by the United States and its allies—and would give Beijing greater input on the new laws’ parameters.33 There have been some early indications of what Moscow and Beijing would seek: Russia has recently circulated a draft treaty that would empower countries to solidify their hold over information and communications technology within their borders—a clear effort to monitor and restrict activities and speech online.³⁴ Clearly, cyberspace is another area where the United States and its allies and partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific have an opportunity to coordinate their activities and develop new laws and norms that support shared liberal principles.

Similar opportunities for collaboration and integration to help alleviate demand for American power exist in humanitarian relief and disaster response after natural disasters. The earthquakes and tsunamis that struck the Indian Ocean in 2004 and Japan’s Tōhoku region in 2011, which cost a combined 240,000 lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, demonstrated the Indo-Pacific’s vulnerability to natural disasters.³⁵ Such threats will likely intensify in the coming years, as populations in the region’s coastal areas expand dramatically.³⁶

This situation is driving Asia’s maritime powers to focus more on investments associated with humanitarian relief and disaster response—both as key capabilities for their own militaries and civil societies and as a vital element of their engagement with external powers.³⁷ Efforts by the United States to build the capacity of its allies and partners to respond to natural disasters would have multiple benefits for American leadership and regional stability.

Although the focus of this monograph is not on what form a strategy toward North Korea may take, American policymakers must understand the role that the North Korean threat plays in shaping US alliances with South Korea and Japan. Indeed, the North Korean threat has already become a driver for South Korea and Japan to invest in new military capabilities and expand the authorities of their defense forces in order to defend against a potential North Korean attack. After domestic debate and months of protest from China, the Moon administration fully deployed the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system on a “temporary” basis in September 2017.38 During President Trump’s trip to Asia in November, the two presidents also agreed to eliminate the previous limit on South Korean missile payloads and discussed the potential acquisition or development of nuclear-powered submarines by South Korea.³⁹ In December 2017, Japan approved the purchase and installation of two American Aegis Ashore systems, a land-based version of the Aegis missile defense system, which are expected to be operational by 2023.⁴⁰

In addition to this focus on Northeast Asia, US efforts to maximize pressure on Pyongyang should also include allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific and around the world. The Philippines, for example, has extensive economic ties to North Korea; effective diplomacy with Manila could help cut off a vital source of capital for Pyongyang.⁴¹ Japan can also greatly contribute to efforts by the United States and South Korea to enhance military capabilities to defend against and respond to North Korean aggression.

Finally, US allies and partners, and their diplomatic personnel in particular, can contribute to efforts to further isolate North Korea by cracking down on illicit activities and forced labor. Additionally, sending home North Korean officials who act more like members of organized crime than the diplomats they purport to be—even to the point of closing down entire North Korean embassies—would contribute to efforts to maximize pressure on Pyongyang.

Ultimately, efforts to maximize pressure on North Korea cannot be accomplished without US allies and partners, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Although doing so will be in the interests of most allies and partners, successful coordination of this effort will require American leadership. Washington cannot focus on one to the cost of the other—its strategy toward North Korea must be integrated as part of a broader regional strategy. Such an approach will not only be more effective; it will also help counter efforts by Beijing to use the North Korea issue to drive wedges between Washington and its allies and raise questions about US reliability.

This dynamic was demonstrated two weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when then US deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz made it clear that the United States would not seek collective NATO action and preferred to ask for contributions from individual states, reiterating then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld’s statement that the mission would determine the coalition.42 This approach came in the context of post–Cold War American triumphalism and the George W. Bush administration’s more unilateral approach to foreign affairs—an approach that many in NATO believed represented “a fundamental misjudgment about the nature of the Alliance that devalued the importance of strategic solidarity.”⁴³

Conversely, efforts by the United States to shift defensive responsibilities to its allies and partners during a time of perceived American weakness could result in intensifying foreign concerns about the reliability of the United States. For example, after President Richard Nixon announced his “Nixon Doctrine” during a speech in Guam in 1969,⁴⁴ the United States reduced its military presence in Asia from 727,300 in 1969 to 284,000 in 1971, and in South Korea from 63,000 to 43,000.⁴⁵ This greatly intensified fears of US abandonment across the region. In South Korea, for example, then president Park Chung Hee wrote that “this series of developments contained an almost unprecedented peril to our people’s survival,” which drove Park to pursue a clandestine nuclear weapons program and impose his Yusin reforms, which involved the imposition of martial law, dissolution of the National Assembly, and the banning of all antigovernment activity.⁴⁶

However, the changing realities today across the Indo-Pacific, and within the United States, demand an updated approach. The United States cannot simply seek to sustain the postwar order that worked for so many decades—it must update its approach to economic, diplomatic, and defense policy toward the Indo-Pacific if it hopes to keep its leadership and influence across the region.

Complicating efforts to enhance America’s international position is the reality that many of these issues bring with them large consequences for America’s domestic politics. Trade is by far the most obvious such issue: Many Americans fear that expanding global economic integration will threaten American jobs, although support for international trade remains generally high. In fact, in 2017 a record high 72 percent of Americans saw foreign trade as an opportunity.47 Yet a failure to pursue further economic integration—either in the form of the now-rejected TPP or under some other rubric—will have the effect of shutting the United States out of an increasingly integrated global economy and, over time, threatening America’s leadership in global economics. Of course, considering the current state of American politics, it will be incumbent upon American political leaders to find a path forward on international trade that both deepens US economic connections to the world and also advocates for the interests of American workers.

Other issues—from education to infrastructure and immigration—will also have profound implications for the long-term sustainability of American power. Though not often discussed in national security terms today, these issues are fundamental. The GI Bill, for example, provided unemployment compensation, home and business loans, and tuition support to veterans of World War II and subsequent wars. By 1947, veteran students made up more than 50 percent of the overall college population. This was undoubtedly a major contributor to the incredible growth of the American economy of the 1950s and helped lay the foundation for American technological and economic progress in the second half of the twentieth century, for the simple reason that an educated and skilled population is more productive and creates a more prosperous economy and a more vibrant society. Similarly, major investments by the US government in science and technology through the military, space program, and universities paved the way for the nation’s future as the global economic and technological powerhouse.

For too long, questions of domestic economic policy have been divorced from considerations of foreign policy in US political discussions. Although both presidents Obama and Trump have identified a link between economic performance at home and American power abroad, political debates about domestic economics rarely touch on their implications for American geopolitical power. From issues like the national debt and infrastructure to funding for education and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research in areas like artificial intelligence and robotics, American power cannot be sustained globally if it ignores the foundation of its economic vitality and innovation.

