Since its articulation in 2011, the ‘rebalance’ or
‘pivot’ to the Indo–Pacific has encountered substantial skepticism from some
quarters. To some observers, the pivot is doomed. Such analysts tend to
overlook the gains the pivot has achieved; underestimate how it prepares the
United States to deal with the major remaining challenges the region faces; and
oversell the implications of the delay or abandonment of the proposed
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. By contrast, I will argue that the
pivot is not doomed and is in fact alive and well: it was and remains the right
policy for the United States; has already achieved substantial results; is
assisting the United States in getting through a difficult period in relations
with two key allies who are undergoing substantial domestic turmoil; and is a
long-term policy that should continue to unfold over several years to come,
with potential additional gains remaining to be captured in the out years.
The importance of the Indo-Pacific – home to five U.S. treaty allies;
numerous democracies and important trade and investment partners; four nuclear
weapons states (India, China, Russia and North Korea; five if one includes
Pakistan), and a substantial portion of the world’s economic activity and
anticipated future economic growth – is undeniable. This is especially true as
the European Union confronts potential disintegration and economic stagnation,
and with the Middle East in deep turmoil. And it is also true that the
Indo-Pacific is the source of substantial security threats to the United
States, most notably in the forms of North Korean nuclear weapons development and
brinkmanship, and Chinese coercion and challenges to regional order. Prior to
2009, the perception was taking root that the United States had turned its
attention away from the region for good and was prepared to cede it to Chinese
influence. This was, in part, the motivation for the pivot.
GAINS…
To strengthen U.S. influence, counter these negative trends, and
reinforce positive regional cooperation in support of the liberal, rule of law
international order, the Obama administration pursued the pivot, a whole of
government policy that has already achieved numerous gains for the United
States. Among these are:
·
the tightening of U.S.-Japan and U.S.-South Korea relations (both at
all-time best levels);
·
the revision of the U.S.-Japan defense guidelines, expanding cooperation
geographically as well as into outer space and cyberspace while establishing a
standing Alliance Coordination Mechanism and a Bilateral Planning Mechanism;
·
the agreement by South Korea to permit the emplacement of a Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense battery on peninsula to protect U.S. Forces Korea;
·
increases in contributions to support forward deployed U.S. forces in
both Japan and South Korea;
·
increased defense spending by U.S. allies, including substantial
procurement of U.S. defense hardware that increases interoperability, enhances
deterrence, and thereby lowers the probability of conflict as well as the per
unit cost of U.S. defense platforms;
·
the expansion of U.S. access rights to military installations in Darwin,
(Australia), five sites in the Philippines (under the Enhanced Defense
Cooperation Agreement), and Singapore;
·
increased bi-, tri-, and multi-lateral defense cooperation, including
training and exercises as well as collaboration on building partner capacity;
·
deepening political-diplomatic and military cooperation with new
potentially strategically relevant partners such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia
and Vietnam;
·
improved military ties with New Zealand, allowing the Kiwis to engage
with the United States on a deeper level than in the past three decades;
·
support for regional political liberalization, most notably in Myanmar
which has transitioned away from junta rule towards democratic governance;
·
greater inclusion in the key multilateral bodies of the Indo-Pacific,
including membership in the East Asian Summit, made possible by the signing of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) Treaty of Amity and
Cooperation and further facilitated by the appointment of an ambassador to
ASEAN; and
·
as a consequence of the investment of attention and respect in regional
institutions, a greater willingness of countries in Southeast Asia to stand
together (even if China is still able to buy off or twist Cambodia’s arm) in
support of the rules-based international order and respect for international
law.
These gains are largely if not completely irreversible and, as I have
argued elsewhere, have in many cases entered into the standard bureaucratic
planning and operations of many U.S. agencies as well as the baseline
assumptions about the region’s organization held by many of its most important
actors. They do not, however, address the totality of challenges to U.S.
interests, values, and allies that are present in the region.
…AND PAINS
There are three major challenges for the next administration that the
pivot has helped lay the groundwork for addressing, but has not (and was not
designed to nor could it reasonably be expected to have) resolved, and one
challenge that it was designed to address but has yet to achieve:
·
North Korea’s nuclear ambitions (including both its development of
weapons and associated delivery vehicles) and its willingness to engage in
highly provocative asymmetric or conventional attacks on South Korea (and
potentially other countries);
·
China’s aggressive moves employing threats and coercion to reshape the
regional economic, legal, and geo-strategic order to suit its interests,
including its attempt to change the status of the South China Sea through the construction
of artificial islands equipped with military installations in the Spratly
Island chain, efforts to ignore or de-legitimate the Permanent Court of
Arbitration’s ruling on the 9-dash line, and gray zone coercion aimed at
forcing Japan to open negotiations over the status of the Senkakus;
·
the substantial erosion in U.S. relations with Thailand and the
Philippines stemming from internal political developments in Bangkok and
Manila; and
·
the restructuring and harmonization of the rules governing regional
trading relations and economic interactions, characterized first and foremost
by the TPP agreement.
