What we support and defend

[Bob's World]

military presence is military action. Particularly in times of peace such as our nation enjoys now.

Specific action?

Less presence and less bases on the far side of the Pacific, not more.

Renegotiate all of the defense treaties of the region to reflect the world as it exists today, but with a general trend of the US taking a much smaller direct role in the security events of the region, and China taking a larger role. With the US serving more as a distant reserve and counter-balance to prevent China from abusing the sovereignty of her neighbors.

Delegate. We want to be the "global leader" according to our NSS, well it is time for a more sophisticated form of leadership. Currently we abuse the sovereignty of China to accomplish that same task through containment strategy, Empowerment strategy recognizes China's status as the most powerful nation in East Asia, and India in South Asia and reinforces their sovereignty as it supports their lead in the regions of their issue. We also abuse the sovereignty of several nations in our efforts to contain AQ in the FATA and to defeat, disrupt, deny them in many nations elsewhere. A definition of global leadership that means US direct action on US terms for US interests regardless of the impact on the countries and populaces it impacts, that is no type of leadership we really want our "USA" brand applied to, IMO. It is time for the US government to learn delegated leadership.

Lead a major reorg of the UN to make it in fact what it is supposed to be in principle. Rebalance what and how countries have a voice to make it more equitable and better tuned to the post Cold War world. Consider regional groupings with regional leadership that have primary responsibility for security and disaster and economic relief in their respective regions. Couple this with a logical plan to keep such regional bodies within certain limits, and to reinforce them as necessary for larger events.

BLUF is we need to reassess the entire kit bag of programs, organizations, treaties, etc, etc, etc, designed by the West to contain the East, and convert them to things designed by the entire world for the entire world. The US may lose some control, but we will gain a whole lot of leadership and influence.

This is not retrenchment or isolationist at all. This is just being a smart leader for others without overstepping important boundaries that we demand for ourself, but too often ignore for others. Somethings will happen that we won't like or approve of. But when did anyone annoint the US as having to hit the "like" button on every action, or give other nations our approval to act??

[Dayuhan]

military presence is military action. Particularly in times of peace such as our nation enjoys now.

Specific action?

Less presence and less bases on the far side of the Pacific, not more.

Renegotiate all of the defense treaties of the region to reflect the world as it exists today, but with a general trend of the US taking a much smaller direct role in the security events of the region, and China taking a larger role. With the US serving more as a distant reserve and counter-balance to prevent China from abusing the sovereignty of her neighbors.

Delegate. We want to be the "global leader" according to our NSS, well it is time for a more sophisticated form of leadership. Currently we abuse the sovereignty of China to accomplish that same task through containment strategy, Empowerment strategy recognizes China's status as the most powerful nation in East Asia, and India in South Asia and reinforces their sovereignty as it supports their lead in the regions of their issue.

That's a little better, but still far from specific.

How exactly does the US "abuse the sovereignty of China"? The US at present seems to be doing exactly what you say, trying to be a "counter-balance to prevent China from abusing the sovereignty of her neighbors". It doesn't look like it's working. How does one respond if the idea of being a distant counterbalance is clearly ineffective? Move closer? Give up?

Going back to the previous...

We can empower Japan and South Korea to take on greater responsibility for their own defense, rather than primarily expecting them to serve as bases for our own containment.

We can certainly pull forces back from these countries if we decide that it's in our interest to do so. That's not "empowering" anyone to take more responsibility for their own defense, they already have the power to do that if they choose to do it. We'd be forcing a choice, not empowering: two entirely different things.

We can empower China to work with us to ensure the safe sailing of the commercial fleets of the region.

China already has that power; they don't need us to give it to them. In any event the commercial fleets of the region face no significant threat and don't need anyone to ensure safe sailing, except perhaps off Somalia, where the Chinese are already working with us. Can't see how there's any "empowerment" for us to do in that sphere.

We can empower the Philippines to actually work to resolve the disconnect between their government and their many diverse, but equally dissatisfied, populaces.