Additionally, a highly consequential determinant of the sustainability of American power in the Indo-Pacific will be investing adequately in the most critical aspects of American foreign policy: its diplomats, foreign aid, and the military.48 In 2017, the Trump administration proposed drastic cuts in funding for diplomacy, foreign aid, and foreign military financing for Asia. For the 2018 fiscal year, the administration requested $37.6 billion for the combined budget of the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a reduction of about 32.4 percent from the $55.6 billion requested for fiscal year (FY) 2017.⁴⁹ This included $15.4 billion for USAID-managed programs, down from the $22.7 billion requested for FY 2017.⁵⁰ The administration has cited a need to make the State Department and USAID leaner and more efficient.⁵¹ Such efficiency would be achieved by “streamlining State Department and USAID administrative costs, particularly those attributable to travel, office support contractors, and other support activities” and eliminating “programs that can draw on other private and public resources.”⁵² House and Senate members have voiced concern over these proposed reductions, with Chairman Ed Royce of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs noting during the foreign affairs budget hearing that “sufficient resources are needed for our military, for sure, but also for our diplomats working to end the many conflicts impacting our security.”⁵³

When it comes to military expenditures, no country comes close to the United States. In 2018, US military spending reached $700 billion, more than the entire Indo-Pacific combined and more than triple the estimated $228 billion spent by China in 2017.54 Critically, however, the significant imbalance in global military spending is only eclipsed by the tremendous imbalance in the utilization of military power. No other military has more responsibilities, against a greater range of extant and potential challenges, across more widely distributed geographies, than the US military. It has kept America safe for decades, and it has defended US allies and preserved stability and prosperity in the world’s most critical regions. It is also the most active military in the world, having fought for nineteen of the twenty-nine years since 1989.

Such broad responsibilities have diminished Washington’s ability to prioritize. As a result, the United States has found itself embroiled in an increasingly long set of international crises and challenges; thus, a host of situations compete for resources and national attention—ongoing instability in the Middle East, ongoing military operations in Afghanistan with no end in sight, counterterrorist operations in Sub-Saharan Africa, a potentially renewed nuclear crisis with Iran as a result of the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and a burgeoning crisis in Central and Eastern Europe in the face of a revanchist Russia. Yet there is little discussion in Washington about prioritizing such responsibilities, strategic restraint, or even an acknowledgment that focus in one area necessarily diminishes the ability of the United States to operate in another. Instead, national leaders often act as if American power and resources were infinite.

At times, when American power is unchallenged and the international system is stable, such “operations of choice” could be seen as acceptable, if unfortunate. Yet, during a time when American power is increasingly called into question, when it is challenged by a variety of rising powers, and when the liberal order is increasingly under pressure, decisions to dilute or weaken American power—when such actions are of limited value to American strategic interests—are nothing short of an abdication of leadership by the United States.

If the Indo-Pacific is truly going to be a long-term priority for the United States, Washington will need to devote significant resources to its presence and actions in the region. In January 2017, Senator John McCain proposed the creation of an “Asia Pacific Stability Initiative,” with $1.5 billion in designated annual funding in future defense budgets.55 McCain has stated that the initiative would include “targeted funding to realign US military force posture in the region, improve operationally relevant infrastructure, fund additional exercises, preposition equipment and munitions, and build capacity with our allies and partners.”⁵⁶ The proposal gained some traction in 2017, when bipartisan groups of Senate and House members sent letters of support for such an initiative to then secretary of defense James Mattis.⁵⁷

Although $1.5 billion may sound like a significant amount, it actually pales in comparison with other military initiatives. The ongoing war in Afghanistan, for example, costs roughly $45 billion annually.⁵⁸ A similar initiative in Europe—dubbed the “Europe Deterrence Initiative”—was requested to be $6.5 billion for fiscal year 2019. One may note that this represented a $1.7 billion increase from the previous year—more than the entirety of Senator McCain’s original proposal for Asia.⁵⁹ This suggests that even the Pentagon, which arguably has been the most active in realigning its focus toward the Indo-Pacific, still has a long way to go in terms of reprioritization.

As the military challenges from China and North Korea continue to evolve, the United States must continue to evolve as well, if it seeks to sustain conventional military deterrence, maintain its technological advantages, and successfully compete with China. This will require significant investments in emerging military technologies, while also adjusting US military force posture across the region to account for new capabilities and new threats. Though the US military services are already evolving their operations and doctrine—take, for instance, the US Marine Corps Commandant’s “Planning Guidance”⁶⁰—the Department of Defense will also need to work closely with allies and partners across the region to ensure that necessary adjustments and investments can be implemented smoothly and effectively.

Yet the tools of American foreign policy most desperately in need of greater support and funding are those that exist outside the Pentagon. The State Department, for example, was severely diminished by a hiring freeze that was in place from President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 through May 2018; a congressionally mandated report from the Office of the Inspector General found that “several bureaus charged with protecting security, health, and life safety reported to [this office] that the hiring freeze had significant detrimental effects on their operations.” Experienced diplomats have left in droves, and morale is reported to be gutted.61 At the same time, China in 2019 surpassed the United States with the most diplomatic posts in the world.⁶² This is a time when the United States needs more diplomats—not fewer.

Unfortunately, the several months of the Trump administration further fueled regional perceptions of American distraction and decline, in three related ways. First came the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which opened the door for Beijing to attempt to assert leadership over regional economic dynamics with its Belt and Road Initiative and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.⁶³ US allies, partners, and adversaries alike all saw the US withdrawal from the TPP as a major signal of US economic disengagement from the region.

Also a cause of concern for US allies and partners were the multiple statements by President Trump both before and after he took office criticizing US allies and partners in the region. As noted in the previous chapter, Trump stated before his election that the United States could no longer remain the “policeman of the world” and decried the United States’ “unfair” and one-sided international security relationships, creating deep unease with allies and partners globally.⁶⁴ At the beginning of his presidency, Trump insisted that South Korea should pay for the THAAD missile system, stating, “I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they pay. . . . That’s a billion dollar system. . . . We’re going to protect them. But they should pay for that, and they understand that.”⁶⁵

Finally, America’s adversaries and allies across the Indo-Pacific have noted President Trump’s transactional approach to China. Trump expressed a willingness to explicitly set aside important issues related to Taiwan, trade, and currency (for example) in order to gain Chinese assistance in dealing with North Korea. Officials from Taipei, Tokyo, and elsewhere were unanimously concerned that such a transactional relationship would open the door for China to drive a wedge between Washington and its allies.66

These challenges must be addressed if the United States is to sustain its leadership position in the Indo-Pacific and maintain regional peace and prosperity. As has been argued by a wide variety of scholars and other former officials, the world needs the United States. It has been the driver of prosperity, the ultimate guarantor of international stability, and a vital advocate for international law and human rights. Without American leadership, the world would be far more dangerous, unstable, and poor. As then secretary of state Madeleine Albright said in 1998, America is “the indispensable nation,” which “stand[s] tall…and see[s] further than other countries into the future.”⁶⁷

Sustaining American power and leadership are not only important objectives in themselves; they are also essential to any strategy for strengthening allies and partners. These relationships are founded on the calculation by allies and partners that American power is resilient and reliable. If the United States were to diminish its power and leadership role—especially through self-inflicted wounds—US allies and partners would likely turn away from Washington and pursue a different strategy. Tying calls for American retrenchment to calls for allies and partners to do more is therefore a recipe for strategic disaster.

