The United States needs to determine levels of ally willingness to contribute to strategic regional objectives so it can focus on truly critical interests during the upcoming era of budget austerity, according to the head of a leading Washington think tank.
“We’re really going to have to find out if our allies are willing to do more or not,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA) President Andrew Krepinevich said Tuesday during a presentation at the Air Force Association headquarters in Arlington, Va. Krepinevich discussed his essay published in the November/December 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine: “Strategy in a Time of Austerity: Why the Pentagon Should Focus on Assuring Access.”
Krepinevich said one decision the United States might have to make is if it decides to defend, or not defend, the “first island chain” in the western Pacific (which Krepinevich describes in his essay as from the Kuril Islands northeast of Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines) because it will mobilize regional allies to make hard decisions.
“If we decide not to defend the first island chain, then you have countries like Taiwan, (South) Korea and, especially, Japan, saying ‘Well if you’re not serious about defending at that point, what do we do to protect ourselves,’” Krepinevich said. “There’s got to be that kind of a dialog that says ‘What are our allies going to do’ because that is either going to…enable our ability to do certain things or limit our ability.”
Krepinevich said in his essay the United States should examine if allies like Japan and Australia would be willing to shoulder a greater burden in the region, but so far, he said the two nations have yet to augment their defenses enough to make a significant difference.
Krepinevich said in his essay another area where the United States needs to measure future ally involvement is in Europe. Krepinevich said the United States used to be able to rely on its wealthy and technically-advanced western allies like France, Germany and the United Kingdom, but as those nations were once mighty military powers, their militaries and defense industrial bases have declined over the years. Krepinevich said these allies can be counted on to help preserve a stable international system, but they mostly act as “free riders” on the United States for their security.
Krepinevich’s first main point in his essay is the United States needs to emphasize a strategy of assured access, which is preserving access to key regions like the Persian Gulf, western Europe and western Pacific, and the global commons, which Krepinevich described as the sea, space and cyberspace.
Krepinevich’s second main point is using the assured access strategy to prioritize goals: Reordering goals, selectively taking on risk and exploiting the U.S.’ strengths and its rivals’ weaknesses. Krepinevich argued that the U.S. should get away from the thinking of traditional invasions because that’s not what it really wants. Krepinevich argued the U.S. wants is not conquest, but access.
“The challenges that China and Iran pose for U.S. security lie not in the threat of traditional cross-border invasions but in the efforts to establish spheres of influence in, and ultimately to control access to, critically important regions,” Krepinevich said in Foreign Affairs magazine. “What the Pentagon should set its sights on, therefore, is not optimizing U.S. forces to be able to produce regime changes through counter-invasions but a return to the more modest objective of forward defense: Deterring regional aggression or coercion and protecting the global commons from major disruption.”
To this effect, Krepinevich said in his essay the United States should work with regional allies to create local air- and sea-denial networks that would make aggression difficult, costly and unattractive. Krepinevich said Tokyo should increase its investment in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities such as subs, anti-sub warfare aircraft and antiship cruise missiles since Japan will be the “linchpin” in any U.S. strategy to maintain stability and access in the western Pacific. Krepinevich said this would help reduce both the likelihood of Chinese or North Korean attack and the burden on American forces responsible for defense of the region.
Krepinevich also argued in his essay that the de-emphasis of traditional warfare and a new approach to assured access would allow the Pentagon to save money by reducing the number of necessary ground troops, especially on the Korean Peninsula. Krepinevich said that the greatest U.S. strengths it has compared to its South Korean counterpart is in air and sea power and that the “time has come” for the United States to acknowledge Seoul is fully capable of assuming primary responsibility for its own ground defense on the Korean Peninsula.
Read the essay here: http://fam.ag/TBUKyd