How do you propose to do that? Please don't think that a US withdrawal from the Philippines would force (oh, sorry, "empower") the Philippine government to "resolve the disconnect between their government and their many diverse, but equally dissatisfied, populaces". That would not happen. If we weren't around the Philippine government would revert to its previous methods and take more of a Sri Lanka-style approach to its various insurgencies, from which they've temporarily stepped back because going all touchy-feely pop centric is seen as the way into the US pocketbook. I suppose it could be said that we'd be empowering them to do that, but I'm not sure any of the dissatisfied populaces would thank us for it.

[Bill Moore]

This was one method attempted, I'm not sure it worked as planned, but our presence in East Asia probably prevented some states from falling to communism, but again we'll never know. It is like deterence, our forward presence may have deterred, or maybe the USSR didn't act for other reasons. Like most things in the world there are multiple factors that influence the behavoir/decisions that states make.

http://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleg...75Chapter2.pdf

One fundamental strategy used by successive US administrations was to attempt to create model states in Asia, to show that democracy and capitalism would bring economic prosperity, freedom and happiness. The USA felt that their political system was the best in the world, and that no country would choose communism when they saw the benefits democracy had brought to these model states. They began with their own ex-colony of the
Philippines. This artificial imposition of western culture onto another country is an example of cultural imperialism.

President Truman used Filipino independence as a means of ensuring US dominance in the PaciŸfic and so strengthening the Pacific Rim Defensive Perimeter Strategy. However, he resisted any suggestion that the USA was in
fact treating it as a colony, in case this provoked a revival of European imperialism. Instead, he emphasised two features of the newly-independent state:
1. Its measures to prevent European dominance of its markets and materials
2. Its democratic values of freedom and liberty. It was intended to be a shining example of capitalist prosperity and democracy to encourage other states in the area to resist the spread of communism.

Break, Bob, our war nor our containment policy was directed at China:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/dat...y.cfm?HHID=488

In mid-October, the first of 300,000 Chinese soldiers slipped into North Korea. When U.S. forces began what they expected to be their final assault in late November, they ran into the Chinese army. There was a danger that the U.S. Army might be overrun. The Chinese intervention ended any hope of reunifying Korea by force of arms.

General MacArthur called for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to unleash American air and naval power against China. But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Omar Bradley, said a clash with China would be "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy."

Emphasis is mine.

[Bob's World]

Bill - Containment and war are two different things. We absolutely worked every bit as hard to contain China as Russia; which has nothing to do with Mac being told not to go to war with China over Korea. His mission was to contain, he wanted to do more and got fired.

Dayuhan, you apply, intentionally I believe far too narrow a definition on "empower." To empower does not mean that one was powerless previously, just that they felt no need to do what they already know they should be doing. Like a 24 year old son still living with his parents. He knows he should be paying for his own place, cooking his own food, and doing his own laundry, but he is enabled to take the easy way out. Is it "abandonment" of such a son to tell them it is time to move out and get a job? No, to do so is to empower them to stand up and be a man. To continue the status quo is to enable behavior that isn't good for anyone in the long run. This is where we are with many of our Pacific Allies.

We are like a mother who is afraid to let them go, and they are happy to allow us to keep subsidizing a comfortable status quo. It is time for everyone to move on. We do not abandon allies when we do this, we empower them. Same when we share regional power duties with China. We do not give up power to them when we do this, we actually make our situation stronger, as we share onerous duties that profit everyone, and at the same time take away much of the rationale China employs currently to justify much the current military buildup that we in turn build up to match. End the arms race, it serves no (good) purpose. Sure it strengthens Chinese politicians position as they stand up to this affront, sure it keeps US defense contractors churning on tactical fighters and "A2/AD" systems that we really don't need. Those are purposes, but they are not good purposes, and they make our nation weaker, not stronger.

[Bill Moore]

Containment and war are two different things. We absolutely worked every bit as hard to contain China as Russia; which has nothing to do with Mac being told not to go to war with China over Korea. His mission was to contain, he wanted to do more and got fired.

The containment policy was directed at the USSR, we tried to pull China into our sphere to help contain the USSR. The USSR did aggressively expand (using force), and continued to do so, so our containment policy was appropriate. Where exactly did China try to expand to that we needed to contain it? China is expanding its influence far beyond its borders now, and an argument could be made that China is trying to contain us.

