Deter And Assure: Charting A Course For America's Asian Alliances In A New Nuclear Age

From AEI:

Deter and Assure: Charting a Course for America’s Asian Alliances in a New Nuclear Age By Tim Sullivan

CDS Working Paper

(November 16, 2010)









As home to a number of the world's most dynamic economies, two rising powers, and six nuclear states, Asia is a region of enormous strategic importance to the United States. For over six decades, America has functioned as the preeminent power in Asia, playing a vital role in providing security and ensuring a stable balance of power that has allowed the region's states to flourish politically and economically. The U.S. security framework in the region has rested historically upon a series of bilateral alliances and strategic partnerships. The arrangement has impressively stood the test of time despite concerns that the lack of an overarching, multilateral security architecture would lead to inefficiencies in the United States' pursuit of regional stability.



What has allowed the existing arrangement to be so effective? Undoubtedly it has been the United States' preponderance of military power, the ultimate manifestation of which is its nuclear weapons capabilities. An essential element in the durability of the United States' key Asian alliances--with Japan, South Korea, and Australia--has been the U.S. commitment to provide extended nuclear deterrence. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to suggest the United States' nuclear assurance to its Asian allies is the sine qua non of the alliances themselves. Any dramatic revision of the United States' current deterrence policy or posture would likely result in steps on the part of U.S. allies to pursue comparable security guarantees through a variety of other mechanisms (regional diplomatic realignments, for example, or the pursuit of indigenous nuclear deterrents) that would seriously undermine, if not render strategically null, their relationship with the United States.



The United States' alliances and security partnerships in Asia are now, however, entering a period of unprecedented challenge and uncertainty. The rise of China, with its accumulation of substantial wealth and military power--as well as its pursuit of defense strategies intended to limit American military access to and presence in the region--has naturally raised questions about the United States' future role in Asia. Despite a growing recognition within American defense policy circles of the inadequacy of America's force structure in the Asia-Pacific, the increasing likelihood of reduced defense budgets and the cancellation of U.S. defense programs optimized for East Asian operating environments cast doubt on the United States' long-term reliability as a security partner in the region. Finally, as the United States has prosecuted two wars in the greater Middle East, its allies have been reminded that America's security commitments are managed on a global scale, and that its strategic attention and resources are therefore focused at times more intently on regions apart from the Asia-Pacific.



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Tim Sullivan is a Research Fellow at AEI and Program Manager of the AEI Center for Defense Studies.