[Dr Subhash Kapila]

Introductory Observations

East Asia today has fast emerged as the main theatre of the next round of United States confrontation with a military adversary. The Korean Peninsula is the most explosive global flashpoint today arising from North Korea’s military adventurism, North Korea as a rogue state with nuclear weapons like Pakistan, and with turmoil waiting in the wings, arising from economic collapse of North Korea and the leadership succession tussle.

North Korea on its own can be easily neutralized by the United States and South Korea but then North Korea is aided and prodded in its strategically wayward disruptive activities by its patron, China. 

East Asia is a global flashpoint therefore because of China’s lack of imposing of restraint on its strategic proxy state of North Korea. North Korea would not have been the regional menace today had it not been for equipping it with long range ballistic missiles arsenal and nuclear weapons by China. This was a deliberate strategic move by China.

China has not played the role of a “responsible stake-holder” in East Asian security as evident from its marked proclivity to continue using North Korea as a “strategic pressure point” against the United States primarily, and against Japan and South Korea to wean them away from the US-orbit. It is for this reason that no headway has been achieved in the Six Party Talks for de-nuclearization of North Korea and now pre-empting the United States from any strong actions against North Korea over the ‘Cheonan’ ship sinking provocation.

East Asia security and the United States crafted security architecture in East Asia today stands endangered by United States seemingly strategic timidity in the present decade of the twenty-first century. It arises from myopic and blurred readings of China by the US policy establishment.

The United States current strategic timidity arises from multiple factors which form the basis of discussion of this Paper. What does need to be noted initially is that if this United States trend persists then the United States risks losing its specific strategic predominance in East Asia and the Pacific Theatre, both critically important for the homeland security of the United States.

Contextually, this Paper would like to examine the following related topics and issues

  • The ‘Cheonan’ Ship Sinking Provocation by North Korea: A Strategic Wakeup Call for the United States

  • United States Strategic Appeasement of China: The Bane of United States Strategic Formulations

  • United States “China Hedging Strategy” Generates Strategic Ambiguities Which Unsettle South Korea and Japan 

The ‘Cheonan’ Ship Sinking Provocation by North Korea: A Strategic Wakeup Call for the United States

The unprovoked sinking of the South Korean Navy ship ‘Cheonan’ by torpedoes fired by a North Korean submarine in the East China Sea waters two months back should be construed as a strategic wakeup call by the United States in relation to the Korean Peninsula and East Asia security.

Here was a naked military act of aggression by North Korea which should have merited a strong military response from the United States, both as the predominant power in the region and as a military power committed to the security of its ally, South Korea.

United States responses were to say disappointingly timid in the wake of this military provocation, as the following would suggest:

  • United States indulged in strong rhetoric which was not backed by any muscular action in terms of ordering at least two aircraft carrier groups of the US Navy off both the coasts of North Korea.

  • United States could not bring about a severe political condemnation in the UN Security Council which came out with a tepid resolution avoiding naming North Korea by name under Chinese pressure.

  • United States ordered large scale joint US-South Korean naval exercises in the East China Sea only after about two months.

  • United States in an act of strategic timidity in the face of Chinese protests then agreed to shift the locale of their joint naval exercises from the East China Sea towards the southern tip 

The senior US Navy Commander of the joint exercises declared that these exercises were intended to “show our resolve” in meeting such provocations. This assertion prompted this Author to state in a radio interview for an Australian broadcast that what was required of the United States was not to “show US resolve” but “demonstrate visibly US resolve” to deal with provocations by rogue nations irrespective of how powerful their patrons may be.

The United States came out poorly overall from this incident with dangers of a strategic diminishment of its image and standing in a region where ‘symbolism’ is valued highly.

United States Strategic Appeasement of China: The Bane of United States Strategic Formulations.

At the heart of United States strategic woes whether in East Asia or Afghanistan is the marked deficit in the US policy establishment of correctly reading the strategic challenges that confront the United States, and all of them designed to put the United States on a glide-path towards strategic decline.

North Korea is symptomatic of that process and the originator and architect of North Korea’s military adventurism is China in inverted commas. China makes proxy use of North Korea to act as the ‘regional destabilizer’ by terrorizing United States pivotal military allies like Japan and South Korea.

In allowing such a security environment to prevail in East Asia unchecked or unchallenged, the United States seems to be shirking to take on China head-on. The Chinese have always displayed a marked propensity to challenge the United States with military brinkmanship, testing and fraying US military nerves and in a creeping manner diminishing the United States, strategically .