Most fundamentally, the United States should no longer see alliances as essentially military in nature, with a focus on deterrence. Instead, the United States should transform these relationships in to platforms for cooperation and collaboration across all elements of national power.68 Although the military component of alliances will remain vital in an increasingly competitive strategic environment, the United States should ensure that diplomatic and economic engagement with its allies and partners is pursued just as vigorously.

The United States made great strides in enhancing its diplomatic engagement with the region under the Obama administration. For example, acceding to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia in 2009 paved the way for US participation in the East Asia Summit in 2010 and enabled enhanced engagement with ASEAN. This was followed by a greatly accelerated pace of top-level engagements, with heads of state from across the Indo-Pacific visiting the United States, and vice versa, at an unprecedented pace. Under the Obama administration, heads of state of ASEAN member nations visited the United States for summits and official, working, and state visits thirty times, as compared with the twenty-one visits made under the George W. Bush administration. During President Trump’s first year in office, ASEAN officials made four visits.⁶⁹ In turn, whereas President Bush made three trips to the region, President Obama traveled to Southeast Asia nine times and added Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos to the list of ASEAN countries that Bush had visited.⁷⁰ To date, President Trump has made one trip to the region.⁷¹

Through these engagements, the United States empowered its allies and partners to assert their own interests and, at times, push back against Chinese assertiveness. Whereas the smaller nations in the Indo-Pacific had previously gone along with Chinese efforts to paper over regional disputes during multinational forums, the sustained and high-level pace of US engagements allowed the region to push back. This dynamic was evident in the 2015 assembly of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting–Plus, in which the various nations refused to agree to Chinese demands for a joint statement that ignored the very evident regional tensions stemming from China’s actions in the South China Sea.72 Although many saw a failure to issue a joint statement as a failure of regional diplomacy, it was actually a success for the United States and its allies, demonstrating that with steady and focused engagement by the United States, China would not be able to dictate the terms of regional diplomacy.

Of course, sustained and high-level diplomacy requires continued engagement for several years across successive US administrations, which is no small feat. Sustaining this engagement by the Trump administration, and its successors, will be essential to the future success of US strategy in the Indo-Pacific. Yet, as difficult as this will be, it is not the most challenging aspect of US Indo-Pacific strategy. That distinction belongs to the economic realm.

Economic engagement with the world is fundamentally connected with geopolitics. Yet, lately, domestic debates about foreign economic engagement have focused on domestic political implications. Arguments that the vigorous pursuit of economic engagement with the world is critical to sustaining America’s place as the dominant global power have lost to a focus on the implications of such agreements for jobs at home. This is how the two leading candidates in the 2016 presidential election both announced their opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, even though top experts from both Democratic and Republican foreign policy circles highlighted the criticality of the TPP for America’s continued leadership in the Indo-Pacific.⁷³

Instead of the TPP, the Trump administration has stated a preference for bilateral trade agreements, which, it argues, will achieve the same geopolitical effects of the TPP without sacrificing critical American economic interests.⁷⁴ Although this argument is questionable, what is clear is that when it comes to bilateral trade agreements in the Indo-Pacific, more is better.

The United States should therefore vigorously pursue robust economic agreements with its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. Beyond the economic imperatives of such agreements, there is a compelling geopolitical argument for them as well. By finalizing a swath of bilateral economic agreements with its allies and partners, the United States will have a much greater say in the economic dynamics of the world’s most economically critical region. Moreover, such engagement will demonstrate to its allies and partners that the United States has skin in the game, which will do more to strengthen perceptions of US commitment and resolve than any number of talking points and, even in peacetime, military deployments.

The Trump administration has emphasized private-sector initiatives as the primary focus of its regional economic strategy. In July 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that “American companies have been a force for prosperity and good throughout the Indo-Pacific region,” and he announced $113 million in new US initiatives to support foundational areas of the future: the digital economy, energy, and infrastructure. He described these funds as “just a down payment on a new era in US economic commitment to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.”75 Although certainly a modest amount when compared with the hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure projects announced by Beijing, recognition that Washington needed to do more in this area was welcome, and hopes are high that these policies will pave the way for significant US investment and focus.

Yet more needs to be done. Although the private sector is certainly an area of significant comparative advantage for the United States, in order to compete with China in the geo-economic realm, the US government’s structural inability to direct these investments toward geopolitical ends or to coordinate them with similar allied efforts will make such efforts less effective and less efficient than would broader trade agreements.

In October 2018, President Trump signed the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development—BUILD—Act, which seeks to better utilize private-sector funding for development. It established the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), through which the United States can make loans and limited equity investments, allowing the DFC to better form partnerships with allies and partners for greater development impact. The BUILD Act established the total investment limitation for the DFC at $60 billion, and empowered it to provide technical assistance and conduct feasibility studies specific to development finance projects.76 Though certainly a promising initiative, the government will be challenged to ensure that development initiatives are allocated and directed in a way that supports broader national interests. Indeed, though the private sector should rightly retain the ability to make decisions based on specific business calculations, the US government should develop the ability to set geopolitical objectives as it enables enhanced private-sector engagement.

Ineffective and insufficient governance has been a longtime inhibitor of the ability of several US allies and partners to stabilize, grow prosperous, and build national power. A critical aspect of governance deficiencies has been corruption, which is endemic across much of the Indo-Pacific. According to Transparency International, New Zealand and Singapore are among the least corrupt countries in the world, while the Philippines and India “score high for corruption and have fewer press freedoms and higher numbers of journalist deaths.”⁷⁷

Corruption not only depresses the effectiveness of governance; it also represents an opportunity for Beijing to exert outsized influence. This is especially problematic within the smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific, for which Chinese investment has represented an increasingly significant source of capital. For these countries, the concern is less about Chinese government interference and more focused on the corruption that often accompanies Chinese investment.78 Initiatives to fight corruption and enhance governance across the Indo-Pacific will therefore be essential both to empower US allies and partners and to shape China’s influence across the region.

