The Indo-Pacific and Strategic Rebalancing
Today, Vice President Biden is giving an address on India’s significance to the future of strategic rebalancing to Asia ahead of his trip to the Middle East, India and Singapore. As Biden draws attention to U.S.-Indian trade and economic ties, as well as India’s growing regional security role, experts urge that U.S. strategy think in “Indo-Pacific” in addition to the “Asia-Pacific” terms as U.S. interests in India, India’s role in the region and East Asia’s interdependence with India all expand. With the Indian Ocean now the world’s biggest trade corridor, sustaining strategic rebalancing will increasingly depend upon U.S. relations with India.
For strategic reasons, think beyond Asia-Pacific to “Indo-Pacific” Rory Medcalf of Australia’s Lowy Institute and non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution explains: “Indo-Pacific Asia, or the Indo-Pacific for short, is a more credible and contemporary name than the Asia-Pacific or some more narrow East Asian or Western Pacific formulation…it is an emerging Asian strategic system that encompasses both the Pacific and Indian Oceans, defined in part by the geographically expanding interests and reach of China and India, and the continued strategic role and presence of the United States in both…the realities of growing Indo-Pacific interconnectedness” also suggest the need to think in terms of the Indo-Pacific, “including the fact that the Indian Ocean is now the world’s busiest trade corridor, carrying two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments and a third of its bulk cargo, mostly to or from East Asia. These linkages are undeniable and at the level of analysis the term Indo-Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia is simply a plain way of describing them.” [Rory Medcalf, 12/4/12]
India is crucial to U.S. global interests and strategic rebalancing in the region:
India’s importance to regional security: During 2001-2011, India’s military spending increased “roughly 64% to U.S. $36.3 billion,” according to CSIS. As Indian military power grows, so its impact on regional security in ways critical to U.S. interests. Ely Ratner and Alexander Sullivan of CNAS highlight India’s growing ability to challenge China militarily, which provides strategic benefits but stability worries for Washington: “The night before Beijing released its biennial defense white paper…roughly 30 Chinese troops marched 12 miles into Indian-controlled territory. For at least the last five years, the Chinese military has routinely made forays across the disputed 2,400-mile-long Line of Actual Control that divides the two countries. The Indian government counted 400 similar incursions last year, and already 100 in 2013…While China’s motivations remain unclear, the potential implications are massive…more intense strategic competition between India and China would reverberate throughout the continent, exacerbating tensions in Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Southeast Asia.” [CSIS, 3/29/11. Ely Ratner and Alexander Sullivan, 5/5/13]
No relief for Indian-Chinese border tensions appears likely as Dehli is forming a Mountain Corps force of 50,000 soldiers to protect its border with China. Both sides are also increasing their airpower along disputed areas.
U.S.-Indian economic ties: The U.S.-India trade relationship is robust, valued at $86 billion per year with a positive outlook for the future of economic ties: this week, “India has further opened its economy to foreign direct investment in the latest attempt by reformers in the government of Manmohan Singh to boost sluggish economic growth and strengthen the ailing rupee…” [Financial Times, 7/16/13]
India’s Commerce and Industry Secretary, Anand Sharma, has also signaled a willingness to negotiate a bilateral investment treaty with bilateral investment between the United States and India totaling over $30 billion annually.
Afghanistan: Caroline Wadhams of the Center for American Progress and C. Raja Mohan of Carnegie explain: “While shared objectives provide a foundation for U.S.-India collaboration in Afghanistan, deeper cooperation is not inevitable… While India is more agreeable now to the overall goal of a negotiated settlement, policymakers in New Delhi say that they are more suspicious than their Washington counterparts of the Taliban and other militants. As a result the path forward for both countries will be in finding common ground on the course and substance of future efforts to negotiate a political settlement in Afghanistan. Both the United States and India similarly believe that Afghan stability requires Pakistani support and that accommodation of Pakistan’s legitimate security interests will be necessary. The challenge for the United States and India is to determine a mutually acceptable understanding of Pakistan’s ‘legitimate’ interests.” [C. Raja Mohan, Caroline Wadhams, et al, 6/4/13]
Strategic rebalancing is affordable and sustainable. While Vice President Biden’s expected emphasis on business ties with India and recent progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership highlight the strong economic aspects of strategic rebalancing, the costs of the policy are primarily reflected in its military initiatives. The military dimension of strategic rebalancing has thus far represented only “modest” financial investment, according to Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. O’Hanlon calculates the costs of the changes to U.S. military posture as part of strategic rebalancing, including deployments of U.S. Marines to Australia, stationing Littoral Combat Ships in Singapore, plans to allocate 60 percent of the Navy to the Pacific rather than the 50 percent allocated today, additional missile defenses and forward stationing additional attack submarines to Guam. He concludes: “The bottom line is this: In round numbers, the rebalancing may be in the process of swinging $10 billion to $12 billion or a bit more in annual Pentagon expenditures to the Asia-Pacific region” away from other regions. [Michael O’Hanlon, 6/9/13]
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The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has convened a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah amid mounting speculation about an imminent breakthrough in U.S. efforts to persuade both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to return to the negotiating table.
Two of China’s top newspapers accused Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of dangerous politics that could threaten regional security, as Tokyo warned Beijing not to expand gas exploration in disputed waters of the East China Sea.
The American consul general had some pointed words for Hong Kong and the Chinese authorities, saying that their decision to let the former United States intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden flee to Moscow last month had “damaged the very high level of trust” between Hong Kong and the United States, and that repairing the relationship would take time.
The United States participated in talks with Cuba about easing travel restrictions despite the seizure of a North Korean ship with a hidden cargo of weapons from the island.
Argentine Jewish leaders are harshly criticizing their government on the 19th anniversary of the nation’s worst terrorist attack.
Commentary of the Day
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