How might the US military deliver on its long-held ambitions to shift its centre of gravity to the Indo-Pacific region? Euan Graham explores how the Biden administration might go about reversing a deteriorating strategic situation in Asia.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has initiated a global force posture review. China and the Indo-Pacific are expected to be identified as strategic priorities. But there is sure to be scepticism in the region about the Biden administration’s ability and willingness to deliver significant new defence commitments. A chorus-line of Austin’s predecessors described the Indo-Pacific as a priority theatre, yet ultimately fell short on reallocating assets and fiscal resources from Europe and the Middle East. Biden has also clearly signalled his intention to put diplomacy first in American statecraft. To be convincing to regional audiences, China included, defence rebalancing is likely to be required in four areas, not all of which will be within the review’s formal scope.
1. Inter-regional balancing
The most obvious option for global reposturing is moving US forward-deployed forces from one region to another. Tilting the centre of gravity for US naval operations from the Gulf to the South China Sea would be one visible way to substantiate claims of prioritisation for the largely maritime Indo-Pacific region. This could initially take the form of a commitment continuously to maintain an aircraft carrier or amphibious ready group in the South China Sea, although technology will hopefully facilitate less vulnerable ways to combine presence and credible combat power in future.
Such a reallocation of effort would require not just US Navy forces to ‘swing’ east from 5th and 6th fleets, or surge west from the 3rd Fleet, but a parallel diplomatic effort to bolster access and support arrangements in Southeast Asia and beyond. US naval logistics are currently centred on Singapore. Regaining access to Subic Bay, the site of a former US naval base in the Philippines, would help to facilitate a more agile US naval presence in the South China Sea, plugging a gap between Singapore and Japan. This would not be politically feasible until President Rodrigo Duterte leaves office, in 2022, if at all. Regardless of his successor, questions will persist about the Philippines’ reliability as a US ally against China. But a scaled-up offer of assistance for the Philippines armed forces would strengthen the hand of US diplomats, whose job it is to persuade an increasingly transactional Manila that it is in the Philippines’ interests to support a US military presence in the neighbourhood.
A ‘trial balloon’ released late in the Trump administration to reconstitute a US First Fleet, aimed at boosting the American naval presence in the eastern Indian Ocean, is worth another look, even if it amounts to no more than setting up a new numbered task force. Singapore is unlikely to host it, a casualty of the ill-considered way it was announced without prior consultation by former Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite. Australia could be more willing to embrace it, as an aid to securing its northwestern approaches, though Canberra would bargain hard over any set-up costs. A new US task force would be well placed to cooperate with India, Australia and other regional navies, counterbalancing China’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean. It would also help to free up the overstretched Japan-based 7th Fleet to concentrate on the western Pacific. Long-term US hopes are likely to remain pinned on India stepping up as hegemon in the Indian Ocean. But a modest boost to the US presence would signal Washington’s commitment to shaping the naval balance in its favour.
2. Inter-service balancing
There is a strong likelihood that defence budgets will flatline or decline under Biden. The burden of internal savings will, therefore, fall primarily on cuts to the US Army, in order to ensure that ships, submarines, aircraft and missiles are built in sufficient numbers to maintain the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. The 28,500-strong US Forces, Korea remains best suited to an Army-led command in case of a conflict on the Peninsula, but elsewhere the US Marines should be the go-to ground force for contingencies across the Indo-Pacific. The Marines are part way into a global force redesign for small-unit littoral operations that appears tailor-made for the Pacific. And they are identifying savings at the same time.
Tinkering with co-equal service funding allocations is a third-rail issue in defence. But as an ex-Army general, Austin could be the Secretary of Defense best qualified to do it, provided he receives top cover from the Biden White House against an inevitable Congressional rearguard.
3. Intra-regional balancing
Moving some additional US defence assets into the Indo-Pacific would help to maintain the balance of power and resolve in the face of China’s continuing military build-up, providing a measure of reassurance to wavering allies and partners. But Washington also needs to maximise the flexibility of its forces already in the region. US forces in Korea could find themselves sidelined in a Taiwan or other China contingency, although the US 7th Air Force has significant combat capability to contribute beyond the Korean Peninsula. However, Seoul is reticent to grant the US flexibility to deploy its forces freely, for fear of entrapment in a US–China conflict.
US–South Korea alliance relations are currently too bruised for the Biden administration to broach this head-on with Seoul. But the alliance is due for a bottom-up and mutual cost-benefit review, probably after South Korea’s presidential elections next year, and after agreement has been reached on financial support for US forces based there. Washington wants to maximise US strategic flexibility, while Seoul seeks greater autonomy. They will need to agree on a sustainable division of labour that serves regional security in broad terms. The US can no longer afford to maintain boutique defence guarantees.
4. Capacity building
It is frequently overlooked that defence capacity-building programmes in the Middle East and Europe continue to dwarf those in the Indo-Pacific. This imbalance needs to be considered and corrected in tandem with the global posture review. If America’s diplomats are expected to convince their hosts to grant greater access to US forces and to take on more collaborative roles and missions, as part of a broad-based deterrence approach towards China, then they will require incentives in hand.
It is unrealistic to expect that the US global force posture review will surge US defence resources en masse to the Indo-Pacific. Course-correcting the Pentagon juggernaut is difficult. Effecting strategic change in the real world is exponentially harder, given the need to move in step with allies and partners, some of whom skimp on their own defence and actively hedge on China. America’s adversaries get to ‘vote’, too. But the review presents an opportunity for the Biden administration to begin turning around a deteriorating strategic situation in Asia.
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