A critical aspect of any effort to improve governance across the Indo-Pacific will involve efforts to counter China’s efforts to interfere in the domestic politics of its neighbors. Beijing’s efforts are supplemented by its efforts to export a high-tech version of political illiberalism, which it hopes will both sustain nondemocratic governments and serve as a pathway for enhanced Chinese political influence. As described earlier in this book, this is a challenge that affects the entire region—and especially US allies and partners. Inoculating democratic systems from Chinese interference efforts, therefore, should be a shared objective for the United States and its democratic allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific. As such, the United States should take the lead in establishing a mechanism to share information, defend democratic political processes, protect and promote freedom in both the real world and in the digital domain, and sustain liberal ideals of freedom and openness while also avoiding policies that lead to discrimination against immigrants from China or people of Chinese descent.⁷⁹

Even without significant efforts by the United States, its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific have already begun to strengthen their military capabilities in what has become a modest form of a regional arms race.80 In the Indo-Pacific, US allies and partners increased their military expenditures by 30 percent between 2007 and 2016 (figure 3.1).⁸¹ Yet the pace of expansion did not keep up with Beijing; during the same decade, China’s military spending is estimated to have more than doubled (figure 3.2)—resulting in a sizable imbalance of power.⁸²

The United States and its allies and partners retain the advantages provided by interoperability among their forces, which train and exercise together regularly, but China’s expanding numbers and its close geography require the United States to address this imbalance of power. Efforts to date, though certainly laudable, have been too piecemeal and too small in scale to have a significant impact on the maritime balance of power. The Obama administration pursued this objective through several initiatives, including with a series of freedom-of-navigation operations and allocating more than $250 million over FYs 2015 and 2016 toward building maritime capacity in Southeast Asia.83 Additionally, the Department of Defense began to implement the Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative, which allocated $425 million to train, equip, supply, and conduct small-scale construction in cooperation with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.⁸⁴ Unfortunately, such efforts were insufficient to substantially change the Asian balance of power.

The Obama administration requested minimal security assistance for Asia in its FY 2017 budget, as compared with other areas. The top recipients of US security assistance in that request were largely concentrated in the Middle East and South Asia, with $3.67 billion going to Afghanistan.85 In 2015, of the $5.64 billion requested for the United States’ Foreign Military Financing (FMF), $67.4 million was designated for East Asia and the Pacific, compared with $5.09 billion for the Near East (90 percent of the total requested).⁸⁶ As of 2016, only 1 percent of FMF was annually sent to Asian countries, even including funding given to Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines as part of the Maritime Security Initiative.⁸⁷ This trend continued into the Trump administration; as part of reforms to the FMF program included in its FY 2018 budget, the administration proposed a reduction in grants of $1 billion, with the exception of the top three recipients—Israel, Egypt, and Jordan—which constitute 93 percent of the overall budget for FY 2018.⁸⁸ The administration also put forward a shift of remaining foreign military assistance to both a $200 million FMF “global fund” and other loans in order to reduce costs.⁸⁹

Some have argued that this change would push some countries to shift their weapons purchases to Russia or China, which offer less expensive options.⁹⁰ Indeed, some US allies have grown so frustrated with attempts to acquire military drones from the United States that they have already turned to China.⁹¹ For its part, Taiwan has also begun to look beyond the United States in its efforts to acquire affordable and effective military capabilities.⁹²

Secretary Pompeo’s August 2018 announcement of plans to provide nearly $300 million in FMF to Asia suggests that the tide may be turning.⁹³ The United States should also consider conducting more of its foreign military assistance in the form of grants rather than loans. This would greatly help many countries in Southeast Asia, especially those with fewer resources to devote to defense.

In addition to adjusting how funds are allocated, the United States will also need to reform its overall security assistance programs. The current US system is excessively bureaucratic and legalistic, and is not nearly responsive or strategic enough for the demands of the twenty-first century. Within the State Department, the roles of two separate entities in planning and decisionmaking—the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and the Office of US Foreign Assistance Resources, respectively—as well as the involvement of regional and functional bureaus in deciding on the allocation of funds, have led to a disjointed, confusing process with no clear leader.94 Legal constraints on State Department security assistance include Section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which prevents security assistance from being used to equip, train, or advise law enforcement forces.⁹⁵ FMF funds are also specifically prohibited from going to nonmilitary entities within the governments of military partners, constraining the United States’ ability to assist in sectors like cybersecurity.⁹⁶

Central to reforming these security assistance programs will be enhancing the ability of the United States to provide its allies and partners with affordable, reliable, and effective drones. Such capabilities are essential in Southeast Asia, where countries with limited resources but significant swaths of sea to monitor would greatly benefit from such capabilities. Despite this reality, the United States continues to classify drones as missiles rather than as aircraft, severely limiting what US allies and partners are able to acquire. In the past, the United States followed the strict guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which pushed some partners to instead purchase drones from countries like China, depriving the United States of opportunities to deepen relationships with them and shape global norms regarding unmanned aerial vehicles.⁹⁷ The MTCR, though a valuable aspect of international arms control, has yet to adapt to the reality that drones are fundamentally different from cruise missiles, and should be treated as such.⁹⁸

In April 2018, the Trump administration announced new rules that would somewhat relax US export controls on drones; these rules allowed some drones to be sold through the direct commercial sales process (a far more rapid process than the foreign military sales process), and reclassified drones with strike-enabling technology as unarmed, which will make export easier. Moreover, the Trump administration was reportedly considering proposing changes to the MTCR itself, to no longer classify drones as cruise missiles.99 As with other types of weaponry, the United States and the rest of the international community will need to find a way to balance military necessities against counterproliferation objectives. Drawing a line between unarmed and armed drones seems to be a workable way forward, especially in the Indo-Pacific, where most US allies and partners (especially in Southeast Asia) primarily need unarmed drones for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.

There are other authorities that could be adjusted to better position the United States to build the capabilities of its allies and partners. The current division of foreign military assistance authorities between Title 22 funds (State Department) and Title 10 funds (Defense Department) means that foreign assistance often reflects the culture and priorities of the department providing the assistance, resulting in a stovepiped approach that raises inefficiency and limits the effectiveness of these efforts.¹⁰⁰ Centralizing these authorities, and placing them under a single department that can make decisions about prioritization and military need, would go a long way toward fixing what has become a highly bureaucratic process that can be slow to recognize changes in American strategy or the geopolitical environment.

Similarly, the US government should follow through on long-standing pledges to accelerate FMF and foreign military sales. Although significant progress has been made in recent years, more needs to be done to make processes more efficient, less bureaucratic, and more responsive to the needs of US allies and partners. This is not just a Pentagon issue—Congress and the State Department both have roles to play, and should work together to develop a more efficient and streamlined process.

America’s allies and partners, especially those in Southeast Asia with significant maritime security challenges but limited resources, should be prioritized in the US Excess Defense Articles program, in which US military and coast guard platforms are offered at reduced or no cost in support of US national security and foreign policy objectives. Moreover, the US government should encourage US defense companies, and those of its more advanced allies around the world, to develop effective, sustainable, and affordable platforms that could be used by US allies and partners to enhance maritime security.

This arms race is leading to a significant imbalance in Asian maritime forces, with Beijing gaining the upper hand. China has the ability to flood a zone with fishing vessels, coast guard ships, and naval vessels to a degree that no ally or partner can match, despite advantages the latter may enjoy due to geographic proximity. Before 2012, it is estimated that Japan invested slightly more than China in its coast guard. Since then, Beijing has made a heavy investment and outspent Tokyo in 2015 by $500 million.101 In the meantime, China has also rapidly increased its naval forces. According to the Department of Defense’s estimate, China has deployed forty-six more ships in the past six years.¹⁰² During the same period, Japan has decreased the number of its naval forces but increased their displacement by 28,000 tons. The US Seventh Fleet has deployed an additional ten ships, for a total of thirty, in Japan and Guam since 2016.¹⁰³ Most of the US Pacific Fleet’s assets are deployed in the Eastern Pacific, which is managed by the Third Fleet, and would take much longer to reach the area in the event of a conflict (figure 3.3).