War and containment may be different, or it war may be a sequential step to implement containment, the point of the quote was that U.S. leaders didn't view China as an enemy. China's actions in North Korea and North Vietnam were in response to U.S. actions, they were not expanding in those situations.

Red China was immoral, it murdered millions of its own citizens, it was bankrupt, there is nothing good to say about it, but I can't find any evidence that were containing it, and the only reason is it wasn't expanding.

[Bob's World]

The containment policy was directed at the USSR, we tried to pull China into our sphere to help contain the USSR. The USSR did aggressively expand (using force), and continued to do so, so our containment policy was appropriate. Where exactly did China try to expand to that we needed to contain it? China is expanding its influence far beyond its borders now, and an argument could be made that China is trying to contain us.

War and containment may be different, or it war may be a sequential step to implement containment, the point of the quote was that U.S. leaders didn't view China as an enemy. China's actions in North Korea and North Vietnam were in response to U.S. actions, they were not expanding in those situations.

Red China was immoral, it murdered millions of its own citizens, it was bankrupt, there is nothing good to say about it, but I can't find any evidence that were containing it, and the only reason is it wasn't expanding.

Bill,

I'm not sure what to say to a post that is so disconnected from the post-WWII history of US foreign policy and strategy in the Pacific. You have been working most of your adult life to support the US policy of containment in the Pacific.

Yes, we very much saw China, and Russia as well, as two of our strongest allies coming out of WWII and President Roosevelt imagined a world where they would work with the US and Great Britain as "Four Policemen" to replace the failed League of Nations and provide a united force for security around the globe. In a way his vision came true, only it broke up into first three teams as the events of 1947 made clear that the Soviets were on their own agenda, then two in 1949 with Maoist China prevailed over the Nationalists and made it very clear that they saw America just as they saw all other Western Colonial powers and were very much not interested in the type of alliance that we offered them. The Cold War was on in full strength, and this before the first Russian tank manned by North Koreans rolled across the line we had drawn through the heart of that country.

The "domino theory" was not an abstract, it was specifically about the nations of SEA, and the great debate was if we should draw the line of containment on the Chinese border and include them all, or if we should cut our losses and draw that line at Thailand. The decision was to include them all, and drove our support to first the French, and then Diem, et al in Vietnam. It drove our support to the Nationalist Chinese taking refuge on Taiwan. It shaped the nature of our relationships with Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand to name but three.

Us old guys are all born and bred Cold Warriors, so it is natural that we see Cold War policy, strategy and relationships as natural. But they are not any more natural than any other policies, strategies and relationships tied to any other particular time and place.

To assume them as a baseline for "normal" is to fall into the age old trap of attempting to sustain the unsustainable.

We live in new times and that calls for new approaches. The President's recently announced new strategy to place more emphasis on the Pacific due to its rising importance to the US economy recognizes this.

But inertia drives us forward from where we already are. And where we already are is based upon three generations of containment in the Pacific. It is hard to break free from that type of inertia. Instead of building new strategy on top of old, we really need to break out the proverbial "clean slate." The world has changed dramatically since the lines on the current slate were drawn, and continues to change at an increasing rate.

This is the essence of what Operational or Strategic Design is supposed to do for us. This is the promise of that school of analysis. To look at problems with fresh eyes and to see them with new understanding. One cannot undertake such an effort with any purity if it draws "no think areas" around certain critical policies, relationships, plans, capabilities, or paradigms.

I don't have the answer for how the US should approach the Pacific, but I do feel strongly that the current solution we seek to apply is far too rooted in in its Cold War history and suffers from an inertia of containment thinking that dooms it to make our situation worse in the Pacific rather than better. This is far bigger than PACOM, and if I were the PACOM commander I would be doing a few things.

1. Continue to prepare to execute the plans and policies with which we are tasked.

2. Stand up an elite, multi-discipline, operational planning team that answers to me directly to conduct a comprehensive strategic design of the entire theater. No sacred cows, everything on the table.

3. Task the Asia-Pacific Center to do the same thing, but with a multi-national and multi-disciple approach that include representatives from every major nation in the region, and as many minor ones as will come.