The pivot laid the groundwork for a more aggressive effort to challenge
North Korea and impose costs on it for its actions by tightening defense
cooperation with South Korea and Japan as well as by moving forward U.S. assets
and encouraging greater intelligence-sharing between Seoul and Tokyo.
Washington has also won support for the condemnation of North Korean human
rights abuses at the UN, imposed substantial new sanctions on Pyongyang, and
won some acquiescence and support for punishing North Korean provocations and
violations of UN Security Council resolutions from China and Russia. The next
administration will have to build on this by assessing how far to go in
imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese organizations that violate the
sanctions regime.
The pivot also enabled the United States to manage tensions with China
and achieve some notable positive outcomes despite Beijing’s many highly
provocative actions abroad and a rapid turn towards deeper authoritarianism
domestically. In addition to avoiding armed conflict, the U.S. approach to
China under the pivot has enabled some cooperation on stabilizing and deepening
military-to-military ties and enhancing the safety of U.S. military personnel
operating in proximity to Chinese forces; reducing cyber-enabled industrial
espionage; coordinating on steps to address global climate change and reduce
the fallout from the global financial crisis; and produced some diplomatic
cooperation on confronting North Korea, Iran, and the Islamic State.
Additionally, as a consequence of credible signaling of Washington’s support
for positive cross-Strait ties, the United States was able to sell Taiwan
record amounts of defense hardware, assisting Taipei in modernizing its armed
forces without leading to a break in U.S.–China relations. Washington’s growing
ties with regional actors have also enabled it to marshal some diplomatic
support for condemning Chinese actions, while a more geographically distributed
and operationally resilient U.S. force posture and tighter defense cooperation
with key partners bolsters the U.S. ability to resist any efforts to target
U.S. forces or compel them to leave the region.
Additionally, the pivot better prepared the United States for the
turbulence it has encountered in relations with Thailand and the Philippines in
recent years. In the summer of 2014 the Thai military launched a coup that
toppled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from power after weeks of
opposition-led street protests that had brought Bangkok to the brink of civil
unrest. Though U.S.-Thai relations have suffered substantial cooling in the
wake of the junta’s seizure of power, the Obama administration has been careful
to preserve the alliance and play the long game for when the military finally
returns to barracks and the country is handed back to civilian rule. Similarly,
with the advent of the Rodrigo Duterte administration in Manila, the alliance
between the United States and the Philippines appears to be in substantial
turmoil as a consequence of the Filipino president’s view of the United States.
The prospect of a complete break in Washington-Manila relations is reduced,
however, because the Filipino people are overwhelmingly pro-US, partly as a
consequence of efforts by the Obama administration to strengthen ties and
support the Filipino filing at the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Like with
Thailand, the pivot may help the United States get through a tumultuous period driven
by a set of developments in the internal politics of the Philippines, hopefully
preserving the warm relations between the two countries despite the particular
peculiarities of the Duterte administration.
Finally, a word about the TPP is in order.
Taken together with closer cooperation with allies, engagement with emerging
powers, support for regional multilateral institutions, and a cooperative
relationship with China, economic engagement with the region constitutes one of
the five legs of the pivot, and TPP is widely seen as the leading indicator of
deeper U.S. economic ties to the Indo-Pacific. In the wake of the global
financial crisis, the Obama administration sought new sources of economic
growth, including through exports abroad and a more efficient allocation of
capital at home. Together with ratification of the Korea-U.S Free Trade
Agreement, TPP was intended to provide an economic counterpart to the
political-diplomatic, multilateral or institutional, and military or defense
steps outlined above. If TPP is never taken up by the Congress, or is taken up
and rejected, this will constitute a serious setback for the pivot, although it
is debatable whether or not this would truly constitute a crippling blow.
However, rival programs for deepening economic cooperation in the region (the
China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Agreement or the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership) do not appear to be moving ahead quickly and are, at any rate,
shallow in terms of overall economic impact and so will not dramatically change
the nature of the regional economic order if they are realized. TPP’s main
impact is often thought of as an indication of regional norm-creation and
rules-making, as well as an incentive for regional economic actors to shift
production away from patterns that give China undue influence over the economic
future of the region. While rejection of the TPP would be seen by many as
constituting a serious failure by the United States to influence the future
direction of regional economic growth, it is not clear that a delay of TPP (or
even a renegotiation of specific provisions) would constitute a loss of
anything approaching an extremely substantial magnitude.
AMERICA – A RESIDENT PACIFIC POWER, NOW AND FOREVER
As the Obama administration has emphasized, by dint of geography, interests,
and values, the United States is and always will be a Pacific nation that will
play a leading role in shaping the future of the region. The pivot has
undoubtedly achieved substantial gains already, improving U.S. popularity and
influence, and positioning America for additional gains in regional economic,
diplomatic, and military cooperation for years to come. Any incoming
administration would be wise to embrace these gains and build on them so as to
preserve and further develop U.S. interests and influence in the region.
Dr. Scott W. Harold is the associate
director of The Center for Asia Pacific Policy, and a political scientist at
the non-profit, non-partisan RAND Corporation, as well as a member of the
Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty.
Image: U.S. Navy
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