An example of how this dynamic has evolved can be seen in the dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which lie some 80 nautical miles north of Japan’s Yamayoe Islands in the Okinawa Prefecture, 90 nautical miles northeast of Taiwan, and 200 nautical miles east of China’s Fujian Province. Although China is farthest from the island group, it has demonstrated its capacity to mobilize overwhelming numbers of government and fishing vessels to the area, while using its air force to pose a simultaneous threat from above.¹⁰⁴

China’s expanding maritime advantage in relation to its neighbors has fueled intensified tensions around its periphery. In addition to the dispute in the East China Sea described above, China has greatly expanded its maritime presence in the South China Sea, where its claims overlap those of five other governments. And the size and capabilities of these other claimants pale in comparison with China’s. Figure 3.4 shows the size of Chinese and some Southeast Asian naval forces, as documented by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Figure 3.4 Comparisons of (A) naval ships and (B) personnel, 2018

Note: The International Institute for Strategic Studies includes small coastal patrol boats, landing craft, and logistics and support ships in its report. This explains why the number of Chinese naval ships documented is lower in the US Department of Defense annual report. Using different data here is for the purpose of unity, as the International Institute for Strategic Studies has a comprehensive investigation of Southeast Asian naval forces.

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, “The Military Balance 2018,” February 14, 2018, https://www.iiss.org/en/publications/military percent20balance/issues/the-military-balance-2018-545f.

These disparities have enabled China to profoundly change East Asia’s geopolitics, and even the physical landscape of the South China Sea. As noted in the previous chapter, in December 2013, China began reclaiming land to build up the features under its control. By June 2015, it had reclaimed over 2,900 acres in the Spratlys—“17 times more land in 20 months than the other claimants combined over the past 40 years, accounting for approximately 95 percent of all reclaimed land in the Spratly Islands.”¹⁰⁵ In March 2017, the United States estimated that China had reclaimed 3,200 acres on seven former rocky outcrops and reefs in the previous three years—more than ten times the size of the National Mall in Washington—creating major military edifices on that land.¹⁰⁶ According to the Department of Defense’s 2017 “China Military Report,” China has built three airfields on the Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef, as well as one port facility on each of the seven occupied land features.

Washington should therefore dramatically expand its efforts to provide its Indo-Pacific allies and partners with maritime capabilities, including building regional coast guards and developing a regional maritime domain awareness network. Although there may be a lack of political will in Washington to make this happen, allies like Canberra and Tokyo should be consulted to assist and supplement these initiatives—potentially to the point of concluding a trilateral memorandum of understanding to formalize alliance collaboration toward these ends.

In pursuing this objective, the United States and its more advanced allies and partners will be confronted with the realities that many Southeast Asian partners lack the resources to adequately fund such initiatives, and may otherwise be focused on internal security challenges that distract from those presented by China.107 Such challenges are normal in Southeast Asia, yet can be addressed—though not entirely overcome—with sufficient financial assistance and persistent diplomacy to encourage Southeast Asian partners to appreciate the challenges and opportunities involved.

Through its rampant use of Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) vessels to assert its maritime claims in the East China Sea and South China Sea, China has radically transformed the role of coast guards in East Asia. Traditionally used to fight narcotrafficking and maritime population flows, coast guards today are at the vanguard of interstate tensions across East Asia. States have made coast guards the tool of choice for asserting their maritime claims for two reasons: they are generally seen as a less aggressive tool than traditional navies, and their use demonstrates the view that the area in question is not in international waters—the traditional domain of navies—but is in domestic waters, and is therefore subject to domestic civilian jurisdiction.

The RAND Corporation’s Lyle Morris conducted a thorough study on the evolution of East Asian coast guards and found that several East Asian nations have vastly increased the size of their coast guard fleets in recent years, with China leading the way with the largest coast guard in the world, at an estimated 190,000 tons of ship power (table 3.1).¹⁰⁸ Other countries have also greatly expanded the sizes of their fleets, though not on a scale comparable to China.

The sophistication of coast guard vessels has also increased in recent years. Chinese Coast Guard ships are typically larger and more capable than their East Asian counterparts, often because many of the CCG vessels were formerly part of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and had been painted white and transferred to the CCG.¹⁰⁹

Despite their best efforts, US allies and partners have not been able to keep up with the rapid expansion of CCG capabilities. They need America’s help, and Washington should answer the call by greatly expanding its efforts to build the coast guards of its allies and partners, especially in Southeast Asia. This should include provisioning ships and support craft, as well as providing the training and support that are necessary to sustain such a capability over the long term.

The United States should also establish a network for allies and partners to share information they collect through a common operating picture available to all participants, specifically in the form of a maritime domain awareness network. The United States is uniquely positioned to broker such a network. It is not party to any of the intraregional rivalries and disputes that roil the region, and it shares the basic interests of its allies and partners in maintaining regional stability and checking Chinese assertiveness and expansionism. The United States should therefore establish a network system in which members provide their maritime domain awareness information to a central location where information is sanitized and distributed to all members. This would require the establishment of multiple information-sharing agreements that address the security concerns of partners, the procurement and distribution of hardware and software to enable the collection and distribution of information, and the establishment of criteria that would allow allies and partners to join and participate.

The United States, as well as its allies and partners, have the absolute right to defend themselves from such threats. Ballistic missiles not only threaten their civilian populations; they also threaten the ability of US and allied military forces to effectively respond to armed aggression. Although cost and effectiveness are certainly issues to consider, it is clear that theater-level ballistic missile defenses are a key component of any significant military capability in the Indo-Pacific.

The United States, South Korea, and Japan made significant strides in improving trilateral missile defense cooperation in 2015 and 2016. In June 2016, the three countries participated in their first joint ballistic missile defense exercise, Pacific Dragon, off the coast of Hawaii. A second joint exercise was held in November of that year.112 In 2017, four sets of trilateral missile defense drills were conducted in January, March, October, and December; the last of these drills focused on ballistic missile tracking and information sharing.¹¹³

Such cooperation was based on the fundamental judgment from all sides that information sharing and enhanced cooperation were necessary for the defense of Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Networking in missile defense is critical, and more progress in this area must be made between the United States, South Korea, and Japan if they are to succeed in the face of significant ballistic missile threats.

Yet such an initiative should be pursued cautiously. The irresponsible proliferation of these capabilities could have a deleterious effect to regional stability and the freedom and openness of maritime commons. After all, once the capabilities are in hand, there would be nothing to stop an irresponsible ally or partner from using these capabilities offensively. Because the United States has no interest in triggering an arms race, the provision of such advanced capabilities should only come after thorough assurances have been made that these capabilities will only be used defensively and will not be proliferated. Moreover, the United States should insist that allies and partners seeking to receive these capabilities first affirm that they share US interpretations of international law, and demonstrate such a commitment with policies, activities, and confidence-building measures. Finally, the United States should reserve the option to regain control of these capabilities if they are found to have been used offensively or in ways incompatible with international law.