United States rather than responding in a manner befitting a nation with unbridled and unquestionable strategic and military superiority, resorts to strategic appeasement of China. This only emboldens China towards further military brinkmanship towards the United States

Surely, the United States strategic policy establishment would have war-gamed all the worst case military scenarios likely to be generated by China and North Korea against the United States. The United States would have surely also drawn up military contingency plans to deal with such situations.

Somewhere, the United States political policy establishment goes wrong in not providing policy advisories to the US President which suggests that China responds only in face of determined and strong resolve by the United States.

Remember the Clinton years when to check escalation of tension and military provocations by China against Taiwan, President Clinton dispatched two aircraft carrier groups of the US Navy to deploy in the Taiwan Straits off the Chinese mainland. China calmed down thereafter.

The United States strategic formulations are not designed to serve US national security interests in East Asia but more for an obsessive contingency requirement of the United States to use China as a quasi-strategic ally against Russia in a future scenario. And, hence the United States “China Hedging Strategy” in its strategic formulations. 

United States “China Hedging Strategy” Generates Strategic Ambiguities Which Unsettle Japan and South Korea.

Japan and South Korea are the ‘pivots of the US security architecture in East Asia and because China hovers strongly in their threat perceptions they have been steadfast US military allies for the last fifty years or so. In the last fifty years both these nations have not wavered in their commitments to their respective Mutual Security Pacts with the United States and have financially underwritten US forward military deployments in their territories.

Both Japan and South Korea have their strategic plans tailored to support any contingencies that may arise in the region from a US military confrontation with China. There have been no strategic ambiguities from these two nations in their commitments to US security demands.

Regrettably and contrastingly, it is the United States at different times in the last fifty years, which has displayed strategic ambiguities arising from its policy approaches towards China. At the global level power politics the United States tends to view China as a possible ally against a resurgent Russia and indulges in China appeasement policies. At the East Asian level the United States would like Japan and South Korea to believe that China is the main strategic and military threat to the region and military postures crafted accordingly.

The United States “China Hedging Strategy” which is the off-spring of the above generates strategic ambiguities in both Japan and Korea and legitimately raises doubts of the United States security guarantees and the provision of the US nuclear umbrella” to both these US military allies. 

Such strategic ambiguities of the United States generated by its “China Hedging Strategy” could prompt the following responses in Japan and South Korea.

  • Intense nationalism in both countries leading both Japan and South Korea to call for withdrawal of US forward military presence from their territories.

  • Revise their defense policies and postures to aim at more self-reliant defense capabilities.

  • Build-up of nuclear weapons and long range missiles arsenals by Japan and South Korea.

  • Both nations may be tempted to arrive at their own strategic and political equations with China, independent of United States strategic imperatives. 

Surely, the United States would not like to face such eventualities in the interests of its vital national security interests in East Asia and the Pacific Theatre.

The United States “China Hedging Strategy” and its consequent appeasement of China has in the last two years led to the fading away of the USA-Japan India Trilateral and the USA-Japan-Australia-India Quadrilateral, both of which had sent strong strategic messages to China.

Concluding Observations

The United States has strategically lost the Middle East despite the on-going Muslim appeasement policies of the United States. The United States has virtually lost South Asia strategically because of its Pakistan appeasement policies. In both these cases the United States appeasement policies crafted by its policy establishment were read as signs of US strategic weaknesses and US overall decline

South East Asia neglected by US strategic distractions in Iraq and Afghanistan veered of to the Chinese orbit of influence

The United States can therefore ill-afford to let go East Asia from its strategic grasp because unlike the other regions stated above, East Asia is the forward defense perimeter of the United States Homeland. The strategic imperatives of the United States to maintain a credible defense posture in East Asia is that much more.

Nothing threatens the United States traditional strategic predominance in East Asia and the Pacific Theatre than China’s rising propensity to resort to brinkmanship in the region against the United States. North Korea is China’s cats-paw in the region

In East Asia where symbolism counts overwhelmingly, the United States cannot afford to be perceived as a declining power resorting to China appeasement policies and seeking timid refuge in a “China Hedging Strategy”

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst.  He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group.  Email: drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)

Comments from Readers:
1.    Just want to say that I admire very much your strategic analysis of the US "China-Hedging Strategy" and its deleterious effect in both East and South Asia. My question is, are you getting this message across at any level in the US establishment? Since I see things very clearly in line with your thinking, I am also frustrated at my government’s self-defeating behavior.   Let me hasten to add that, as a professor of religious studies, I have very little access myself. For example, I know Dick Holbrooke socially, but he never listens to me about the catastrophe of his joining in the wishful thinking parade about the Pakistan menace, though hopefully by now some sort of reality is sinking in.    So this note is mainly a congratulation and a request to make your voice even more heard.
                                                                                               ——- Tenzin Bob Thurman