Memo to Obama: Don't forget about Asia

Fri, 01/16/2009 - 5:44pm

By Aaron Friedberg

Henry Kissinger once described his time in government this way:

Sometimes it feels as if you were in one of those movies, sitting on the track in front of an express train. The train is bearing down on you. You know what to do if you did not have ten other things that needed doing first. You are praying that the train somehow will miss and you will not get hit.

When he takes office next Tuesday, Barack Obama is going to find trains bearing down on him from all sides: conflict in Gaza, unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorist threats, a brewing confrontation between India and Pakistan, Iran on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons, and an unresolved global economic crisis of unprecedented proportions.

With so many urgent problems to contend with, the new administration will have precious little time to devote to a more distant, but fast-approaching challenge that may yet turn out to be the biggest of them all: the ongoing shift in world wealth and power towards Asia and, in particular, the rise of China. Here’s a report, released this week, that’s designed to help. In it, my co-author Dan Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute and I (drawing on the conversations of an outstanding working group) describe the key features of “An American Strategy for Asia.”

As regards China, we argue that, even as it continues its long-standing policy of economic and diplomatic engagement, the United States is going to have to step up its efforts to maintain a favorable balance of power in East Asia. Towards this end we advocate the further strengthening of our existing bilateral alliance and quasi-alliance relationships, the creation of new multi-lateral mechanisms for promoting strategic cooperation among Asia’s democracies, and some significant improvements in U.S. capabilities to offset China’s ongoing military buildup. We conclude that: “The United States and its regional friends and allies have among them more than ample resources to ensure their security. But if they fail to deploy them in an effective and purposeful way, they will find themselves on the wrong end of a rapidly shifting balance of power.” 

While it struggles to meet other, more immediate challenges, the Obama administration must find the time, energy and, hardest of all, the resources, to deal with this one as well.

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Good report. I have a couple

by Brett on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 12:30am

Good report. I have a couple of comments-

1. It has been mentioned that China is basically going to hit a serious problem in the soon-to-be accelerated aging of its population. How will that affect its military and trade positions, I wonder? After all, usually the most turbulent and violent states are plagued by "youth bulges" in the form of lots of angry young men.

2. I think the Chinese extensive evaluation of the US (and that goes beyond things like influencing the US through various channels - the latest JCS Report points out that there are more PLA students in American universities than American military officers, or something like that) is inevitable. But we can use that to our advantage, perhaps by shaping what China -possibly a new hegemon - thinks of as the best way to act as a hegemon.

3. How progressed are China's naval programs, and specifically the types of things that would allow for force projection? That's always been the weakness of the Chinese military - they have a large land army and a large air force (both of which they are modernizing rapidly), but neither of the above really does them any good if they don't have good naval forces, since most of their strategic competitors in the region aside from Vietnam (and possibly South Korea) are separated from China by the sea.

That (plus any prospective Chinese efforts to build and acquire a long-range strategic bomber fleet) is what would get me to really worry; if we woke up one day and found out that the Chinese now had a couple of aircraft carriers and a much better blue-water navy.

4. Like you, I have serious doubts as to whether we'll ever convince the North Korean regime to give up its nuclear program. Nukes are just so irresistible to a country like that, where the leadership always feels like it is under threat from a much superior outside force.

That said, perhaps you could get a peace treaty with North Korea, allowing the Norks to pull a lot of their military pieces of equipment away from the 38th parallel - then sell the bomb to the South Koreans, assuming they would take it. There'd probably be some howling about proliferation, but I think it would actually make things more stable, since both North Korea and South Korea could then check each other. Either that, or build an ABM system in South Korea (which, if operated by the US, could also be used conveniently to check Chinese and Russian missiles).

5. With the Japanese, would a serious "solid" commitment really solidify the ties with the US further? Like, say, offering to close down the Okinawa marine base, while building a major naval base somewhere else in Japan's territory? It's naval power we really need if you're concerned about China, at least from what I've seen.

6. What do you mean when you say you want Korea to take a more Tokyo-style bilateral alliance posture with the US? The South Koreans already have the military strength to go toe-to-toe with the North.

7. Could we promote stronger Taiwanese-Korean-Japanese security relations? It would probably further help to check Chinese strength in that area if Korea and Japan both saw Taiwan as part of maintaining a balance of power against China, and set up their own security guarantees/sale of arms/military aid/etc.

8. Australia is an interesting case. I can definitely see the Chinese trying to get a foot in there. Why aren't they in ASEAN again?

9. Burma, interestingly enough, wouldn't be as difficult to deal with as you think. If I recall correctly, pretty much all of the military leadership and government is centralized in one fortress area - one precision air strike could take it out, along with the dictatorship. You could then either let things sort out, or send in a mixed U.S./Thai peacekeeping force to maintain order and distribute food aid. Of course, it would really piss off China, and probably Vietnam, but . . .

10. I'm not quite sure I agree on the issue of how well India is prepared to deal with the future. India's future population growth is a nightmare waiting to happen, and the state has some of the most serious issues worldwide with poverty and corruption. That's the problem with India -the country is just so bloody big, that you can have huge groups of well-off people (if I recall correctly, the Indian middle class and affluent combined are going to be about 200 million people in 2015 - larger than the American middle class) amidst a sea of poverty, like a microcosm of the world at large.

11. I imagine parity with China with regards to its "area denial" weaponry would be important for another reason - our allies there. If it becomes clear that China can inflict undesirable losses on the US Navy in East Asia, I would think that would be a strong signal to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia that they'd better get cracking on their own military strengths again (aka Arms race, what we're trying to prevent).

That was a very excellent read. I think it's a pity, though (or perhaps a blessing in disguise) that you're basically going to be #2 in the Obama foreign policy apparatus, considering how many people and "czars" he's brought in to deal with the Middle East.