Enhancing cooperation between the defense industries of the United States, India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia could also help build the capabilities of other allies and partners. By prioritizing joint research and development for commonly shared defense interests—such as unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and directed energy capabilities—there is a significant opportunity to enhance interoperability and integration while sharing costs. New mechanisms and policies would need to be established, and industrial security practices would need to be significantly strengthened. Yet the potential for shared gain in this area is significant and should be considered.

Due to their own advanced indigenous defense industries, India, Japan, Australia, and South Korea all have a unique opportunity to empower other allies and friends and contribute to the long-term success of the liberal order. Indeed, these allies and partners may in some ways be better positioned than the United States to build the capabilities of other Asian allies and partners. This is because their defense industries produce high-quality, yet affordable, military capabilities that are better suited to the limited requirements and resources of many of those in South and Southeast Asia. South Korea exported $3.19 billion in weapons in 2017, a 25 percent increase from 2016. This included the sale of eight Korea Aerospace Industries Golden Eagle advanced jet trainer aircraft to Thailand.114 The appeal of Korean military hardware has been attributed to quality, reasonable costs, and the lack of “negative geopolitical strings” compared with countries like Russia and China.¹¹⁵ Japan lifted its ban on defense exports in 2014 and began to offer financial aid to buyers, making purchases by developing countries more affordable.¹¹⁶ India is also playing a larger role in providing military capabilities to like-minded nations—for example, by establishing a far more robust defense relationship with Vietnam.¹¹⁷ Australia also seeks to become a top ten defense exporter by 2030.¹¹⁸

The United States, India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia should therefore establish a security assistance coordination mechanism, with the defense establishments of each side ensuring that their national policies toward security assistance in the Indo-Pacific work toward shared geopolitical ends and enhance the interoperability of US military forces with their Indo-Pacific counterparts. This would not mean that their defense industries would not compete with one another; rather, it would ensure that the four allies are not working at cross-purposes.

However, coordinating between allies and partners will require more than establishing mechanisms in areas of mutual interest. Unfortunately, many US allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific have rather poor relations with one another. This is most obvious in the relationship between Japan and South Korea, where memories of horrible abuses under Japanese colonial rule continue to inflame anti-Japanese sentiments in many members of the South Korean public. In polling by the Pew Research Center, only 31 percent of the South Korean public reported a favorable view of Japan in 2017. Although this was an improvement over the 25 percent who reported the same in 2015, this share is still lower than those reported in other countries in the Indo-Pacific, ranging from 42 percent in India to 88 percent in Australia.119

South Korean president Park Geun-hye and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe demonstrated tremendous vision and political bravery in December 2015, when they announced a landmark agreement to resolve their dispute over Korean women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japan’s Imperial Army. Japan issued an apology and promised $8.3 million in payments for the care of the women, and the two sides stated the agreement to be a “final and irreversible resolution” of the issue. Of course, such political agreements do not immediately dissipate the anger and suspicion that have built up for decades, and true reconciliation will take time.

Although the credit for such an agreement should go to the South Korean and Japanese leaders, the role of the United States in this situation should not be ignored. President Obama invested a great deal of his own political capital in advancing efforts toward reconciliation, which helped both sides overcome domestic political barriers.

Efforts to improve relations bore significant fruit during the Obama administration. Because of the political efforts on all sides, the United States, Japan, and South Korea were also able to make unprecedented progress in enhancing trilateral security cooperation in response to the common threat they faced from North Korea. Most significantly, in November 2016, South Korean and Japanese officials signed the General Security of Military Information Agreement, enhancing trilateral cooperation by enabling the sharing of sensitive information on North Korean nuclear and missile development.120

Developments during the Trump administration have presented more challenges for the three countries. In October 2017, as part of negotiations with China over THAAD, South Korean foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha stated that it would not join any United States–led regional missile-defense system, accept any more THAAD batteries, or join in a trilateral military alliance with Japan and the United States.¹²¹ In November, South Korea rejected Japanese involvement in joint military drills with the United States.¹²² Bilateral tensions over historical issues reemerged, as President Moon Jae-in appointed a Special Task Force to reexamine Park and Abe’s 2015 agreement to compensate Korean women forced into sexual slavery, which then publicly announced that the agreement was flawed.¹²³ This spurred protests from the Japanese government and reports that Prime Minister Abe might not attend the 2018 Winter Olympics.¹²⁴ Ultimately, however, Abe attended the opening ceremony in February, and the trilateral talks continued, including a meeting on the sidelines of the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula in January 2018.¹²⁵

Yet since that time, relations between Japan and South Korea have deteriorated significantly. A series of incidents and government decisions have driven a wedge between Seoul and Tokyo, and precipitated a decision by Seoul to dissolve the General Security of Military Information Agreement. This is to be somewhat expected, as domestic politics in South Korea and Japan tend to repel one another. For decades, the two nations have been able to manage their differences because of two external forces: shared perceptions of a mutual external security threat and sustained, high-level encouragement from the United States. Yet both factors diminished beginning in 2017, with the Moon government deciding to engage rather than confront North Korea and the Trump administration refraining from playing a significant or sustained role in helping Seoul and Tokyo manage these issues.

Although the tension between South Korea and Japan is the most obvious example of animosity and suspicion between allies and partners, it is certainly not the only case. Rivalry and suspicion among Southeast Asian nations, for example, have a long history of complicating US efforts to build ASEAN cohesion and help the region act with coordination toward shared interests.126 Additionally, tensions between Indonesia and Australia occasionally flare up over Canberra’s policy toward migrant flows and other geopolitical issues.

The United States is the only power with the political capital and the strategic vision to drive reconciliation among its allies and partners and better unite them in a common cause—although in some instances the role for the United States may be limited. Washington should therefore continue to focus diplomatic and political efforts toward pressing its allies and partners in Asia to constructively address their differences or, failing that, to put such differences aside in order to cooperate on issues of much greater national interest.

Of course, there is an inherent danger in a strategy that builds the capabilities of allies and partners that, at times, have significant disputes with one another. Recall that the United States first established its alliances in East Asia in order to restrain, not empower. There is also the possibility that allies and partners could use their newfound capabilities to assert their own claims and undermine the liberal order, or to provoke a conflict that would entrap the United States in a conflagration it would prefer to avoid. Although diplomacy can certainly address such concerns, it would be incumbent on the United States to ensure that its efforts to build up the capabilities of its allies and partners are implemented responsibly.

A great deal can be done by limiting the capabilities provided by the United States to ensure they are primarily defensive in nature and of limited utility in an offensive campaign. Accomplishing this would be fairly simple in the realm of regional cooperation arrangements, which could be dissolved if concerns grew that they were being used for nefarious purposes. Other capabilities, such as missile defense systems and radar installations, are not threatening and should not worry other allies and partners.

