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In November, we expressed mild skepticism at Secretary Clinton’s pre-APEC speech that explicitly touted the “pivot” to Asia. But since early January, we have been thinking hard about the Defense Strategic Guidance released in January entitled Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense. Panetta's speech at the rollout provides a good overview but this is a document that anyone interested in US Asia policy should read (pdf here). Jeff Bader’s important Obama and China’s Rise—on which we comment tomorrow—as well as a recently-released Congressional Research Service report by a team under Mark Manyin have also suggested a rethink; there is indeed a “there there.”
The Defense Strategic Guidance is itself pivotal not because it spells out a new grand strategy, but because it reflects a complex set of constraints that confront US defense and foreign policy over the medium-term. These constraints transcend the partisan divisions that may arise on defense in an election year and as the budget battles are joined in earnest.
Two longer-term factors drove the review and its conclusions, which falls between two Quadrennial Defense Reviews (2010 and 2014). The first is the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly hastened in the latter case by the recent string of setbacks there. The second factor is a constrained budget, reined in not only by the sequestration cuts associated with the Budget Control Act of 2011 but by the looming imperative of a longer-run fiscal consolidation.
Given these constraints, the US need to adjust its grand strategy in several crucial ways. Perhaps the headline finding of the Strategic Guidance was its abandonment of the objective of being able to fight and win two major wars. That goal is adjusted to prevailing in one while “denying the objectives of–or imposing unacceptable costs on–an opportunistic aggressor in a second region.”
But the main rebalancing in grand strategy is effectively geographical: away from Europe and costly ground wars in venues of dubious strategic significance and a refocus on real estate that matters, namely in Asia:
“U.S. economic and security interests are inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia, creating a mix of evolving challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, while the U.S. military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region” (emphasis in the original).
As an offshore power in the Western Pacific, the US strategy for doing this is in some way no different than it has always been, relying on both alliances and the capacity to project force. However, both of those instruments get subtle but important tweaks in the Defense Guidance.
Unlike in Europe, where the US developed a multilateral alliance structure in NATO, the US will continue to foster its network of bilateral security alliances in Asia; not surprisingly our relationship with South Korea comes in for specific mention. But there is a crucial addition:
“The United States is also investing in a long-term strategic partnership with India to support its ability to serve as a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region.”
With respect to the projection of power, the US and defense establishment is now much more concerned with China, with major implications for the configuration of forces. A crucial section of the strategic guidance is a bullet under the section of the report called Primary Missions of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is worth reproducing here in full:
“Project Power Despite Anti-Access/Area Denial Challenges. In order to credibly deter potential adversaries and to prevent them from achieving their objectives, the United States must maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged. In these areas, sophisticated adversaries will use asymmetric capabilities, to include electronic and cyber warfare, ballistic and cruise missiles, advanced air defenses, mining, and other methods, to complicate our operational calculus. States such as China and Iran will continue to pursue asymmetric means to counter our power projection capabilities, while the proliferation of sophisticated weapons and technology will extend to non-state actors as well. Accordingly, the U.S. military will invest as required to ensure its ability to operate effectively in anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) environments. This will include implementing the Joint Operational Access Concept, sustaining our undersea capabilities, developing a new stealth bomber, improving missile defenses, and continuing efforts to enhance the resiliency and effectiveness of critical space-based capabilities (emphasis in original).”
In this short paragraph lies a lot of the strategic meat. First, outside of the Korean peninsula—and even there to some extent—the new strategic focus means a tilt in forces away from the Army and Marines toward the Navy and Air Force, and particularly toward the Air-Sea Battle concept. In an important piece in the The American Interest, the two service chiefs—General Norton A. Schwartz and Admiral Jonathan Greenert—lay out the concept. (For more background, see the Joint Operational Area Concept released shortly after the Strategic Guidance).
Second, the new strategy has politically-charged implications for procurement; sadly, the battles over it are likely to be fought on these terms. Long-range bombers, carriers, attack submarines and cruise missiles, and electronic warfare and cybersecurity are all maintained or see gains in expenditures; ground forces, personnel costs more generally, older ships and planes and perhaps even the joint strike fighter will get much closer scrutiny and see cuts.
We will be exploring the implications of the new strategy for the US-ROK alliance in subsequent posts, but a new edited book by Scott Snyder at the Council on Foreign Relations provides a timely basis for that discussion. Some of the work to reconfigure the alliance was done in the difficult negotiations between the Rumsfeld Pentagon and the Roh Moo Hyun administration; you can imagine what those discussions were like. With the 2009 Joint Vision Statement, relations are back on track.
The Snyder book covers the full spectrum of issues on which cooperation has grown, from counterterrorism to development assistance. But one chapter of particular interest in this context is Michael McDevitt’s look at the modernization of the ROK navy and the maritime relationship, long overshadowed by the dominance of the ground forces. With the provocations around the Northern Limit Line, the air-sea battle concept may already be getting a workout in South Korea’s Defense Reform Plan 307, planning for which was in train when the provocations of 2010 occurred. A talk by RAND’s Bruce Bennett at the Asan Institute provides an introduction (video and pdf here).
Tomorrow, a look at Jeff Bader’s Obama and China’s Rise.
