And yet it will remain a vital national security task for the United States to maintain a forward presence in the region in order to protect freedom of navigation in the region's sea, air, space, and cyber commons and to maintain the credibility of its partner security relationships. A major component of the solution to this problem will be a stronger U.S. program to build partner capacity in the region. Such a program would include, but also extend well beyond, security force assistance directed against insurgency and irregular warfare threats.
A "full spectrum" regional security force assistance strategy would buy broader access to the region for U.S. military forces, an improvement on the current vulnerable basing plan. It would create additional capacity with which to share the burden of policing the region's commons. This strategy would help develop positive norms of behavior for all countries in the region which benefit from the commons. Finally, a "full spectrum" regional security force assistance strategy would provide an organizing principle for the U.S. government's overall strategy for the region and would include significant roles for all of the military services, the Department of State, U.S. country teams across the region, and many other agencies of the U.S. government.
Background
Last week, Michael Auslin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, presented his research report "Security in the Indo-Pacific Commons." A panel discussion, moderated by AEI's Thomas Donnelly, critiqued his report (click here for a video of the conference).
Here are bullet points from Auslin's report and from the panel discussion:
"Security in the Indo-Pacific Commons"
1. Due to its economic strength, military power, and political dynamism, the Indo-Pacific will be the world's most important region in coming decades.
2. Ensuring security in the Indo-Pacific region will be the primary foreign policy challenge for the United States and liberal nations over the next generation.
3. The interests of the United States and its allies and partners lie in protecting the Indo-Pacific commons.
4. As a result of China's military buildup, the United States and its allies can no longer be assured of maintaining regional superiority of forces either numerically or, eventually, qualitatively.
5. The U.S. military must maintain a forward presence and superior power projection capabilities in the region. In order to achieve this, the U.S. should increase its attack submarine, ballistic missile defense surface combatant, Air Force, and cyber-ISR force structure in the region.
6. The U.S. government needs a new regional political strategy for the region. One part of this strategy would be to end the traditional U.S.-centered "hub-and-spoke" security system and encourage more multilateral security cooperation. Auslin proposes a "concentric triangles" political approach with the outer triangle representing Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India and the inner triangle centered on countries bordering the lower South China Sea.
7. The U.S. should also promote a more liberal political environment and culture in the region. A liberal political culture would foster political stability, positive norms of behavior in the commons, and cooperation in resolving conflicts. Auslin is careful not to equate this effort to explicit democracy promotion or a "freedom agenda."
Panel discussion
Admiral Timothy Keating, USN (ret), former Commander, U.S. Pacific Command
1. Keating's conclusion from a long career spent in the region: all players he talked to, whether friends or non-friends of the U.S., said the U.S. was "the indispensible power" in the region and must never leave.
2. Keating expressed concern that China will view U.S. multilateral alliance-building as an effort to isolate and contain China.
3. U.S. anti-piracy assistance provided to Indonesia and Singapore largely vanquished the piracy problem in the Strait of Malacca and is a notable recent BPC success. [I will add JSOTF-Philippines to this example.]
J.D. Crouch II, deputy national security advisor, George W. Bush administration
1. The East Asian security environment has changed "radically' over the past 14 months. The Chinese leadership has misinterpreted the global financial crisis, mistakenly viewing it as a significant weakening in the U.S. strategic position. China is now testing whether it can exploit this misperceived opportunity.
2. The Bush and Obama administrations have attempted to persuade China to become "a responsible stakeholder" in the international system. China has rejected this proposal and the U.S. will have to adjust its strategies accordingly.
3. Other Asian countries like having the U.S. as a security partner because the U.S. homeland is not in Asia.
4. The State Department needs a modernized organization and better internal communications in order to improve its effectiveness in the region.
Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Also a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
1. Anti access/area denial threats to U.S. sea and air power in the region will get much worse. The United States will no longer be able to take air and sea dominance for granted.
2. Forward basing and power projection will become increasingly challenging. The Pentagon should only acquire platform and capabilities that can survive in non-permissive environments.
Comments
There can be no doubt that the U.S. economy, as well as the global market, depends on sea passage of commerce.
While I agree with Michael Austin that the U.S. must find innovative new approaches in establishing allies and partners within the Indo-Pacific commons, how strictly should the U.S. view China as an enemy adversary as opposed to that of a keen economic competitor, and also include China as a partner, though probably never as an allie?
One issue is for certain, the U.S. government would probably be hard pressed to officially put a figure on it, but our Navy may have spent easily 7 trillion dollars since the Carter Doctrine has been in play, and that simply cannot continue.
One might also note that China's economy also depends on sea passage of commerce, to an even greater extent than ours. Free passage of the Indian Ocean and the Straits of SE Asia is a matter of concern for us; it is a matter of existential need for China.
What we interpret as aggressive power projection may simply be unwillingness to grant a rival sole control over China's commercial aorta. If we were in their place I suspect we'd be a great deal more assertive.
We often forget that we and the Chinese have very substantial common interests, most notably the maintenance of trade and keeping a steady supply of energy at as stable a price as possible. We're also inclined to forget that China's greatest security threat is internal dissent, and that China can only keep their domestic house in order by keeping the economic boat stable and on course. Their economic vulnerabilities are at least as great as ours, in some ways greater. AEI may be ideologically predisposed to buy into the "Chinese Juggernaut" school of thought, but that's by no means the only or the most reasonable view of the situation.
Must say I'm curious about this comment:
<i>The current "protectorate" approach employed by the United States, centered on large military bases in the region, is rapidly becoming obsolete.</i>
It seems to me that the approach referred to is long gone, and has been since the shutdown of Clark and Subic. In most of the Indo-Pacific region we don't have large military bases, and haven't for some time.
Dayuhan, re-establishing overly large military bases is probably a thing of the past. The hard cash outlay itself a major constraint, and their fixed vulnerability to missile attack aside, another reason may be the example of the resentment citizens convey toward their governments that permit permanent stationing of U.S. forces on their soil such as Japan in the Western Pacific, and Arabs in the ME.
However, as a caveat, I know that senior officials, both military(CENTCOM) and State, routinely lobby the likes of President Salih in Yemen to allow development of a moderate naval facility on Socotra Island.
Therefore, the U.S. thinking may not be quite as you "long gone" toward this approach? Nor is Chinas, as evidenced by their eagerness to build a naval base in the Gulf of Aden, as well as Viet-Nam offering Cam Ranh Bay to Russia.
Be this as it may, the U.S. should recognize that there are common issues that are transnational, that also include China as a cooperating partner.
I said the large-base strategy was gone, didn't say it was gone forever... though I don't think it likely to reappear in the near future. This statement from the article:
<i>The current "protectorate" approach employed by the United States, centered on large military bases in the region, is rapidly becoming obsolete.</i>
suggests that it still exists, and seemed a bit incongruous.
I've no fundamental objection to building the capacity of regional allies, but these regional allies do have to deal with the Chinese, and realistically the capacity gap is so large, especially in SE Asia, that capacity building is unlikely to alter the basic strategic equation.
It's quite natural for the Chinese to want to have some naval presence in the Middle East and Indian Ocean. They are hugely dependent on shipments of oil coming in from that area, and much of their vital export commerce passes those same lanes. Today an antagonist with superior naval projection could completely collapse the Chinese economy without ever coming within their military range, simply by interdicting their commerce in that area. That's a vulnerability they will certainly want to address, and less an offensive move than a defensive move.
I'm not convinced (despite living in SE Asia) that we should be viewing China as "the enemy", but AEI is of course a bit predisposed to that direction!