This potential problem would not apply to the strategy proposed here because, unlike with “Vietnamization,” this strategy is not conceived as a rationalization for a general reduction in US military presence and engagement in the Indo-Pacific. On the contrary, this book recommends efforts to enhance the capabilities of US allies and partners while also strengthening US engagement and presence in the region in order to better account for the region’s changing balance of power and its effects on the region’s liberal order. Implementing a strategy of ally empowerment and US empowerment will send a strong signal to the region that the United States is doubling down in the region and is bringing its friends along.

Yet though the United States had previously enjoyed economic dominance in the Indo-Pacific, Asia’s rise has gradually diminished the economic role of the United States in Asia. Overall, the Indo-Pacific region has a positive outlook and remains the leader of global growth. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts that China’s economic output and growth will continue to grow stronger in the coming years: growth in China was projected at 6.7 percent in 2017, 7.0 percent in 2018, and 6.4 percent in 2019; in comparison, growth in the United States was only projected at 2.2 percent in 2017, 2.5 in 2018, and 2.1 percent in 2019.127 The economic outlook for ASEAN is particularly promising, with an expected growth average of 6.3 percent between 2018 and 2022.¹²⁸ In addition to the strong rate of economic growth, infrastructure projects, especially in ASEAN, could be a source of continued economic growth and dynamism throughout the region.

The United States has been slow to react to the changing geopolitical realities of the Indo-Pacific. Although it has concluded several high-quality free trade agreements with South Korea and other nations, it has failed to follow through on building multilateral economic initiatives that would increase its regional economic influence and tie it more closely to the region. Indeed, the Obama administration’s inability to have the TPP ratified by Congress was its most significant geopolitical failure in the region, and the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the agreement altogether greatly diminished the ability of the United States to engage the region in its most geopolitically critical arena.

This stands in sharp contrast to China. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become the central foreign policy concept of Chinese president Xi Jinping, and it seeks to incorporate networked infrastructure linking Europe, Africa, and Asia. BRI encompasses more than an economic corridor; instead, it seeks to utilize both people-to-people exchanges and monetary connectivity.129 The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), launched by China in January 2016, serves as a multilateral intergovernmental bank. The AIIB has been utilized by China to finance large-scale infrastructure development throughout Asia, often supporting projects central to Xi’s BRI vision across the region. Fifty-seven participating nations were represented at the signing of the AIIB, which showcased Beijing’s influence and vision to shape the economic and political order.

If the United States seeks to preserve a regional liberal order and successfully compete with a rising China, it will need to dramatically up its game in economic and trade policy toward the Indo-Pacific. Although reversing course and acceding to the TPP is the most obvious option available to the Trump administration, such a dramatic and significant reversal would, in itself, be insufficient. To truly enhance the ability of the United States to effectively engage the Indo-Pacific, Washington will need to get more creative and more ambitious in its economic and trade policies toward the region.

This would be especially true for US allies and partners, many of which are among the region’s largest and most advanced economies. Most egregiously, the United States does not have a free trade agreement with India, Japan, or Taiwan. This is a tremendous strategic error, so significant political pressure should be brought to bear to jump-start negotiations and break long-standing hurdles to completing these agreements.

In this, the United States has a major strategic advantage: its allies and partners are already focused on building infrastructure around the region. For example, Tokyo and New Delhi have become major players in building infrastructure across the region in a way that both facilitates open trade while also competing with Beijing’s ambitions for a more China-centric regional economic order. In countries like Burma and Thailand, India has contributed to efforts to build infrastructure that facilitates greater East–West integration in Southeast Asia—in direct competition to China’s efforts to foster North–South integration. Japan has also expanded its role in building East–West connectivity in Southeast Asia, and it has been investing heavily in infrastructure across the region to compete with China. For example, in January 2017, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began a two-day trip to the Philippines by announcing an aid package worth $8.66 billion. The aid package comprised both public- and private-sector financing for a variety of development projects, specifically targeting projects supporting infrastructure development. Currently, Japan is backing a project that will bring the Makati-Pasay-Taguig Mass Transit System to metro Manila; the project is valued at $8 billion. In Indonesia, Japan is funding the Train III Project, Tangguh LNG [liquefied natural gas] Facility, and in Vietnam, Japanese investment is funding the Long Thanh International Airport project—all multi-billion-dollar endeavors.131 Thus far, Japan has outspent China, $230 billion to $155 billion, in building Southeast Asian infrastructure.

However, China is quickly gaining ground on Japan as it increasingly competes to extend its influence. To combat China’s growing footprint in the region, the United States, Japan, and India have launched several initiatives aimed at promoting alternatives to Chinese infrastructure development projects throughout the Indo-Pacific.¹³² The US-based Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Japanese-based Nippon Export and Investment Insurance, and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation have provided grants and loans to help companies in South and Southeast Asia develop various infrastructure and development projects.¹³³ OPIC has also recently signed memoranda of understanding with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Association of Bilateral European Development Finance Institutions to establish greater cooperation on investments and development in emerging markets—clear signals that US allies and partners are already playing a greater role in economic statecraft.

Considering their geographic locations, Canberra, Tokyo, and Delhi (the so-called Quad) make natural partners for the United States in this endeavor, especially considering the tremendous demand for infrastructure construction in the region. Cooperation between India and Japan has been institutionalized in the so-called Asia–Africa Growth Corridor, which is a concept endorsed by prime ministers Abe and Modi in November 2016. It seeks to drive investment, construction, development assistance, and diplomatic engagements by both India and Japan across Asia and Africa—a clear, if implicit, challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.134 Japan has also formed a partnership with India in the India-Japan Coordination Forum for Development of North East, in which Japanese firms are building infrastructure in India’s Northeast—an area under increased geopolitical pressure from a rising China.

These developments are very much in the interests of the United States. They promote greater connectivity and cohesion under the principles of the rule of law and economic liberalism. The United States should support these efforts with the injection of capital, expertise, and cooperation from the US private sector. The Asia–Africa Growth Corridor represents an especially compelling avenue for US engagement across the region as part of the US Indo-Pacific strategy. Most critical, however, would be high-level encouragement from Washington to build and sustain momentum between Tokyo, New Delhi, Canberra; other key partners across the region; and potentially even Europe.

The United States should also broaden the aperture of its infrastructure engagement with the region by investing heavily in areas upon which the future economy will depend, notably digital infrastructure. As described by former deputy assistant secretary of state Nirav Patel, the United States will be best positioned to compete with China by advancing more ambitious technology in the region.135 By establishing a fund—the Asia-Pacific Technology Fund (TAP-TF)—the United States would enable a diverse range of companies, private investors, and international financial institutions to create digital highways and develop technological infrastructure that enable greater economic connectivity between the United States and the rest of the Indo-Pacific. By working with other regional partners—such as the governments of Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and India, as well as the Asian Development Bank—Patel argues that the TAP-TF could focus on large-scale, national technology projects that support market goals for US companies that would otherwise have a difficult time competing against subsidized Chinese offerings. TAP-TF would also enable US companies and their partners to more effectively bid on large-scale projects that require government financing to offset risk, demonstrate a contemporary and forward-looking American economic strategy, ensure the promulgation of secure and safe technologies, and further advance regional connectivity and transparency. Secretary Pompeo’s announcement about new investments in the digital economy,¹³⁶ and similar efforts by US allies and partners to enhance their funding of similar ventures—such as Taiwan’s Digital Nation and Innovative Economic Development Plan (known as “DIGI+”)—suggest that the framework for such an initiative may already be coalescing.

