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.”

Nearly 14 years later, the so-called pivot still hasn’t happened. But when it comes to the military domain, this is a blessing in disguise.

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, US national and regional security would be better protected by a reduced US 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 US resources.

Even if we accept the premise that China is America’s most formidable challenger, however, it is far from clear that increasing US hard power in the Indo-Pacific region is an effective way of competing with Beijing or safeguarding US or allied interests.

For starters, a larger US military posture in Asia will do little to protect US 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 US military forces in Asia does not help Washington counter either of these threats.

In fact, efforts to increase the US 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 US 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.

More military power in the region is also unnecessary for securing US 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, US 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 US military forces operating from Guam and nearby locations well outside the first island chain.

Finally, a larger US 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 US 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 US 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 US military presence, a smaller military footprint is likely sufficient to achieve the power balance the United States seeks. A reduced US 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 US military buildup, and those in the US foreign policy circles still dreaming of US primacy. Still, it would deliver on at least two of US 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 US-China confrontation. It’s time for the United States to pivot home.