As U.S.

influence in
Asia falters, allies
increasingly look to themselves
Peter Apps is the executive director of PS21 and a veteran reporter. He
tweets @pete_apps
Three years after the Obama administration announced its pivot to Asia,
American allies in the region are looking somewhat unconvinced.
While no one disputes that managing China and its multiple neighborhood
conflicts remains on Washingtons radar, this effort is often overshadowed by
other priorities. In particular, the Middle East and confrontation with Russia
both historic preoccupations that had been expected to subside keep on
emerging at the top of the agenda.
The result is relatively simple. Those countries in Asia most worried by China
Japan, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia and others are
increasingly banding together. They worry they may need to be capable of
taking matters into their own hands regardless of what the United States
might do.
Its a phenomenon that manifests itself in multiple different ways. Japan and
Australia, for example, may collaborate on a new submarine including
sharing highly classified information. In another sign of new regional alliances
forming, India has also invited Japan to take part in its Malabar naval war
games, designed to showcase Indias naval strength in the Indian Ocean.
After Congress blocked President Barack Obamas Trans-Pacific Partnership
trade deal last month, Singapores foreign minister told an audience in
Washington that the United States was losing its levers of power in the
region.
The choice is a very stark one, K. Shanmugam said. Do you want to be
part of the region or do you want to be out of the region?
The deal passed through Congress soon thereafter.
This is not, whatever critics might say, a world without American leadership.
Its more complicated than that and America is still an important player.
Washington remains the dominant naval power in Asia even against the
backdrop of a growing Chinese fleet. And, crucially, it remains without doubt

the single-most important partner for each of its regional allies. Even India,
historically dedicated to a non-aligned position between East and West, has
moved much closer to Washington under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The
Malabar military exercises will also involve the United States.
But it is a world where American leadership is pulled in multiple different
directions. The United States must deter both Russia and China from
attacking its treaty allies and so sparking a major war without
simultaneously antagonizing them so much that conflict becomes more likely.
Much of Washingtons military and diplomatic focus, meanwhile, remains on
the Middle East: the war against Islamic State, the Iran deal and for
Secretary of State John Kerry in particular the Israeli Palestinian peace
process. These distractions are understandable and in many cases
unavoidable although Kerry in particular has a reputation for being not
interested in Asia, which some analysts say has been harmful to relations.
China, in contrast, remains resolutely focused on its immediate
neighborhood.
And at the same time that Americas military dominance is being challenged
by other powers, its own spending is beginning to slip.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, U.S.
defense spending is now 20 percent below its peak in 2010 although still
45 percent above its 2001 levels.
Asian countries, by contrast, have been on a major spending spree in recent
years. Australia grew its defense budget by 6.7 percent in 2014 alone. South
Korea and India saw their spending rise 2.3 and 1.8 percent. In January, Japan
announced its largest defense budget since World War Two.
How closely these countries will coordinate their defenses and how tightly
the United States is wrapped into that system remains to be seen. For
China whose 9.7 percent spending increase last year tops any other
country in Asia the greatest worry is that its potential enemies coalesce
into a formal NATO-style structure, although this seems unlikely for now. More
ad hoc relations, for example, between India and Vietnam or the Philippines
and Japan, are growing by the year.
In Washington, some current and former officials, as well as analysts, worry
that the United States may simply lose its ability to shape events in the
region while still risking being dragged into a conflict if one, or more, of its
allies end up fighting China.
While few believe anyone in Beijing or elsewhere would wish for such a
conflict, China has clearly signaled its intention to boost its clout in its
immediate neighborhood. Chinas various construction projects on disputed
South China Sea islands as well as an increasingly assertive posture by its
naval and air forces in the region will likely continue and intensify.
This trend goes well beyond Chinas immediate neighborhood. From Sri Lanka
to Afghanistan, analysts now talk of a new great game in South Asia as

China jostles against India, in particular.

The Middle East, paradoxically, may provide some indication of how this could
go. For all Washingtons ongoing focus on the region, many of its allies
particularly the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia increasingly question its
commitment there. They, too, are ramping up their defense spending: Saudi
Arabias 17 percent increase last year was the greatest hike worldwide.
As a result, the United States has increasingly struggled to influence and
control its allies in the region. The Saudi-led campaign against Iran-linked
Houthi militia in Yemen, for example, seems out the Wests realm of
influence. The same goes for the multiple regional powers backing different
groups in Libya.
Asias confrontations will, for now, almost certainly remain bloodless and
largely contained offshore and to the economic, business and cyberspace
spheres.
But whatever Washington does, its grasp on the region like so many others
is slowly faltering. It may or may not be an Asian century but in Asia at
least, it will be regional powers that increasingly call the shots.
This piece originally appeared on Reuters.com on July 31, 2015.
PS21 is a non-national, non-governmental, non-ideological organization. All
views expressed are the authors own.