America Shouldn't Pivot to Asia

Speaking to the Australian parliament in late 2011, then-President Barack Obama announced that after a decade of fighting in the Middle East, the United States would be “turning [its] attention to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region,” a move that came to be known colloquially as the “pivot to Asia.”

The United States does not need to increase its military footprint in Asia to secure its core interests: defending the homeland and assuring American economic prosperity. Instead, U.S. national and regional security would be better protected by a reduced U.S. military presence alongside continued investment to help allies take responsibility for their own defence burden. Such a strategy will have its detractors, in Washington and in the region, but it will benefit all parties while dramatically reducing the risk of major power war.

Seeing China as the only near peer rival with both the intent and the capability to challenge what remains of the American-led rules-based order, those who urge Washington to focus its military energies on Asia see such a reorientation as required given China’s growing power and constrained U.S. resources.

For starters, a larger U.S. military posture in Asia will do little to protect U.S. physical security. China’s military might is growing rapidly but Beijing continues to lack the power projection capabilities needed to pose a direct conventional threat to Hawaii or the continental United States. China can menace the United States in the cyber and nuclear domains, of course, but having more U.S. military forces in Asia does not help Washington counter either of these threats.

In fact, efforts to increase the U.S. military presence along the first island chain may be contributing to growing tensions and instability in the Western Pacific. As the United States has expanded its military infrastructure in the Philippines, for instance, China ramped up its armed confrontations with the Philippines’ Coast Guard in the South China Sea. As the United States placed military trainers on Taiwan and increased its defence cooperation with the island, Beijing intensified the military and economic pressure it directs daily across the Taiwan Strait. The net effect of more U.S. military investment in Asia, then, has not been stronger deterrence of China, but rather a gradual climb up the escalation ladder and an increased chance of war.

Efforts to increase the U.S. military presence along the first island chain may be contributing to growing tensions and instability (Jade M. Caldwell/U.S. Air Force Photo)

More military power in the region is also unnecessary for securing U.S. or allied access to key Asian economic markets. China likely does not have the capability to interdict commercial traffic along trade routes in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, but it also has never demonstrated the intent to do so and would damage its own trade-dependent economy with any attempt. In a worst-case scenario, U.S. and allied commercial ships could still reach key ports in Japan and South Korea by passing through the Philippine Sea, to the west of Japan, protected by U.S. military forces operating from Guam and nearby locations well outside the first island chain.

Finally, a larger U.S. military footprint is not required to achieve the broader goal of preventing a Chinese regional hegemony that leaves most of Asia under Beijing’s thumb or forces a U.S. retreat. For some, the key to preventing Chinese dominance in Asia lies in ensuring that Beijing is never able to seize control of Taiwan. Much of the current U.S. military posture in the region, in fact, is intended to credibly deter China from even trying to achieve this long-time desire.

But the benefits that China would gain were it to achieve its unification with Taiwan are far too small to swing the regional balance of power in Beijing’s favour. To reach that tipping point, China would need to have at least Japan and probably also India and South Korea as vassal states – an improbable outcome any time soon given the size, geography, industrial capacity, and growing military strength of these countries.

Far from demanding an increase in U.S. military presence, a smaller military footprint is likely sufficient to achieve the power balance the United States seeks. A reduced U.S. presence in Asia might include primarily air and naval forces, concentrated along the second island chain and in select strategic locations in Japan (away from Okinawa) and the Philippines, intended to backstop these allies in case of a threat to their sovereignty. India, Australia, and South Korea can manage their own defence, but the United States could continue to support them with economic and military investment to guarantee they are strong enough to serve as independent counterweights to a more powerful China.

An end to America’s “pivot to Asia” project will be a disappointment to some, including allies in the region hoping for continued U.S. security guarantees, defence contractors looking to make profits off a U.S. military buildup, and those in the U.S. foreign policy circles still dreaming of U.S. primacy. Still, it would deliver on at least two of U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign promises – putting American interests first and avoiding costly and unnecessary foreign entanglements – and would leave the region better off by reducing opportunities for a U.S.-China confrontation. It’s time for the United States to pivot home.

Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a think tank in Washington DC. Previously, she was a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation where she led RAND’s Army Strategy program for three years. She is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.