Alliances and partnerships should be conceived as relationships that go beyond military cooperation. Rather, these relationships should be thought of as platforms for diplomatic coordination across a range of issues of geopolitical significance. In the Indo-Pacific, this diplomatic coordination should cut across a wide variety of issues related to security, trade, environmental policy, and human rights. Yet, despite the multiplicity of issues involved, the purpose of these engagements would remain consistent: advancing the national interests of the United States and its allies and partners, strengthening the regional liberal order, and promoting economic and political liberalism.

Security issues are about far more than military maneuvers and calculations. Indeed, adroit diplomacy is the most important aspect of any security policy—both as a tool to advance interests and as a means to avoid and defuse tension before disagreements explode into conflict. The United States could benefit from closer diplomatic coordination with its allies and partners across a wide range of issues, including on maritime security, in space, and in promoting liberal values in the digital domain.

With respect to maritime security, in 2016, an international tribunal dramatically criticized China for its actions in the South China Sea, including its construction of artificial islands, and found that its expansive claim to sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis.137 Although this should have been a stunning rebuke to Beijing’s ambitions, it was not. This was because the United States decided not to emphasize the decision, primarily in hopes of alienating the newly elected president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. Yet while Duterte has leaned closer to Beijing anyway, Washington has to date refrained from emphasizing this ruling in its diplomatic approach to the South China Sea. The ruling of the international tribunal on the South China Sea represents an untapped opportunity for the United States. This ruling could be used as a basis not only for a legal offensive by the United States but also as a foundation for a diplomatic offensive by its allies and partners in the South China Sea and beyond. By emphasizing the decision as the legal rationale for a range of actions, the United States could both strengthen its influence in the region while also enhancing the relevance and power of international law in peacefully addressing disputes.

Regarding space, considering its significance for the global economy, they have remained relatively free of international laws. Indeed, the last (and only) major international law governing the general use of space was the Outer Space Treaty, which entered into force in 1967.138 Yet the number of states that have the ability to use space has expanded dramatically since then, and the technologies available in space have grown astronomically more sophisticated. Indeed, space is becoming increasingly congested and contested, even as it has become more essential to the global economy.¹³⁹ These issues have particular salience in Asia as a result of the significance of this domain for the regional economy, and because the region’s major powers are also increasingly major space powers. Although only three countries have the capability to support human space flight—the United States, China, and Russia—many Indo-Pacific countries rely on the capacity of major powers’ space programs to host satellite communications that support space assets, intelligence gathering, domain awareness, and other important communication functions. China is increasingly developing advanced capabilities to operate in space and hamper adversaries’ free and open use of space in crisis or conflict scenarios, signaling a need to adopt a multilateral approach with cooperative agreements governing the use of space. Considering the importance of space for the Indo-Pacific, the United States has an opportunity to lead its allies and partners in diplomatic initiatives that seek to ensure the stability and reliability of space and cyberspace and advance liberal values within them. This may be an especially fruitful area of engagement because of shared concerns across the region that China’s capabilities in these domains are increasingly troubling,¹⁴⁰ and because the lack of historical or territorial disputes in these domains may enable a greater degree of coordination and competition than in other, more traditional, arenas.

Similarly, the United States will need to pursue a coordinated diplomatic effort to coordinate its policies and those of its allies and partners on issues related to emerging technologies, such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things. Though the specifics of these technologies will differ widely, the United States should identify common principles to guide its diplomacy: protecting and promoting freedom and openness in the face of China’s technology-enabled illiberalism. And though the Trump administration has sought to pursue a coordinated diplomatic approach on some of these issues, its approach has been hampered by a lack of compelling alternatives that allies and partners can choose. Demanding that countries ban Chinese technologies from their networks is in itself insufficient—the United States must have a positive alternative vision that others can choose.

Increasing diplomatic coordination with allies and partners in Asia also means listening more and valuing US allies and partners in the region beyond their regional context. This will primarily mean considering the views of US allies and partners in Asia when considering foreign policy issues outside the region. For example, American policies vis-à-vis in the Middle East carry particular weight in US diplomatic engagements with Muslim-majority nations in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. If the United States has ambitions to expand its cooperation and coordination with these countries, it will need to recognize that its actions in the Middle East have an impact on its ability to engage in Southeast Asia.

The objective of the United States, as described by then secretary of defense Ash Carter in 2016, should be to weave bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral relationships together in a way that enables each nation to do more, over greater distances, with greater economy of effort.141 It should include a wide variety of different areas, from humanitarian crises and confronting terrorism to ensuring the security of and equal access to the global commons. It would involve identifying and strengthening areas of specialization, developing mechanisms to facilitate greater planning and cooperation, and establishing habits of cooperation to address issues of common interest and concern.

Although the bulk of this book focuses on building the United States’ bilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific, other arrangements that do not involve the United States should also be encouraged and allowed to flourish, as long as they broadly enhance regional stability and support a regional liberal order. For example, Vietnam and India have established a robust (in underappreciated) defense relationship—based on a shared heritage utilizing Russian equipment and mutual concerns about China’s growing power—that promises to greatly enhance Vietnam’s maritime capabilities.142 Japan has also built robust relationships with Vietnam and the Philippines, among other nations, and has sought to enhance maritime cooperation by establishing bilateral exercises and building their capabilities. Indonesia has also proposed trilateral joint maritime patrols with Malaysia and the Philippines.

The United States should also seek to build the capabilities of the region’s trilateral and multilateral arrangements. Although the United States–Japan–South Korea partnership will be critical to coordinating responses and policies toward North Korea, other trilateral arrangements will be critical as well. Forming partnerships with Japan and Australia, and with Japan and India, will also be important to building US strategic connectivity across the region. And though the agendas of the various meetings will depend on the interests and concerns of the participating nations, each has tremendous potential to strengthen the liberal regional order and respond to common challenges. In fact, the United States should see the trilateral relationship with Japan and Australia as the emerging core of its Indo-Pacific relations.

One mechanism that has taken on added focus under the Trump administration has been the Quad established between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India—a seeming melding of two of the trilateral relationships discussed above. This initiative, which reflects Japanese prime minister Abe’s 2012 proposal for a Democratic Security Diamond, suggests a new alignment based on shared principles and values, a common embrace of political and economic liberalism, mutual concerns about the rise of China and its implications for the region, and a joint determination to do something about it.¹⁴³ Although still in its infancy as of this writing, hopes are high regarding the potential for Quad cooperation and engagement.