Complete the Pivot: Refocus on the Greatest Strategic Opportunity in Asia
Author: Brian Slamkowski, Stanford Masters in International Policy ’23
A NATO resurrection. Europe united. Defense expenditures are up, and Russia’s oil imports are down. Putin’s devastating and needless war in Ukraine spurred defense apathetic Europe to circle the wagons unprecedentedly. And Xi Jinping is watching intently as the intellectual, financial, military, and diplomatic resources of the world focus solely on Ukraine. Now is the time for America to use this Western coalition momentum in Europe to complete its Pivot to Asia and our most significant strategic threat while maintaining proper sized support to Europe.
In 2011, in a bid to re-engage with Asia and compete with China, President Obama announced a bold strategy to shift economic, diplomatic, and military resources to Asia. President Obama sought to earn the title of “first Pacific President” through his Administration’s “Pivot to Asia” strategy. This so-called rebalancing of US government resources towards Asia saw only modest adoption and limited success. Modest wins included a deliberate engagement strategy with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), strengthening of trade relationships, and limited military augmentation across US bases in Asia. Last month, President Biden attended the special US-ASEAN summit that began under President Obama in mid-May this year. The Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TTP), which never gained Congressional approval under President Obama, was a potential “pivot” win to counter Chinese trade dominance in the region. President Trump completely withdrew the US from the TTP in early 2017. Additionally, the US failed to deliver any improvement from the obstinate North Korean government’s nuclear weapon ambition. The “pivot” was ultimately overshadowed by hit spots across the Middle East, such as ISIS’s meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria, the war in Afghanistan, and the Iran nuclear deal work.
Now, over a decade after President Obama’s original “Pivot,” the US remains incorrectly invested and failing to leverage talent and resources in Asia properly. For decades, the US guaranteed NATO and EU security while European governments provided little will and even less funding. Putin has done what consecutive US Administrations failed to do through diplomacy and rhetoric — unify NATO and the EU to the tune of additional defense expenditures and steps by the Western world to decouple from Russia economically. The resource pledges by the EU, such as Germany’s decision to spend 2% of GDP on defense and the potential Nordic expansion of NATO, provide the US a rare opportunity to focus its power back to Asia.
The US needs to make meaningful progress across three main pillars of national power: Diplomatic, Economic, and Military now to end the total eclipse of global resources and engagement by the Russia — Ukraine conflict.
Diplomatically, the US must meaningfully engage with Asia. President Biden has traveled to Asia just once (May’s U.S.-ASEAN special summit) thus far in his Presidency. The Administration must commit high-level officials to relationship building across the region to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) penchant for undercutting global rules and international norms. Kurt Campbell, President Biden’s Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, stated that he was “aware” that the Biden Administration has been “stymied or directed towards other pursuits” instead of focused on Asia. Reassuring and bolstering critical allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia start with getting Asia on the travel schedule for Secretaries Blinken and Austin at a minimum.
Economically, the US must invest in friends and allies to counter China with increased targeted Foreign Direct Investment to countries that benefit from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — Cambodia and Malaysia in particular. The US should paint their lead in FDI, $34.7 billion to Asia, versus China’s $12 billion per the ASEAN investment statistics as far more beneficial support compared to the dubious lending practices of the BRI.
Countering China through economic engagement with ASEAN is critical to balancing US trade in Asia and weaning Asian countries off a total dependence of trade with China. The recently announced Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), a voluntary Partnership lacking enforcement mechanisms, doesn’t appear as first announced to have the teeth to compete with China truly. The Regional and Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a Chinese-led Asian trade agreement, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the originally US led trade answer to China that the US ultimately withdrew from, dominate the Asian trade landscape. While it’s too early to judge the success of the nascent IPEF, the fact that India has already declined to join the trade portion of the Partnership is not a positive sign.
Ending the unsuccessful trade war with China and removing Chinese companies from US stock markets will cut access to capital and limit ASEAN’s over-reliance on trade with China. This trade offsetting will limit ASEAN exposure to Chinese exports and increase US export competitiveness in Asia writ large. At home, the US must reinvigorate enforcement of Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) while tightening export controls to limit Chinese capture of US national security companies while squeezing Chinese companies off US export and IP expertise.
President Biden’s recent announcement that the US would intervene if China attempted to take Taiwan by force, which was promptly walked back by aides, must inform military engagement and focus in Asia. Militarily, the US must arm Taiwan now to avoid a late in the game logistics nightmare like the current Ukraine arms support situation. Next, the US must move to gain additional basing rights and craft new bilateral or multilateral military agreements with countries in the region. Basing rights and Status of Forces Agreements between the US and foreign governments are mutually beneficial agreements to host US Forces on bases in a foreign country. Forward deployed forces provide many benefits to military readiness, including active deterrence of adversaries such as North Korea and China, joint training and capacity building with the host nation’s Military, and regional logistics capability.
There are openings with countries historically lukewarm to close US ties. This alignment is possible with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam based on land disputes with China in the South China Sea. Continued military to military engagement across the services with large scale exercises as the culmination of training cycles such as the US Army’s Pacific Pathways remains important shows of military engagement and interoperability. The necessary next step is countering Chinese Anti-Access and Area Denial capabilities which use long-range ballistic missiles from land and sea to deter the US from engaging militarily in the region. The concern lies in Chinese A2AD systems effectively “shutting out” US forces from Asian conflict areas by destroying US capabilities before they can even enter engagement zones near China. The US must catch up in the technological race for hypersonic missile capability — long-range and supersonic weapons technology. Whether official US policy shifts from strategic ambiguity to strategic defense of Taiwan, the military viability of Taiwan has to be at the forefront of all US military moves in the region. As the US painfully learned in Ukraine, with its 11th-hour scramble to arm Ukraine with weapons systems that could have been delivered over five years ago, the time to arm Taiwan is now.
Europe’s newfound unity with steadfast engagement by the US frees up resources to re-engage Asian allies to counter China. Assisting European partners in Europe should take the form of American engagement in Asia on behalf of America itself and our European allies. The world’s current shiny object syndrome — myopic focus on Ukraine — will cost America and Europe in the years to come unless we rebalance resources towards Asia now.
Brian Slamkowski is a Major in the U.S. Army and currently a GEN Wayne Downing Scholar at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies. The views are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Department of the Army or the U.S. Department of Defense.
