We must mobilize allies and partners to take collective action. We have to broaden our tools to include diplomacy and development; sanctions and isolation; appeals to international law; and, if just, necessary and effective, multilateral military action. In such circumstances, we have to work with others because collective action in these circumstances is more likely to succeed, more likely to be sustained, less likely to lead to costly mistakes.
—PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, MAY 2014
Alliances and partners are fundamental geopolitical assets and a critical strategic advantage for the United States. This is especially true in the Indo-Pacific, where major geopolitical shifts have both highlighted the benefits of a liberal order while simultaneously risking its collapse. It is a fundamental interest of the United States to preserve key liberal principles in the Indo-Pacific, and it cannot do so without robust engagement from Washington and a strategy that empowers its allies and partners.
For over a century, American strategy toward the Indo-Pacific has shifted between a focus on continental Asia and a focus on maritime Asia—a debate more currently replicated by those that advocate for a strategy focused on China, and a strategy focused on America’s allies and partners.1 Some may interpret this book as a call for the latter—that the United States should base its strategy toward the Indo-Pacific on its allies and partners.
The reality, however, is that the duality in American strategy toward the Indo-Pacific is shifting. This is because the Indo-Pacific is no longer a peripheral theater to a broader strategic drama; the region today is at the center stage of international geopolitics. For the United States to succeed, it cannot afford to get China wrong, and it cannot afford to get its approach to its allies and partners wrong. In fact, this book argues that the United States’ approach to China cannot be successful without a focus on its allies and partners, and its approach to its allies and partners cannot be successful without a realistic and visionary strategy for China. No longer dichotomies, these aspects of strategy toward the Indo-Pacific are now inextricably interwoven.
Preserving and strengthening a liberal order in the Indo-Pacific will be critical to US interests, and US allies and partners have a critical role to play in contributing to this order’s health and success. Collective action among allies and partners will become increasingly necessary for success, even as such action will likely be piecemeal, episodic, and haphazard at the outset.
Setting objectives and ideal states is needed for leadership, but so too is flexibility. For example, a highly significant indication of successful empowerment of US allies and partners would be the occasional establishment of a peacetime combined multinational carrier group operating in the Indo-Pacific’s international waters. Given enough time, such a group could involve Japanese carriers, American submarines, South Korean and Indian surface vessels, and ground-based aerial support from Indonesia, Australia, and Singapore.
Yet the success of any strategy in the Indo-Pacific will hinge on Washington’s ability to work with its allies and partners to develop a compelling liberal alternative to the well-funded but illiberal vision being promoted by Beijing. Too often, Washington’s competitive strategies—especially outside the military sphere—have been to simply oppose Beijing at every turn. From the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative to Huawei, it seems that Washington’s strategy too often boils down to “just say no.” Unfortunately, that will not cut it in an increasingly competitive and consequential Indo-Pacific. The United States needs a compelling liberal alternative for other countries to choose, and to promote a transparent, rules-based environment that allows for open and honest competition between these visions. Ultimately, Washington must have confidence in its own vision and that countries in the middle will align with it more often than not because liberalism is, fundamentally, a better deal than illiberalism.
If the United States fails to preserve a liberal order in the Indo-Pacific, and allows its alliances and partnerships to continue to wither, strategic disaster awaits. If we do not act to define the geopolitics of the twenty-first century, China will be free to remake the system according to its own interests and values.
Yet for all the talk of China’s rise and American decline, the United States remains particularly well suited to lead the Indo-Pacific toward a brighter future. The United States has never been a nation to sit on its laurels or drift in splendid isolation. Rather, the United States is a country that is forever aspirational, ever vigorous, and consistently optimistic that it can be a force for good in the world. In this, American policymakers seeking to strengthen the region’s liberal order can embrace the ideals of the US Constitution, which envisioned “a more perfect union” as a clarion call for a project that is an aspiring, optimistic, never finished, and forever just beyond our reach.