4. Engage the SecDef and the Chairman of my concerns and what I am doing to get a better grasp on this. Tell them that my belief is that building new strategy on the foundation of old containment strategy is inappropriate to what it is the President is truly asking us to do, and that it may well make us more at risk rather than safer. That we are studying the problem in detail and that I will be coming to them with what may well be bold new concepts that are far beyond my, or their, lane to implement. That we need to see the President now to discuss these concerns and efforts to address them, and that we will want follow-ups as our results begin to materialize.

5. Emphasize that there is much good new in this. That if my instincts are correct we will be able to craft new plans and strategies that could trim hundreds of billions of dollars in current "requirements" from the overall defense programing between now and 2020. But that all of this will require significant increase in diplomacy and parallel revision of policy to replace what has become overtime a predominantly militaristic approach to the region.

Probably more, but off the top of my head that is where I would start. But this is why SF Colonels, particularly ones with eclectic backgrounds such as mine, are not PACOM commanders. We pick Navy Admirals who grew up as commanders of surface fleets, or as fighter pilots. Men with 35 years of containment experience under their belts, who understand what right looks like and how to make it happen.

But is the world is indeed changing as so many claim it is, how could such perspectives so heavily rooted in what it used to be still be the "right" we are looking for or needing for today and tomorrow??

[Bill Moore]

Bob,
As you well know the situation was not as black and white as you make it out to be, and while we all over simplify our comments on blogs to capture our main ideas on short posts, in this case your comments misleading. Your comments inaccurately create the perception that we are still focused on containment, and that is not true.
I simply asked for you to provide some evidence that our containment policy was directed at China, instead you jump up on a soapbox and tap dance all around the question and just claim that it is. You claim we’re practicing containment now, what is your evidence?
Partly I’m playing devil’s advocate, because I also know to varying degrees we did practice a containment policy by trying to prevent China from obtaining a seat in the UN, and in the early 1960s the U.S. considered pre-emptive strikes to prevent China from becoming a nuclear power. We also pushed for economic sanctions, etc. I guess that is a form of containment also, but we didn’t pursue it. We
However, our containment policy clearly directed at the USSR, especially since our containment policy was formed “before” China fell to the communists. When China signed a friendship treaty with the USSR in 1950 they became part of the global communist movement we directed our containment policy at, but in the late 50s China’s relationship with the USSR fell apart. In the 1972 the U.S. and China established a relationship (to help contain the USSR), and that was in the middle of the Cold War. Shifting alliances for enduring interests, which is different than your black and white view that we always pursued containment with the PRC.
I can’t state this as fact, but I believe (and I will research it) the USSR was more active promoting the spread of communism in the Asia-Pacific than China.
You wrote,

“Us old guys are all born and bred Cold Warriors, so it is natural that we see Cold War policy, strategy and relationships as natural. But they are not any more natural than any other policies, strategies and relationships tied to any other particular time and place.”

I think you are blinded by “your” perception, and confuse your perception with the actual views of our leadership. Personally I hear very few old timers that actually promote containment, they transitioned into the post Cold War era in the 1990s, but we haven’t done is clearly articulate our enduring interests. Actually I hear the word containment more from younger officers who are inappropriately trying to template historical solutions as a way forward, since as you correct point out we don’t have another strategy yet (but that doesn’t mean we’re still promoting containment. In response to your recommendations, most of them are spot on, and most of them have already been implemented. We can’t have a real strategy until we have comprehensive policy. Gets back to what are our enduring interests in the region? As you know relationships in this part of the world have been shifting for years (based on enduring interests), so it isn’t as near black and white as you make it out to be.

[Dayuhan]

Dayuhan, you apply, intentionally I believe far too narrow a definition on "empower." To empower does not mean that one was powerless previously, just that they felt no need to do what they already know they should be doing. Like a 24 year old son still living with his parents. He knows he should be paying for his own place, cooking his own food, and doing his own laundry, but he is enabled to take the easy way out. Is it "abandonment" of such a son to tell them it is time to move out and get a job? No, to do so is to empower them to stand up and be a man. To continue the status quo is to enable behavior that isn't good for anyone in the long run. This is where we are with many of our Pacific Allies.

I do tend to define terms narrowly: rigorous definition is needed for precision and for keeping discussion on track.

I don't think any of our Asian allies are even remotely analogous to a 24 year old son living with his parents. For one thing, none of them are economically dependent on us. If we choose to station military forces on their soil we do so for our own reasons, with their consent. If our assessment of our interests changes, certainly we can place those forces anywhere, but again we'd be doing it for our own reasons and I see no point is dragging terms like "empowerment" into the picture.

Same when we share regional power duties with China. We do not give up power to them when we do this, we actually make our situation stronger, as we share onerous duties that profit everyone, and at the same time take away much of the rationale China employs currently to justify much the current military buildup that we in turn build up to match.

What "regional power duties" do you propose to share with China? Neither China nor the US has any duty to defend regional commerce, which is under no real threat, excpt possibly from conflicts involving China and/or the US.

I don't see that either the Chinese or the Americans have any particular interest in "regional power duties": they are pursuing their own strategic objectives. They may try to spin these objectives as duties, but there's no need to buy into that.

[Bob's World]

Well its your right to call your approach "rigorous, " but it comes across more as intentionally obtuse and argumentative with concepts you disagree with. For one, I was clearly talking security, which while necessary for the economic growth that all in the region have enjoyed to some degree, is not the economy directly. You surely do not believe that the US has not subsidized the security environment that allowed that growth?

I guess one could say the US has empowered the economic growth of the region at the same time we enabled many nations to take major shortcuts on security.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Bob's World

Dealing with" and "containing" as a strategy for "dealing with" are two very different things. Certainly we were thinking about how to deal with a rising Japan then, and certainly we need to think about how to deal with a rising China in a post Cold War World now. No arguments.

My point is simply that your assessemnt of the history of Cold War containment runs counter to every serious coverage of the topic that I have ever read (and I have read several); and that our current efforts for the "pivot" build upon a family of plans, programs, postures and policies that were originally put in place to contain the "Sino" aspect of the Soviet-Sino pact. I think we should start fresh with a concept designed for the world we live in today, rather than building upon the remains of one that is long past.

Bob I think we are coming closer to general agreement. My point was our containment policy was formed before China fell to the communists, in fact the whole of issue of "allowing" China to fall to the communists led to extreme political views within our system and created an environment where political leaders were forced to take a much tougher stand against communist insurgencies even in locations where it didn't make sense because you didn't want your party to be blamed for another failure. Not unlike some of the unreasonable rhetoric associated with our former GWOT.

Second, the Soviet-Sino pact was relatively short lived (no more than two decades), and since the early 70s we formed some sort of relationship with China to keep them out of USSR's sphere of influence. We made deals with the devil back then quite frequently as you know.

Third, I still argue, but remain open to be convinced otherwise, so really I'm arguing to provoke counter-arguments, that our force posture in the Asia-Pacific was "mostly" directed at the Soviets. I found several documents from that era that focused on the Soviet threat in Asia (especially their Navy), very little that focused on China. If you have official historical policy documents, or strategy documents that state otherwise please post them. I'm eager to learn.

[Dayuhan]

Well its your right to call your approach "rigorous, " but it comes across more as intentionally obtuse and argumentative with concepts you disagree with.

And I think you embrace a deliberate vagueness to obscure weaknesses in your arguments that become more evident as the discussion becomes more specific... so I guess we're even .

For one, I was clearly talking security, which while necessary for the economic growth that all in the region have enjoyed to some degree, is not the economy directly. You surely do not believe that the US has not subsidized the security environment that allowed that growth?

I guess one could say the US has empowered the economic growth of the region at the same time we enabled many nations to take major shortcuts on security.

The extent to which economic growth in Asia has actually been "enabled" by a US security presence is infinitely debatable, and would depend largely on the extent to which any real security threat to the growing nations actually existed. Of course it's not possible to know what would have happened if (it never is), but I see no reason to suppose that the economic growth would not have happened if US forces had not been present.

Even if there was a causative relationship, it would be largely accidental. The US did not keep (and does not keep) forces in Asia to enable Asian growth and prosperity, we keep them there to advance our own perceived interests. If we withdraw them it will be because our perception of our interests has changed, not to "empower" anyone other than ourselves.

To go back to the examples cited, I'd still have to say Japan and Korea are well beyond any place where we can reasonably propose to "empower" them, and the "empowerment" proposition as applied to China and the Philippines is tenuous at best.